Distraction
I once had a magician remove my watch from my wrist without my knowing it. He was able to do this by distracting me in various ways, including engaging me in conservation and invading my personal space. Many other magic tricks are based on distracting the audience. First there is the overall atmosphere: The lovely (and often scantily clothed) assistant, music, special lighting or other effects, props, a story (I have rediscovered the secrets of ancient Egypt), possibly jokes or other distractions. Then, at the crucial moment the magician will use a distraction like making a grand movement with the left hand while the real action is going on with the right hand.
Not surprisingly, distraction is also one of the favorite tricks of info-pollution. One favorite way is to change the subject. You can, for example, make the person making the argument the subject. If you oppose the argument you can attack the source of the argument (the ad hominem argument), if you support it you can describe the sources many accomplishments (appeal to authority). You can write about a topic that sounds like it is relevant but actually is not (the red herring). You can answer a question with another question, or with a joke. You can provide an answer that is so long and technical that the audience is bored into distraction. In an advertisement, you can use a song, an irrelavent picture or some other mild distraction (Pratkanis and Aronson page 185). Finally, you can use some outside event as a distraction, such as announcing bad news on the day that a major scandal or tragedy is announced. You can even, according to some people, create your own distracting news story. In the movie Wag the Dog a war is staged to distract the public from the president's sexual indiscretions.
Reference
Anthony R. Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion, Revised Edition, W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001.
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Written by Jim Norton
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