Thursday, July 24, 2008

Inside the brain of a Fox employee

Via Think Progress

On today’s Brian and the Judge radio show, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade twice confused Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Osama bin Laden — within five seconds. Even after catching himself, Kilmeade immediately makes the mistake again:

KILMEADE: Michael, first off, is Bin Laden — excuse me, uh, is Osama — uh, is Barack Obama right when he says the central location of the war on terror is in Afghanistan?
It's fairly easy to see how Kilmeade made this mistake. B Obama and Osama B sound sort of the same so when one is thought about networks of association in the brain activate the other. Then you have the Afghanistan part which also activates brain association with Bin Laden.

Factor in the world of propaganda Kilmeade resides in, where Bin Laden is described as a Democrat, and Obama as a terrorist fist jabber and this further level of association gets you to the point where you make this sort of tongue slip which reveals Kilmeade's difficulty with not associating Barack Obama with Osama Bin Laden.

Which is another reason why I don't think that New Yorker cover is going to help Obama. I expect that it will reinforce these sorts of networks of association rather than counter them.

Update: For more on networks of activation, see the video below and then go back and watch chapter 13 of the talk it came from.









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