Despite George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, there has been a constant battle between rational, comprehensible language and obfuscation and propaganda, and the questions he raised are doubly pertinent in an era which has witnessed a new fall of rationality in language.

Marten Scheffer, Ingrid van de Leemput, Else Weinans and Johan Bullen address the issue in a PNAS paper (2 November 2021). They say: “The surge of post-truth political argumentation suggests that we are living in a special historical period when it comes to the balance between emotion and reasoning.” read more

In the middle of trying to write some articles on social science polarisation research, and tend the Truth and Integrity Project website and Twitter feed, I was asked to write an article ranking the Labor Shadow Cabinet from one to 10.

At 3 am the next morning it was one of those moments when you wake up wondering what on earth you have done. The only names you can think of are Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek. If you wake your wife she’ll be furious and, if you are lucky, suggest you have left out Kristina Kenneally. read more

In 2016 a researcher, Vicky Chuqiao Yang started work on computer simulations of US politics. It was part of social science revolution in interrogating data.

Mitchell Wardrop, in a PNAS news feature (8 September 2021), said Yang “was fascinated by the realisation that the ‘left right’ standoff widely described as ‘polarisation’ was not one thing.” read more

There has been an avalanche of social science research on polarisation in recent years – much of it assisted by AI driven analysis of social media; some of it building on long accepted social science findings; and some of it sadly a victim of the replication crisis which emerged in psychology some years ago. read more

In the next few months millions of dollars will be spent on political market research – much of it on focus groups which take the form of group discussions.

Allegedly it allows political parties to identify what people are thinking and how to respond to that. It is not a consultative project but rather one often devoted to testing ideas which form the basis of slogans. It also won’t be much about policy unless it is to elicit ideas for attacks on opponents’ promises. read more

On August 19 2021 9News put up on its home page a news article quoting the Governor-General, David Hurley, saying “you did as your nation asked” about veterans of the Afghanistan War.

Today more than four months later it’s still there and on many days it’s the first item on the home page news feed. read more

What significance can a by-election in an English constituency  17,104 kms from Canberra possibly have for Australia’s next Federal election?

The by-election in North Shropshire on 21 December was won by the UK Liberal Democrats by a margin of 17,957 votes to 12,032 and cost the Tories the seat for the first time since 1832. read more

In 1948 the American polymath, Harold Lasswell, formulated five questions: Who says what, which channel, to whom, and with what effects. He later added two more suggested by a critic: For what purpose and under what circumstances.

In a world saturated with persuasive communications – for both legitimate and nefarious purposes – it is a useful tool to de-construct who is saying what, how and why. read more

Scientists’ reputations live or die by the quality of their research. Politicians think their careers live or die by the quality of their attitudinal  research but forget that attitudinal research might be powerful but not unerring.

Scott Morrison, who is obsessive about market research and how it helps him craft three word slogans and position himself, seems to be having a bit of hard time actually putting whatever his research is telling him into practice. read more

Scott Morrison is all for can-do capitalism. But it’s a pity he’s not prepared to take on the lessons from some of the world’s most successful companies on how to produce a healthy, productive corporate culture.

Brian Donovan of Donovan Leadership recently did a small scale survey of Australian leaders on the subject and cited as amplification a Harvard Business Review article by Emma Seppälä, of Yale School of Management and Kim Cameron, the William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan. read more