Trust us, we're experts! : how industry manipulates science and gambles with your future
/ Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber.
- New York : Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002.
- 360 pages ; 21 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.321-354) and index.
The authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! unmask the sneaky and widespread methods industry uses to influence opinion through bogus experts, doctored data, and manufactured facts.
We count on the experts. We count on them to tell us who to vote for, what to eat, how to raise our children. We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read their opinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letters to the editor. We trust them to tell us what to think, because there’s too much information out there and not enough hours in a day to sort it all out.
We should stop trusting them right this second.
In their new book Trust Us, We’re Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, offer a chilling exposé on the manufacturing of “independent experts.”
Public relations firms and corporations know well how to exploit your trust to get you to buy what they have to sell: Let you hear it from a neutral third party, like a professor or a pediatrician or a soccer mom or a watchdog group. The problem is, these third parties are usually anything but neutral. They have been handpicked, cultivated, and meticulously packaged in order to make you believe what they have to say—preferably in an “objective” format like a news show or a letter to the editor. And in some cases, they have been paid handsomely for their “opinions.”
9781585421398
Industrial publicity--Corrupt practices--United States Corporations--Public relations --Corrupt practices--United States Public relations firms--Corrupt practices--United States Public relations consultants--Corrupt practices--United States Expertise--Corrupt practices--United States Endorsements in advertising--Corrupt practices--United States Deceptive advertising--United States Risk perception--United States Consumer protection--United States Business ethics--United States
Bibliography B3 ELEC - Communicating for Influence