Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

Many people who use persuasion with their success come to believe they are skilled at it when they are not.  When you are successful you tend not to scrutinize the sources of your success; you simply enjoy it.  It is only when your success turns towards bankruptcy – first gradually, then suddenly, to quote Hemingway from “The Sun Also Rises” – that you begin to see the illusion.  Your success succeeded on your power, not your persuasion and now that your power is broken, receded, or lost, you see the distinction.

Today we see the Rule in the continuing decline of the power of Elite Media.  Through most of my life, Elite Media (the original broadcast networks, a handful of daily newspapers, and another handful of weekly magazines) owned the reputation as Persuasion Masters of the Universe who could use words to change the world.  Back in the day, They were It and They knew it, or at least believed it because they saw evidence of their persuasive skill everyday.

Until they lost their monopoly on distribution or in Standard Model terms, exposure and reception.  Consider the changes with that lost monopoly as the Elite Media move gradually and now suddenly into persuasion bankruptcy.

But ratings are going down. In the 1952-53 television season, more than 30 percent of American households that owned televisions tuned in to NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen. In the 2007-8 season, that figure was just 5.2 percent.

Most analysts and many executives agree that the economic model of broadcast television — which relies much more heavily on advertising than cable — is severely fractured. What they are wondering now is if it is irreparably broken.

“It’s in a period of huge transformation,” said Horace Newcomb, a professor of telecommunications at the University of Georgia and the director of the Peabody Awards, which are awarded annually for excellence in radio and television broadcasting. “It’s in a state of confusion.”

And again, what I quote here regarding the broadcast Elites can also be said of the print Elites of persuasion.  Similar declines show with other Players from Elite Media.  Circulation rates for them all have declined in similar proportions.  They all face a new future that does not include them as Elite.

Cable, satellite, and Internet have destroyed the “means of production” for the Elite Media.  And with that, they have also destroyed the power that made Elite Media famous, but not as skilled, as They thought.  Their success, it turns out, depended not on Their skill with persuasion, a strong Argument well expressed, but rather with power, a monopoly on the means of distribution.  And now that They are losing their monopoly we see Their persuasion skill for what it is, shallow, strident, self-focused; all the hallmarks of my Rule:  All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

As I think on this, it occurs to me that persuasion thrives with competition while power does not.  Power is the essential tool of the dictator whether in politics, media, art, business, education, any area of human activity.  Saddam Hussein is a compelling historical figure when he’s the only guy in the room with a gun and so is the New York Times when it is the (almost) only guy in the room with a printing press.  They thrive when They do not compete on an equal playing field with equal challengers.  Put the Elites on democratic turf and They are not nearly as smart, wise, or, most importantly, persuasive as They were when They owned the stadium, made the rules, and sold the tickets.

Power beguiles and turns us away from the most obvious admonition:  Know thyself.  And if you disdain the Delphi Oracle, then take Dirty Harry’s advice:  “A man’s got to know his limitations.”