A Voter's Guide in the Age of Populism - Part I. An ABC for Rumor Management

Krasen Stanchev

Definition
Rumors are officially or documentary-factual-statistically unconfirmed messages that are circulated in both interpersonal and official information channels.

Conditions for the persistence of rumors:

a. Plausibility (a grain of truth) concealing disinformation;
b. Credibility (relationship with generally accepted beliefs and ideas about human nature);
c. The supposed to appear as real;
d. Simplicity of the seemingly explanatory nature of the message;
e. Impossibility or difficulty (high costs) of verification;
f. Authority of the source, whether perceived or real, from a public figure and/or with reference to personal testimony somewhere along the chain;
g. Repeatability;
h. Attractiveness and entertaining nature of the message (lack of boredom or boredom alternative to another boredom);
i. Lack of obligation of the spreader to believe the rumor he/she spreads, but still subject to conditions ag;
j. Distributor's interest;
k. "Sexiness" of hearing;
A figure of speech resembling a swear word, a proverb, or a lyric from a popular, pop-cult song, perhaps even a movie title.

Dissemination objectives:

- Creation of a seemingly true reality;
- Optimal dissemination of this truth;
- Creating a certain illusory opinion about some event, state of affairs, person or human and social relations;
- Blunting public intolerance or creating such tolerance towards the illusory events, things, people and relationships in question;
- Blurring of abilities and opportunities for independent judgment;
- Creation, dissemination and reinforcement of prejudices;
- Fabricating suspicion of the actual state of affairs and/or at least unwillingness to check for compliance;
- Preparing others, the so-called society, for a certain planned act or event;
- Inciting fear, confusion or outrage towards the alternatives to this action and event;
- Creation of an expectation, at best – of a public desire for such an act or event;
- Distorting history to dull memory, limit lessons learned and the ability to judge;
- Checking and displacing other expectations and desires;
- Imputing rational ignorance to the spread of competing rumors;
- Renewal and replacement of one rumor and rumor system with another when the first ones wear out, become "boring".

Peculiarities of the duration of rumors:

1. The duration and sustainability of rumors depends on how well the above-mentioned conditions for sustainability are met, on the ability of society to forget and/or verify messages; on the conditions for this memory, on people with the ability to think independently and verify, on the institutions (records, registers, statistics, office work) and on the ease of access to them.
2. The lack of such people and institutions definitely helps the sustainability and duration of rumors - they take hold faster and last longer.
3. A rumor that is "backed" with an international source, analysis, or statistics is more long-lasting and "credible" - these sources are either not subject to verification, or are instinctively considered reliable, or verification simply requires more effort and expense.
4. Rumors are not miracles, inexplicable events, but interpretations of real or fictional events; therefore they are not a "miracle in three days."
5. The repetition of the message and the authority of the messenger are key to the longevity of rumors.
6. The power and professionalism of the spreaders in the field of discrediting the spreaders of other, alternative rumors are of such importance.
7. Rumors spread by private (in the sense of non-public), unknown and unauthoritative sources are more likely to be short-lived. The opposite is true for rumors spread by public figures – whether journalists, commentators (“talking heads”) or politicians and political parties. The longest-lasting are rumors that are spread by both private and public sources.
8. It is also important to verify the strength of rumors (approval - disapproval, agreement - disagreement, etc.) by public opinion surveys - they represent an independent check on the success, sustainability, lifestyle and duration of a given rumor.

What to remember

• Perception is reality.
• The limits of our world for our experts, those we trust.
• People know little about what they imagine they can do and govern, governments and political parties know no more.
• A Nobel laureate in economics claims that one of the curious tasks of economics is to show people this fact, but economists rarely do exactly that – very often, as instinctively recognized authorities, they participate in the spread of rumors.
• The same applies to political scientists and political educators. Sociologists were mentioned above.
• “ There are two fundamentally different ways in which man, striving to maintain life, is forced to use to satisfy his desires. These are work and theft, one's own labor and the appropriation of the labor of others” (Franz Oppenheimer).
• Often those who cannot rob, steal (according to Count Nikita Panin).
• “ Everyone loves to be corrupt” (Steve Pejovic).
• “ The more laws, the more bandits” (Lao Tzu).
• The secret to raising money in politics is the promise that they will give money away.
• Competition for privileges and benefits has its opportunity and social cost, which is equal to the cost of securing approval, participation and funding from those who do not “earn” privileges and benefits.
• There is no way for a majority to live long at the expense of a minority, usually the opposite happens (Frédéric Bastiat).
• When I hear "fatherland", "people" and "justice", I understand that someone is going to steal something (after Mikhail Efgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin).
• Any purchase, including that of the vote of voters, with one's own or someone else's money, for oneself or for someone else, is based on the following several normal and regular scenarios (explained by Milton Friedman, another Nobel laureate in economics): 1. with one's own money for oneself = concern for quality and price; 2. with someone else's money for oneself = concern for high quality, indifference to costs; 3. with one's own money for someone else = indifference to quality, concern for costs; 3. with someone else's money for someone else = indifference to both quality and costs. Whichever scenario happens (choose - the one with someone else's money is chosen more often), there is no free lunch.
• " The common folk thought that a man of the people will think about the people because he is a man of the people, and will not look only at himself, precisely because he is a man of the people, can only occur to a man of the people" (Ivo Berov).

Who can benefit from this tool?

In addition to voters, it can benefit:
- The rumor makers,
- Political candidates and leaders of political parties,
- The rumor spreaders mentioned above, but also the so-called trolls.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Krasen Stanchev, Sofia University, one of the founders of the Institute for Market Economics

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