The new model for communications with a significant power coefficient has its origins in advertising.
Passive-engagement forms of communication are those that don’t require the recipient's full or active participation in order to be considered complete. They originated in advertising, which is essentially the art of communicating with people who haven't chosen to pay attention.
In their modern form, they have become highly effective at circumventing logic and the processes of critical evaluation, implanting themselves into our consciousness and decision-making processes in other ways.
Nothing as covert as the once-feared "subliminal" messages (which in actuality never proved effective) is involved. Today's techniques are based on highly visible, easy-to-digest symbols and images and bits of phrases, which, with enough repetition, are able to compete with and even supplant direct experience as our fundamental "mental building blocks."
(c) COPYRIGHT 1998 ROBERT WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
