1:00PM
Plato supposedly said, “Those that tell the stories, rule society.” Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, says that what has made us advance as a human species is our ability to believe in narratives, myths, stories. Advertising and propaganda executives have long known the power of telling stories. When I was at the University of Illinois, I had a media communications professor who said most people forget that one of the largest exports from the USA is Hollywood stories (movies, songs, etc.).
I sat watching the Sunday morning shows with my parents as they talked about politics. I notice that each show has at least one representative from the two political parties, either directly or indirectly. I noticed that one of the interviewees used to be a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
I’ve noticed that many people who used to belong to the Trump administration, either through formal employment or strong association, no longer work in the government and are appearing on many media channels. Former campaign managers are regular commentators, senior advisors and press secretaries now have their own TV shows and podcasts, and others.
I know that this happens for many people who formerly worked in the government: there is almost a revolving door dynamic between the government and media appearances in some ways. I guess this one just feels more calculated, more strategic to me. I guess I just feel more suspicious of it.
I pause and think that maybe they just understand better the power of narrative and how it impacts individuals and voters. At the end of the day, we’re human being, whether we want to admit it or not, and we seem to love stories. We love watching movies, TV shows, reading novels, and the like. We delve into the conflict, the emotions, the swirl of the existence—sometimes the more dramatic the better.
Ted Kopek[1] gave a report this morning talking about how the U.S. presidents over the years have utilized different communication technologies as they’ve emerged. FDR mastered the radio. Eisenhower started with television. JFK did the television debates. Reagan was a Hollywood actor. It seems Trump has leveraged Twitter and maybe also the 24-hour news cycle of interviews.
I wonder what is next. What is the communication technology that our next leader will master? Podcasts? YouTube?
Stories matter and how we tell those stories changes over time. So the medium matters, too.
1:10PM
[1] Koppel