Neuromarketing and politics
Neuromarketing was recently developped to study the response of consumers and make the highest impact on them through an ad campaign. The main issue of study of the field is to find a way to affect the decision making mechanism of the consumers, and for this purpose many techniques are being used including magentic resonance imaging and other brain cognition analysis tools. And guess what, it's being studied in order to be applied for political purposes. Researchers in many universities in the United States are working on it, and eventhough scientists and researchers are saying that the subject is still a nascent field and that some trends and patterns that they found in how a voter may look at a presidency candidate for example cannot be confirmed without further research, many concerns are rising in the american civil society about the possibility of the usage of neuromarketing for manipulative political advertising. So the story here bypasses by far issues of propaganda and massive lies to reach an actual studied and calculated manipulation of the human brain in order to get a certain desired response.
Personally I'm a strong advocate of science, and I totally agree on scientific studies to unlock the mysteries of the human brain, but I think that ethical issues should be taken seriously and scrupulously into consideration when tackling such issues. Most of the american NGOs concerned by the subject are not against neuromarketing and they're not asking for its prohibition, what they're asking for is to make its use more transparent like requiring disclosure on the product packaging if neuromarketing has been used, they are also considering whether different rules ought to exist for products marketed directly to children, or for political use of neuromarketing.
And to continue talking about neuromarketing for political purposes I do believe that Lebanese are leaders in this field without the hassle of research and studies. Here we have the ultimate masters of neuromarketing for political purposes. A simple and easy recipe, what politicians do is nothing more than continuosly raising issues and talking about subjects that spur their followers anxiety about sensitive subjects or approaching political subjects from a secterian point of view creating exaggerated massive fears about one's very existance, they block their followers thinking ability and control their decision making mechanism by diabolising their political opponents. That's what all politicians do and someone should start doing something about it, I do believe that a certain watchdog for this kind of behaviour should see the light, and allegations not based on factual clues and events must be condemned, and a mechanism of drawing attention to the genral public about such issues must be created. Once again I urge the lebanese civil society to wake up from its passiveness. Too much to hope for? well I'm only asking and it doesn't harm to ask.
Personally I'm a strong advocate of science, and I totally agree on scientific studies to unlock the mysteries of the human brain, but I think that ethical issues should be taken seriously and scrupulously into consideration when tackling such issues. Most of the american NGOs concerned by the subject are not against neuromarketing and they're not asking for its prohibition, what they're asking for is to make its use more transparent like requiring disclosure on the product packaging if neuromarketing has been used, they are also considering whether different rules ought to exist for products marketed directly to children, or for political use of neuromarketing.
And to continue talking about neuromarketing for political purposes I do believe that Lebanese are leaders in this field without the hassle of research and studies. Here we have the ultimate masters of neuromarketing for political purposes. A simple and easy recipe, what politicians do is nothing more than continuosly raising issues and talking about subjects that spur their followers anxiety about sensitive subjects or approaching political subjects from a secterian point of view creating exaggerated massive fears about one's very existance, they block their followers thinking ability and control their decision making mechanism by diabolising their political opponents. That's what all politicians do and someone should start doing something about it, I do believe that a certain watchdog for this kind of behaviour should see the light, and allegations not based on factual clues and events must be condemned, and a mechanism of drawing attention to the genral public about such issues must be created. Once again I urge the lebanese civil society to wake up from its passiveness. Too much to hope for? well I'm only asking and it doesn't harm to ask.
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