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Persausion Book - TPR's In Focus - Sept. 3, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Rosa Parks Museum on Troy University's
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  Montgomery campus, located on the spot of Mrs. Parks' historic
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  1955 arrest and featuring exhibits that chronicle
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  the history of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. More information
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  at troy.edu/rosaparks.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. The Dark Side of Persuasion
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  is a book that describes our consumer culture and
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  how we get hooked through advertising, social media,
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  and psychology. The author, Dr. Shari Hoppin,
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  associate professor of journalism at Troy University,
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  shares her insights on how we are
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  influenced. Dr. Sherrie Hoppen,
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  welcome back to Troy Public Radio. Thank you, it's a pleasure
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  to be with you. Sherrie, I so admire your book, The Dark
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  Side of Persuasion, about how we
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  are being persuaded to think think, how can we deal with what's been called
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  fake news? Well, one of the things that we can do online,
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  which is where we see quite a bit of fake news, is what's called lateral
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  reading. And that's where you leave
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  that story, open up another tab in your browser,
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  and check with other sites to see if they're verifying
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  the information. And you should make sure that they're not just reposting
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  that same story that you've seen, that there's independent reporting
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  verifying the information. And another thing to keep
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  in mind when you're seeing information that you're questioning is to
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  pause before you share. Fake news is often designed
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  to make us feel very strong emotions.
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  That's actually when we should pause and verify that information
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  before we share it and compound the problem, and then we're
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  part of the problem of spreading fake news. How would you approach
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  opinion pieces? In an opinion piece, in an op-ed,
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  for example, often you'll get a mix of things. You'll get some
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  sort of general claim that the writer is making, but that should
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  be backed up with facts. So if you're saying something
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  about the economy or healthcare,
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  then we should be able to go and check and see what
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  are the financial or economic statistics,
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  what do medical researchers have to say to
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  verify facts that the writer is stating
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  and drawing attention to in that piece. For a lot
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  of the things that we see online, you could just check with other
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  reliable sources. Are there other independent sources that
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  are also making the same claim? So instead of reading more and
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  more down into the story, open another tab and
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  see if other sources verify the information.
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  And we know that social media tends to make our attention
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  spans shorter and shorter, so that would lead to snap judgments.
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  Yes, the people who are posting fake news
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  are hoping for that, are hoping that we'll make snap judgments.
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  While some fake news stories have a political or
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  ideological consideration, a lot of them are posted just
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  out of financial concern. They're posted to draw eyeballs
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  to a certain site. In the book, I mentioned interviews with people
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  who have done this, who are involved in the business of posting fake news,
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  and they talk about this and about how many thousands of dollars they can make
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  a month doing this. They deliberately post things that,
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  again, will provoke a strong emotional response, and they hope
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  that people will just share that and draw more people to their site, draw more
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  people to their post, because they're getting paid just for bringing in eyeballs.
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  You also talk about in the book defending against
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  manipulation by unity or scarcity.
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  What's that about? There are a number of shortcuts that
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  are used to prevent people from thinking critically,
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  thinking analytically about things. And I mentioned cues that
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  trigger an automatic response that have been researched by— and
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  I mentioned a researcher named Cialdini. You know, one of them is social proof,
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  another one is authority, and then the 2 that you have mentioned are scarcity
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  and unity. So when things are scarce, they're usually
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  more valuable. We are automatically triggered when
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  something appears to be scarce to want it more. So when
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  we see things that are available for a limited time,
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  so one-day sales, or when an ad says you must
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  act now, that triggers us to want that
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  thing more. So limited time tactics and also limited number
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  tactics. They've done studies where they've set up supermarkets and had people walk
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  through, and if you have a display of, let's say,
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  soup But if you put up a sign that says limit
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  5 per customer, you've introduced this scarcity element
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  where you're limiting the number they can get. People who may only have been planning
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  to buy 1 or 2 cans, now they will buy 5 because
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  they're responding to this restriction, to this limited
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  number tactic. We see that being used in advertising,
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  in marketing. You go online to buy something and you'll
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  see a little note that says, Only 2 left. I really
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  should get this now. Must buy now. So that's the
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  scarcity tactic. One of the practical things that people are being advised to
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  do is put something on a list. Come back to it in
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  a week, 2 weeks, a month. Do you really need that item?
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  Bidding wars— buyers are advised to decide beforehand how
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  much they are willing to pay. Walk away when
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  the price exceeds that amount because you get drawn into the
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  bidding and the back and forth and there's only this one thing,
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  so that you are telling yourself beforehand, okay, when it exceeds
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  this amount, I'm walking away. So what's
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  your advice about responding to the media? To get information
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  from as many different sources as possible. For example,
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  confirmation bias, the tendency to seek information,
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  to interpret and evaluate and remember information in a
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  way that it supports personal beliefs. It feels good to
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  encounter more information that just supports what we already
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  believe. They've done neuroimaging studies where when people
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  encounter a belief that contradicts views
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  that they already hold, it's associated with pain. It feels painful
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  to encounter contradictory information. But this is how
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  we learn, by being exposed to new information,
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  new ideas. Do you have any advice for
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  parents? We're hearing more and more about limiting
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  exposure, especially for very young children.
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  You know, they're watching a lot of screens, and let's say they're seeing a lot
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  of violence, and content analysis does show that the
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  television world and other media sources do show a lot
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  of violence. Perhaps the children are seeing people getting away with
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  it. Well, here's where a parent,
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  guardian, other caregiver can say, but that's
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  not appropriate. Hitting people is wrong. Just being there
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  countering what the child may be seeing can have
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  a balancing effect. We do observe what's called cultivation,
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  where people start to think that the real world
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  is like the world they see on television or in
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  other media. This has been studied particularly with regard to
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  violence, because the television world is a very violent world,
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  and it's been found that there's a correlation
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  between how much people view violence on
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  television and how mean and dangerous they perceive the world
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  to be. This has been offered as an explanation as to why, for example,
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  someone may just interpret someone walking up their driveway or
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  knocking on their door as a danger.
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  We've seen news stories where someone knocked on the wrong door and was
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  shot. One of the explanations that's been offered is if people are consuming
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  a lot of violent media, they come to perceive the world as disproportionately
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  violent and dangerous, even more than real-life
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  statistics would indicate. With regard to children,
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  what we're hearing is limit their screen time,
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  which the research would indicate is sound advice. But then as
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  they are, you know, exposed more and more to media messages,
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  offer information that helps balance what they may be seeing. Well, you may have
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  seen, you know, in this video game, that this person was violent
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  and was rewarded for it. But in real life,
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  we should not act in this way. Shari, your book
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  is a landmark, and I want to thank you for your visit
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  today and sharing your insights with your listeners.
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  Thank you so much. I know that you studied advertising, so it
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  means a lot to hear that you appreciated what I had to write about the
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  dark side of persuasion. I'm glad you wrote the book. Thank you so
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  much. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. That was Dr. Shari Hoppin,
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  Associate Professor of Journalism at Troy University.
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  Her book is The Dark Side of Persuasion.
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  Thanks for joining us for In Focus today. I'm Carolyn
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  Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public
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  Radio.