How the hell did Donald Trump get so popular?
It’s something on the mind of many people. If you’re reading this, you’re likely one of them. Pundits predicted his stumble and fall from the national spotlight, but he continues on.
People call him racist or that he is a new Hitler. People say he will cause the downfall of America and should be ignored. But Trump shrugs off criticism, labels roll off him, and he continues to be popular.
How???
How Trump continues to be popular is distinct from why he is popular. For instance I can tell you how I made a cake, but that doesn’t tell you why I made a cake.
Yet everyone in the media continues to struggle with both when it comes to Trump. The only person to consistently explain why Trump continues to be popular is Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. That’s right, a cartoonist began explaining why Trump can take the presidency back in August of 2015 when everyone else was predicting catastrophe. Adams has been the sole voice predicting the why of Trump’s ascendence.
But not the how.
The reason people have struggled with how Trump became popular is that they lack a framework to understand it.
Hell, they lack a vocabulary.
This is because almost everyone continues to have a skewed understanding of how people get information, and why they make decisions, in the 21st century.
How does information spread between people?
Why does some information spread between people and other information does not?
Why is traditional media losing its ability to spread information and influence people?
Why does it seem like many people are insular and less open to new information?
Who do people rely on for information when they form opinions?
Why do people depend on certain people for information but not others?
Without a framework, without a vocabulary to answer these questions, then you can’t explain how Trump continues dominate the polls.
What follows will provide you the framework.
If you’re trying to read this on a phone, I would suggest you wait. The following is 10,000 words, with 40+ diagrams and pictures. This is not a quick read. Nor a light one.
Yet it will enable you to understand how Trump became popular, while also touching on why. It will cause you to question who you are connected to on social media. It will give you an understanding of how almost anything becomes popular online.
If you commit to this material, you’ll be able to see the Matrix.
Dropping The Anchor
Donald Trump Wants To Ban Muslim Travel!
If you marginally pay attention to American politics, you heard Trump suggestion of a ban on Muslim travel. You probably didn’t hear exactly what he said, but somehow, someway, you are aware that Trump wanted to restrict Muslim travel to the U.S.A.
But Trump probably doesn’t want to ban Muslims traveling to the United States. It’s much more likely Trump wanted to “anchor” public opinion on the issue. Anchoring is a cognitive bias describing the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.
Trump anchored debate on Muslim travel in the United States. With Trump boldly setting the stakes so high, everyone had to react to his position. By starting out with an extreme position, Trump anchored the issue in his favor. If elected, he won’t have to compromise as much if he had taken a lesser initial position. Six months from now, many people will view some level of restrictions on Muslim travel as “not that bad,” but only Trump anchored one of the goal posts in their mind.
Trump’s use of anchoring is the first step to understanding why he is able to be popular, but it still doesn’t get to “the how” of how he came to be popular. The two are very closely tied together, depend on one another, but aren’t the same. A large part of “the why” of Trump’s popularity is tied to his exploitation of anchoring and other cognitive biases.
Part of “the how” is tied to cognitive biases as well. The most prominent being availability cascades.
Origin Of Availability Cascades
In 1999, in an article for the Stanford Law Review, professors Timur Kuran and Cass R. Sunstein put forth a theory on how information and influence spread, called availability cascades. It attempted to explain why regulation of risky products or environmental risks is so often driven by public opinion movements that run counter to research.
In other words, people make decisions based on what is top-of-mind and has emotional resonance, not with empirical evidence or a scientific foundation.
In the 2003 winter issue of Regulation, the CATO Institute summarized Kuran’s research, noting that people actually have two types of political preferences, private and public, and shift between the two based on the utility it provides them:
Cascades are related to tipping points in public opinion and, ultimately, to social and political revolutions. Timur Kuran has developed a model to explain changes in public opinion that lead to sudden and unexpected political revolutions. Major examples include the French revolution in 1789, the Russian revolution in 1917, and the Iranian revolution of 1977–1978. Why did public opinion seem to change so rapidly that contemporaries (and even some revolutionary leaders) were taken by surprise?
The crux of Kuran’s theory lies in the assumption that individuals have two types of political preferences, private and public, that do not necessarily coincide. Public preferences are fully expressed and contribute to public opinion, but they may not be the real preferences of the people who express them. Some private preferences may be kept secret. People engage in this sort of “preference falsification” in order to get “reputational utility” through favors, or at least non-repression, from the regime. But an individual will only falsify his preferences up to a certain point, because he also gets utility from “integrity” — that is, from the coincidence of his public and private preferences.
An individual decides which preferences to express so as to maximize his utility by balancing reputational and integrity contributions.
A Theoretical Cascade Model
An availability cascade is simply a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (“in our media-mad society, repetition is as good as proof”). To see how this works let’s modify the example from Regulation mentioned earlier:
Click for large version.
This a reduced, theoretical model that doesn’t quite accurately capture how availability cascades function in the real world. But it is a workable model that helps understand the concept, so let’s roll with it for a bit.
As the diagrams shows, the stronger and more prevalent the High public signal is, the more likely people further down the cascade are to adopt it. If both Adam and Betty adopted the information, by the time it reaches Charlie, he will adopt it no matter what private High or Low signals he receives.
That means a person or organization’s position in an availability cascade is incredibly important.
Heuristics And Your Lazy Brain
One of the main reasons the cascade model works so effectively, and why cascade position is so important, is people’s immense reliance on heuristics – an approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery employing a practical method that’s not ideal, but gets the job done.
Cashier: “How are you doing today?”
You: “Fine, how are you?
Cashier: “Fine. Plastic okay?”
You: “Sure.”
Then you go back to ignoring each other.
You might not actually be fine. You might be going through a divorce or stressed out at work. You might have a pregnant wife or just ran a marathon. You could be at any degree of emotional high or low, but in that moment in the grocery store, you’re “fine.”
You don’t give the cashier significant attention because brains are lazy. Brains are wired for pattern recognition. Brains put together schemata, rely on stereotypes, and attempt to go on autopilot as often as possible. It might actually be better if you would pay attention in the checkout lane, but you don’t. You’re not present in the moment.
Yet your brain doesn’t rely on heuristics in only unimportant moments. Your brain attempts to rely on heuristics all the time. Relying on these mental shortcuts gives rise to a specific type of heuristic known as the availability heuristic – estimating the probability of an event on the basis of how easily instances of it can be brought to mind.
That is, the more readily you can bring an event to mind, the more likely you are to think that the event is likely to occur.
Which brings us back to Trump.
Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban
Before Trump came out with his Muslim travel ban, he and his advisors looked at terror attacks in 2015 – France in January, August and November, followed by the San Bernardino shooting in early December (roughly 72 hours before Trump’s travel restriction announcement) – and gambled on people not making decisions based upon reasoned analysis, but on availability heuristics. Or as Scott Adams wrote, emotion trumps reason.
Through years of business deals and negotiations, Trump knows people rely on availability heuristics – mental short cuts. Trump also knows what people say in public is different than what they say in private – it’s the essence of negotiation. At the negotiating table you never state what you actually want or are willing to take. You bluff, cajole, and bluster for a better result.
Due to a combination of skill and luck, Trump uses anchoring and heuristics to set the agenda for the presidential race. No one else has been close. Which is why many people are demanding that the mainstream media (“MSM”) should “just stop covering Trump! He’ll go away if MSM would just not give him coverage!” These people want to cut Trump off at the top of the cascade.
If it were 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, this might have worked. If MSM could stop Trump from spreading his message, then he would not be able to influence other people. But Trump takes advantage of something else almost everyone else is still grappling with, but Trump recognized.
Trump is not utilizing the traditional cascade model, but is instead relying on something else.
Not a cognitive bias, but a fundamental societal and cultural shift slowly taking place since the late 20th century. This shift upends the traditional cascade model on its head. It is a shift away from cascades and towards an entirely new model. A model so new and misunderstood, it doesn’t even have a proper name yet.
But I’m going to show it to you.
Mainstream Media Homogeneity
Think back to the availability cascade model pictured earlier. Now that you have a framework of how availability cascades work, consider the immense power the traditional media as possessed these past 50 years.
Traditional MSM Cascade Model
With the above in mind, consider that in 1965, there were only three television channels. There were only a few national newspapers and national radio broadcasts. There were numerous local periodicals and radio stations, but they largely relied on national wire services to provide them with information.
Top – MSM. White nodes – consumers.
Opinions, interests, and viewpoints were homogenous because information providers were homogeneous. Outside or alternative influencers were few and far between.
But over time, things changed. News was no longer something that happened at 6 pm on network television, it became multiple 24/7 channels. Sports were no longer part of the news, they became sports networks. Cooking, gardening, kids, movies, and more all received their own outlets. But much of the news media didn’t really diversify because:
Original reporting requires lots of human capital, time, and money.
There is only so much actual “news” that occurs on a daily basis.
The development of second tier mainstream media sources meant that the top heavy cascade model shifted some, but not too much. The media remained at the top of the cascade model, it just looked like this instead:
Now with private political preferences: red conservative, blue liberal, white neutral.
Mainstream Media Sets The Tone
How people received information largely remained in control of a small group of people and companies. Their position at the top of the cascade allowed them to wield enormous influence over people’s public political preferences.
This is because tv, radio, and periodicals allow information to be broadcasted to large numbers of people. In this system, whoever controls the production equipment controls the message and sets the tone. And if you’re on the receiving end, that’s all you can do, receive.
People were limited by geography with whom they could communicate. People could discuss issues and information with others in their immediate social circle, but that was largely the extent of their ability to exchange information. Which meant that MSM were the gatekeepers of public opinion, able to gently guide viewers towards one side of an issue or another.
To be a part of the traditional MSM system, to be able to broadcast yourself and your ideas, you had to be willing to work with the system. This meant you had to constrain yourself to a narrow spectrum of public political positions, despite whatever your private political positions may be. Politicians adhere to this spectrum as well, often referred to as the Overton Window.
This top heavy, mass-media centric cascade model defined how information, ideas, and opinions were distributed to the public.
But not anymore.
The Net Is Born
It’s a trite observation at this point, but the internet changed everything. Computers existed for decades, largely toiling away in university campuses and corporate laboratories. But as Moore’s Law had its effect on the speed and cost of computers, they began to spread rapidly. As computers became more ubiquitous, there became a need to connect them.
In the 1990s, the internet expanded at an incredible rate, with traffic growing at 100% a year. Most young people knew that they needed to be a part of the Internet. Older generations didn’t get it, but the internet continued to grow and envelop the world. By the early 2000s, broadband became normal and communication between previously dispersed and unconnected people flourished.
Computers and the Internet, with their ability to handle almost any task thrown at them, pushed the economics of information dispersal down to zero. Newsgroups, blogs, forums, and message boards emerged on every topic imaginable. By the mid-2000s, most people became comfortable enough with the internet to use their real name and information within online communities. This was especially spurred on with the advent of what came to be known as “social media.”
The adoption and evolution of social media meant everyone could connect with other people. Dozens of free platforms developed – WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, SnapChat – all offering the ability to broadcast and share information with large audiences. Smartphones accelerated this even further. The means to broadcast information became freed from almost all tethers or shackles.
If you want to share information, and have a phone and internet connection, your potential audience is roughly 40% of the planet.
A Vital Connection Is Made
The emergence of social media changed the traditional media framework. That would be the polite way of saying it. But that’s not what happened.
Social media murdered the traditional media framework.
It’s not actually complete yet. It’s a slow murder. It’s happening right now. You can watch it in real-time. Social media is eviscerating the traditional cascade model by doing one thing simple:
Click for large version.
Allowing people lower on the cascade to create new connections independent from those at the top of the cascade.
Look closely at the above image, specifically the new line connecting two viewers. The line is different than all the pre-existing lines as it has arrows at both ends. Social media is not a one way medium. It enables mutual communication.
This is a new phenomenon; unprecedented in history. Never before has communicating with others been as easy or as accessible as it is now. People are no longer passive consumers of information, but have their owns means of broad distribution as well. This new means of information distribution caused traditional information distribution systems to weaken.
Why?
Information Breaks Free
Survey data shows that the majority of people remain consumers. They don’t generate their own information. This is unsurprising.
Social media is a means to connect with information and other people that were not previously available. People seek out information sources that appeal directly to them. But due to the two-way nature of social networks, people aren’t only selecting sources of information, they are also self-selecting into community networks.
Watching television or reading a newspaper doesn’t make you a part of a community. You merely consume the information. When you receive information from the MSM in a cascade model, you are largely the endpoint for the information. Your ability to broadcast information is small.
But when you engage in social media, you are not an endpoint. Instead you function as a node on a network:
Click for large version.
Here it is without the cascade as well:
Click for large version.
Social media gives people the ability to spread information outside of the traditional cascade. People are no longer passive consumers at the bottom of a cascade, they are nodes on a network that enables two-way distribution of information. So while most people don’t become content creators, many become content broadcasters.
It is now possible for information to begin at any node on a network and reach almost any other node on a network. Prior to social media, this was impossible without the use of MSM. But now information moves freely within networks at little to no cost or impediment.
Challenge Or Confirm What You Believe?
Social media allows people to choose want they want to see and hear. Given everything covered so far, let’s pose a question:
When people choose information sources, choose their community networks, do you think people choose information and networks that challenge their pre-existing biases and preferences? Or do you think people choose information and networks that confirm their pre-existing biases and preferences?
Graham C99 Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Given that it is impossible to attend to even a fraction of the information that is available on the web, most individuals prioritise information that is congruent with their current values, simply ignoring any discrepant information. Recent studies show that although most people consume information that matches their opinions, being exposed to conflicting views tends to reduce prejudice and enhance creative thinking. Yet the desire to prove ourselves right and maintain our current beliefs trumps any attempt to be creative or more open-minded.
Largely speaking, people choose information sources and networks that confirm their pre-existing biases and preferences. This is another type of cognitive bias known as the confirmation bias: the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. Psychology refers to this phenomenon as selective exposure theory.
Social media allows self-selection to flourish in a way never before possible. MSM constrained itself to a narrow bandwidth of acceptable public opinion on any given issue or topic. But with social media, within the privacy of your own home, you’re free to select any source of information you want. Boundaries between public and private preferences wane. You join with other nodes that affirm your pre-existing biases and preferences.
Click for large version.
If you were paying attention, you might have noticed the three nodes linking together are all red. Most of the other nodes they link to are red. That’s because most people rely on confirmation biases and selective exposure when selecting new nodes to connect to in a network. People begin to clump together based upon personal preferences, not public ones.
The Emergence Of Tribal Networks
In a network system, people begin to form “tribes,” as Seth Godin coined it in his examination of the emergence of this trend in his book by the same name in 2008.
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.” – Seth Godin
The initial cascade model showed people with color-shaded political preferences, but they were dispersed at random. This reflected geographical distance and the non-targeted method of how MSM reaches its audience. With the cascade model, MSM dispenses information haphazardly. Its only intent is to broadcast to as many consumers as possible.
But social media introduces the network system:
Under the network system, geography and proximity become irrelevant.
People form networks based on confirmation biases and private preferences, not the desire to be exposed to neutral, objective information.
Yet the above model still isn’t correct. If you were astute, you noticed that the MSM icons changed from ovals to diamonds a few diagrams ago. This illustrates the transformation that takes place when MSM is no longer atop of the cascade model. Instead, MSM is just a node on the network like any other.
Click for large version.
In a network model, two-way connections become the dominant means of information exchange. It’s not that one-way, broadcast only connections don’t exist, but they’re only part of a greater network.
The only reason MSM has any significance is due to their legacy infrastructure and position atop the cascade model. MSM outlets are aware of this shift and are doing everything to maintain their positions of authority and relevance. It’s why certain MSM outlets are default installations in your web browser, social media network, or phone. MSM outlets pay the platform holders for those positions. They don’t want to lost their traditional authority position.
All Become Equal
A couple of other things should have stood out in the above image as well. The number of connections between some of the non-media nodes, and regular nodes are equal or greater. And some of the non-media nodes now have two-way connections with the second-tier MSM nodes.
In the network model, any node has the potential to transmit as much information as any other node on the network (with some limitations).
Non-media nodes change size, illustrative of the number of their connections.
Previously, the only way for a person to increase their influence was to move through MSM. People molded themselves into certain public political preferences and opinions so MSM would allow them their place atop the cascade model. But in a network, any node can (potentially) become as influential and important as any other node. Generally, a node’s importance is only limited by two things:
The number of network connections.
The strength of the network connections.
In a cascade model, what matters is positioning and number of connections. High numbers of connections are important because there are few competing sources of information. Whoever has the higher position on the cascade, with the largest number of connections, is likely to have the widest reach and influence. But this falls apart in a network system.
In the network system, what matters is not only the number of connections, but the strength of each connection.
Weak v. Strong Connections
Most intuitive notions of the “strength” of an interpersonal tie should be satisfied by the following definition: the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of:
the amount of time the tie has existed,
the emotional intensity of the tie,
the intimacy (mutual confiding) of the tie, and
the reciprocal services which characterize the tie.
– From The Strength of Weak Ties by Mark S. Granovetter.
All the relationships in your life are not equal. There are incredibly strong connections with your immediate family, your children, spouse, parents, etc. Next are your close friends. Then perhaps acquaintances and co-workers. People you know from clubs or hobbies. Distant cousins. Friends of friends. Internet buddies. There exists a wide spectrum of connections in your life.
The traditional cascade model only supports two of the above categories: 1) The amount of time the tie has existed, and 2) the emotional intensity of the tie. The traditional cascade is unable to provide intimate or reciprocal ties because it is one-way, it isn’t social.
In contrast, the network system has the ability to excel in all four categories that build strong relationships. As people adopt social media and join community networks, they find new, non-MSM nodes that explicitly coincide with their private preferences. They establish intimate, reciprocal relationships with them.
What effect do you think this has on the spread of information?
From Hierarchy To Heterarchy
But we’re still not actually categorizing things correctly. The cascade model describes what happens within the top-heavy traditional system. When we talk about the network system, we haven’t described a model of how information moves through it yet. We’ve been mixing systems and models.
This was intentional and meant to confuse you a bit. Sorry.
The previous 5,000 words were what a teacher means when they say “show your work.” Now we can properly classify things.
In order to understand information distribution within the new, network model, let’s break apart the traditional system and its information distribution model.
Highlighted green – Top Tier nodes. Highlighted pink – cascade.
The above diagram shows the traditional system, heavily weighted at the top, where position is immensely important. This is a hierarchy.
A hierarchy is a system giving those at the top influence and control of those below them. It is difficult to move from one level of the hierarchy to the next. Its central design requires greater numbers on the lower levels than the top ones.
Within a hierarchy, levels denote authority. Someone on a higher level is not necessarily more qualified, more intelligent, or more skilled than you. They might be, or they might not. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are above you. That alone gives them authority and influence over you.
The purpose of a hierarchy is to cede influence and authority to nodes above you (whether you want to or not). A hierarchy is fundamentally about control through imposed structure.
In contrast, there is no rigid hierarchy in a network system, merely a loose, ever-changing web of connections. A network system is not anarchy, as there is still structure to it. Yet its structure is self-regulating rather than prescribed. Connections form, change, and dissolve as needed.
A network system is a heterarchy – a system of organization where elements of the organization are unranked or possess potential for multiple, changing ranks. Influence and function shift according to mutual benefit. Control in a heterarchy comes from nodes choosing to form connections with other nodes for some utility or purpose. A heterarchy is fundamentally about control through adaptive adherence.
The Amorphous Dispersal Model
A new model is needed to fully describe how information spreads through a heterarchical information system. The cascade model doesn’t acknowledge or take account of the adapting, self-organizing structure of a social media. Nor does it take into account the spectrum of connections within it.
Instead of a model which values position of connections, a model needs to value strength of connections.
Hierarchy -> Cascade
Heterarchy -> Amorphous Dispersal
A – MSM. B, C, D – regular network nodes.
Let’s examine the above diagram.
Hierarchy
If A wants to influence C, A sends information through the hierarchy, by means of a cascade.
A has positional authority over C by virtue of being higher up the cascade. A is also “closer” to C in terms of positioning; only two nodes separate A and C.
A only has one-way connections. The of the nodes between C and A are two-way, but they are still weak. They have narrow bandwidth.
It is difficult for A to influence or transmit information to C.
While difficult for A to influence C, when cascades are the only means of information distribution, C likely relies on A.
Heterarchy
If B wants to influence C, B sends information through the heterarchy, by means of amorphous dispersal.
B has no positional authority over C. B is also “farther” from C.
All of the connections between B and C are strong. They have wide bandwidth.
It is easy for B to influence or transmit information to C.
As long as B has stronger connections to C than any other information source, C likely relies on B.
Let’s change things a bit.
New connection.
Now A is directly connected to D. In a traditional system that relies on cascades, this is an ideal arrangement. A should have a high degree of influence on D.
But when the hierarchal system has to co-exist with the heterarchical system, does it have the same impact? Can the cascade model compete with the amorphous dispersal model? Let’s insert High and Low signals into this diagram.
Example 1
A hot button political issue arises. D is neutral on the issue and has not received any public signals on the issue.
A supports the issue, while B and C oppose it. A broadcasts a High signal on the issue (in support). B and C broadcast Low signals on the issue (in opposition).
D receives a High signal directly from A, via a weak connection.
D receives a Low from B & C through intermediary nodes, via multiple, strong connections.
Which does D choose?
Example 2
Same hot button political issue. This time D privately supports the issue, but has not received public signals on the issue.
A supports the issue, while B and C oppose it. A broadcasts a High signal on the issue. B and C broadcast Low signals on the issue.
D receives a High signal directly from A, via a weak connection.
D receives a Low signal from B & C through intermediary nodes, via multiple, strong connections.
Which does D choose?
Example 3
Same, hypothetical hot button political issue. This time D privately opposes the issue, but still has not received public signals on the issue.
A favors the issue, while B and C oppose it. A broadcasts a High signal on the issue. B and C broadcast Low signals on the issue.
D receives a High signal directly from A, via a weak connection.
D receives a Low from B & C through intermediary nodes, via multiple, strong connections.
Which does D choose?
Starting To Figure Out How Trump Became Popular Yet?
In all of the above situations, D will likely favor information and influence from their strong connections. When the cascade model competes with the amorphous dispersal model, the amorphous dispersal model almost always win.
Who has more authority and influence in your life? The TV or your wife? Your child’s principal or your child? Your boss or your mother? The newspaper or a person you’ve regularly chatted with on Facebook for four years (but have never met in person)? Does their influence and authority over you come from the position of their relationship to you or from the strength of their relationship with you?
Trusted relationships come from strong connections. You might rely on a company’s brand in some fashion, but you don’t have a reciprocal, trusted relationship with them. You don’t share your secrets with the New York Times and they don’t share theirs with you. People form relationships with other people. People who they connect with, respond to, and rely on.
Social media allows for more reciprocal and intimate connections between nodes, generating strong connections.
Stronger connections, higher bandwidth connections, pass information more quickly than weak ones.
Connections providing the fastest, most easily consumed information, are the most relied upon connections. Again, think heuristics (Hell, think Google!).
The most relied upon connections, are the most trusted connections.
Communities Form By Adaptive Adherence
So how does social media build these strong connections? How do people attain positions of authority and influence within the amorphous dispersal model?
Through recursive, self-reinforcing feedback loops. As people use social media and form relationships with other people in community networks, they share and broadcast information that elicits feedback from the network.
A photo gets lots of “Likes” on Facebook? Post more photos like it. A Tweet gets no re-Tweets or Likes? Stop Tweeting about that topic. Each interaction with the community network trains you to adjust your behavior to garner feedback from the community network.
Adaptive adherence begins. People shift information, sharing, and connections based on feedback; forming communities around central concepts, identities, and information. People who enjoy the new Star Wars movie. People in support of gay marriage. Sports, religion, politics, hobbies, entertainment. Anything that people can form communities around, they will.
Communities form within the network. Thicker highlight, stronger connection.
This is not a rigid structure, but ever-changing, based on the needs of the community. Information will flow through it freely, with nodes adopting various positions of importance.
Positions of influence emerge from within the community network, not by being prescribed by some outside force. Through sharing, dialogue, and feedback, community networks boost certain members to the forefront. Those desiring these positions build as many strong connections as possible, while simultaneously broadcasting information (their own or someone else’s).
What emerges in an amorphous dispersal model are “alpha-level” influencers. Alpha-level influencers are not ordained by some authority, but work into positions of prestige and influence within the community network themselves.
Availability Events Emerge
So what happens when a significant new piece of information is introduced into a community? An availability event occurs – some activity or development that generates attention of a community network, and is reinterpreted and redistributed through the community network to signal or test adherence.
An availability event can be any number of things: a terrorist attack, sexual harassment, a research study, or a car accident. Anything that begins to generate feedback within a community network. People within a community use availability events to signal adherence (“We won the gold medal! USA! USA!”) or to test adherence (“That’s not what it means to be American, is it?”).
Availability events can start large or small, but scale based upon the degree in which alpha-level influencers adopt them for broadcast. If no alpha-level influencers adopt an availability event, it likely won’t have much reach. If multiple alpha-level influencers adopt an availability event, it has the potential to be adopted by the rest of the community.
As an availability event is accepted and adopted by more members of the community surrounding alpha-level influencers, an availability assembly will form – a temporary formation around an availability event.
Availability assemblies form.
Types Of Alpha-Level Influencers
All of this leads to a simple conclusion: alpha-level influencers have immense impact in the amorphous dispersal model.
Community networks don’t have to accept the interpretation of an availability event they initially receive. Instead, members re-broadcast the availability event to the rest of their community, seeking feedback from alpha-level influencers. Once an availability event reaches alpha-level influencers, they:
Breakdown the availability event, looking for ways it can be be used for feedback loops within the community network.
Frame the availability event in a manner consistent with the feedback loops used by the community network.
Re-broadcast the re-framed availability event with a new feedback loop, signaling or testing adherence.
As people rely and trust their community network, and the alpha-level influencers within it, they adopt the re-framed interpretation of the availability event. It doesn’t matter how MSM or anyone else framed the availability event. What matters is if the availability event can provide a feedback loop which signals or tests adherence within a community.
Let’s look at a few types of alpha-level influencers.
Availability Journalists
Availability journalists are alpha-level influencers providing news and commentary to their communities. They piggyback their journalistic message or perspective on top of availability events.
Journalists are slow to adapt to amorphous dispersal as most journalists aspire to be part of the traditional cascade. Their ability to be an alpha-level influencer is subsumed by the media outlet they work for. MSM doesn’t want individual journalists to wield influence or become alpha-level influencers – MSM wants its brand, its outlet to be the alpha-level influencer.
But some journalists exploit amorphous dispersal to side-step MSM and establish themselves as alpha-level influencers. An early proto-example is Matt Drudge.
<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-6115" src="http://associatesmind.