Pre-emptive Straw-Man Astroturfing?
The L.A. Times did something amusing today -- it printed three of the three dozen letters it received reacting to the vice presidential debate before the first question had been asked. Included among them was one with the subject line "John Edward was amazeing!", that made reference to "ol' Halliburton Dickie" … and which the LAT discovered was actually sent by a registered Republican, "just to see if we were checking."
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Good for him and good for them.
Well hell, if AP can write their stories about the debate before the debate, why shouldn't John Q. do the same thing?
A Republican blog suggested that readers send astroturf letters supporting Edwards performance before the debate. I wouldn't be suprised if most of the Edwards emails were from Republicans.
On Monday the New York Post declared Dick Gephardt to be the winner of Tuesday's VP debate.
I'm slow. What does 'astroturf' mean in this context?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
(Wikipedia is your friend)
Basically it's a fake "grassroots" movement.
I've seen astroturf letters to the editor for a couple of years now. The RNC sends out Team Leader alerts, and the same language from "lifelong Democrats," impressed by President Bush's determination in combatting evildoers, shows up in letters all over the country the next week.
It's good to see somebody doing something about it. I hope they published the authors' names and towns.
Thank god for the all-knowing, all-seeing joe.
Let's not forget my virgin mother, Doug.
There is really nothing nefarious about this. I'm reminded of the physicist who fabricated some ridiculous environmental story to see which of major science rags would print it. Several did.
It was a useful exercise for everyone involved.
Jason-
I hadn't heard of that one about the physicist fabricating an environmental story. Where did you come across it?
Anybody hear about Alan Sokal, the physicist who wrote a postmodern "deconstruction" of quantum gravity? I read the article a while ago and found it hilarious.
I wonder what the guy in the story above would have done had the LA Times printed his letter without the qualifiers given above. OK, scratch that, I think I already know, and it would have been well-deserved egg on their faces. Instead, I wonder what he would have done if they hadn't printed his letter? Would he have brought attention to the fact that they didn't fall for his trick?
Negative results are just as important as experiments yielding positive results.
Speaking of Sokal: you can read about his hoax here. And the Postmodernism Generator is fun as well.
Ok, let's try this again...
The Postmodernism Generator
The story of Professor Sokal's hoax
Geeze, I'm even clumsy on the web...
Ok, let's try this again...
The Postmodernism Generator
The story of Professor Sokal's hoax
Geeze, I'm even clumsy on the web...
It's interesting reading Sokal's paper and the comments and reactions from both sides; the perspective difference is highlighted quite well.
My favorite part is the irony that Sokal published the other article (his explanation and commentary on his "modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment") not because he had a sound experiment (with, for example, a sample size of more than one) but because "(a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered [his own] ideological preconceptions."
Geeze, I'm even clumsy on the web...
But persistent. We've got to give you that. You're persistent.
thoreau:
I believe I was misremembering (nearly all) of the details of the Sokal hoax. I some how had it in my head that it was related to the environment and that a major science magazine had published it.
Ideologically biased memory 1
Jason 0
Sorry about that.
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