On a four-point scale, from one (strongly disagree) to four (strongly agree), please rate the following statements: “The Apollo moon landings never happened and were staged in a Hollywood film studio”; ”Princess Diana’s death was not an accident but rather an organized assassination by members of the British Royal Family […] Read more »
Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks
Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers, based partly on data (ratings and circulation) and partly on the gut instincts of producers and editors. Wars, […] Read more »
Stalin, Mother Teresa, and Rob Portman: What do they have in common?
Rob Portman, Republican senator from Ohio and one-time contender for Romney’s would-be VP slot, announced on Friday that he has reversed his very public stance against gay marriage. … According to Portman, it can all be credited to his son, Will — an openly gay 21-year-old man who came out […] Read more »
Sure, I Remember That
Our latest Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace podcast is called “Sure, I Remember That.” … It’s about false memory, particularly in the political realm, and how we are more capable of “remembering” an event that never happened if the event happens to synch up with our political ideology. The piece is […] Read more »
New Research Shows ‘Death Panel’ Myth Hard to Correct
More than three years after she coined the phrase “death panel,” Sarah Palin’s remark continues to inflame the debate over health care. Her claim was that President Obama’s plan would allow bureaucrats to determine whether seniors are “worthy of health care.” Three researchers — Peter Ubel of Duke University’s Fuqua […] Read more »
Crowds Are Not People, My Friend
… We’ve long believed that physical crowds are emotional, irrational and prone to violence. Over the last decade, we’ve come to think of virtual crowds as sources of wisdom that can’t be found in individuals. Both these ideas treat crowds as entities, rather than groups of people — an idea […] Read more »