John V. Petrocelli & Juliet Jeske Break Down Fox News Clips
A transcript of the bonus podcast episode for paid subscribers.
This is transcript for any paid subscriber who would prefer a print version of my discussion with John V. Petrocelli.
Jeske: Hi, everybody. So this is a kind of an experiment that I wanted to start trying with someone who's been on the podcast before. He wrote a book about bullshit that I really liked. And yes, I don't normally curse on my podcast. It's one of my rules, but bullshit is in the title of his book. It is John Petrocelli. So, I'm going to go ahead and let John Petrocelli describe what he does, and then we'll get into what we're doing today.
Petrocelli: I teach psychology, social psychology at Wake Forest University, and my research area is in social cognition and basic judgment and decision making. But my specialty is in studying the behavior we commonly referred to as bullshitting and trying to understand the the sort of the antecedents and the consequences of the behavior so that we can better detect and protect ourselves of this unwanted social substance.
Jeske: Excellent. So what we're going to do today is I went through and picked and these are kind of evergreen clips, meaning they didn't just happen. These are a little bit older examples from Fox News where I thought they were using very specific techniques in order to mislead, lie, manipulate their audience. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to play the clip. We're going to play the clip in its entirety. This one's about a minute long. And then Petrocelli and I mostly Petrocelli because he's the expert. I'm just the weirdo who watches a lot of Fox will break down sort of how they're manipulating their audience.
“Fox & Friends,” January 5, 2024, Ainsley Earhardt.
“Lawrence I think what if you were out in the community, you're at the diner. I'm curious to hear what they're going to say. I think independents, I think even Democrats are scared for another Biden administration. We have watched what the world how the world has reacted with him as our leader. They aren't afraid of him. We've seen what happened with Russia invading Ukraine. We saw what happened in Israel. We're seeing now China threatening Taiwan. That's going to affect us with our chips. We have to protect Taiwan. What does that mean for us? Will there be another war? We know that that they know that one more year with Biden in this administration and we are all terrified over what that means for our country, not to mention the border. We have probably terrorists coming through over our border. We know that they've caught a lot on the on the terrorist watch list. Those are the ones they've caught. We're all living in fear over this year. So the economy is important and that does matter now.”
Petrocelli: Yeah, it's a classic case of pretty effective fear mongering, actually. It's so it's a deliberate, you know, a rousing of public fear or alarm about a number of issues. And we actually know from the psychological science on this topic that emotion arousing communications or any kind of persuasive message that really plays to people's emotions, such as arousing fears can be very effective at influence and propaganda.
And this is really why a lot of public service ads and advertisements, they often take the approach of scaring people into doing things like wearing seatbelts, practicing safer sex or stopping smoking. But the one thing that's that's clear from the studies is that that the fear that you arouse it must be moderate to effectively influence. It can't it can't be so weak that it fails to grab people's attention, but it can't be too extreme such that it motivates people to just tune out the message altogether.
And so she rattles off quite a few problems that are pretty serious. But I think viewers are probably desensitized to a lot of these things because they hear them all the time. And she I think she does a pretty good job at arousing fear. I mean, she talks about Russia and Ukraine, Israel, China's threat on computer chips, terrorism, the economy.
And the funny thing is, by her tone, I think we're just supposed to assume that each and every one of the issues is trending very badly. Right. And but so I'm I'm just a little paranoid even just listening to her. But she arouses anger by pushing President Joe Biden, you know, as the ipso facto, without question, scapegoat, you know, source of all that is bad in the world.
And one of the that's great for her because that's one of the other things I think that we know from great with great certainty from the science is that appeals to fear and anger. They don't really work very well unless you have some, like readily available instructions to a solution that will ultimately reduce the unwanted emotion like fear or anger.
And she doesn't really do that. But I don't think she has to buy it because whatever the solution is, it absolutely does not involve, you know, voting for Joe Biden or keeping him in the White House any longer. So so there's a moderate amount of fear created and people listening can take the message and it'll teach them how to reduce the fear as long as it doesn't involve Joe Biden.
Jeske: Well, I wanted to point out, I want to point out really quickly one thing that I noticed that it doesn't take away from what you're saying, it's just a little detail, which she was also talking about things that haven't happened yet. She's like, I'm sure that this has happened. I'm sure that there are terrorists in our country now.
So we're just like we're just expanding that universe. We don't have evidence to prove any of that. We don't have data to back any of that up. We're just going to say things like, well, I'm sure I'm sure that there are terrorists in this country. I'm sure that that is happening. And it's sort of like when you when you use that along with it, with an actual real fear, you can just keep expanding and expanding and expanding.
Sean Hannity, who's rumored to be her her boyfriend of sorts, I don't I don't like talking about their personal life, but that is a rumor that's been going on for a few years now. He does the same thing. So it's that whole idea of like, I'm sure that this is happening, but I don't have anything back it up.
And we were talking before we start recording that. One thing that's interesting about and Earhardt is that she does as a vessel of propaganda because she's very, “look, I'm just going to say something and I'm just going to talk and it's just I'm just a little concerned, you know,” in a in a way, she's actually more effective because she sort of sneaks up on you and you don't really realize what she's saying is absolutely horrific.
And, you know, it's like it's it's almost an easier way to take the medicine because she's being this kind of meek. I'm just “I'm just a concerned mom here on and yeah, I know I'm imitating her, but that's what I do. But she's just a concerned mom here on Fox and Friends, just a pretty blond lady in a cute outfit making a comment.”
“We're all going to die,” you know? I mean, I'm kind of kidding, but it's sort of like, what's going on there? It's like, what? And so to go from that one, I'm going to play one because you suggested this and I think it's a great idea. We're going to play a clip by Jesse Watters. It's very similar in tone, totally different messenger.
So he's he's much more overt about this. So here we go. Here's Jesse Watters. This one is also about a minute long. This one is from February. Not that it really matters because this is this is about the border, which I would say without hesitation is very much an evergreen topic on Fox News.
“Jesse Watters Primetime,” February 6, 2024, Jesse Watters
“Of compassion and vulture economics. The assault on America is being orchestrated by the sadomasochism left and executives who are shielded from the pain. The ruling class just sees dollar signs. Now, the corporations who control Congress feast on low wage workers and are insulated from the collateral damage We get from carpet bombing counties with caravans. The working man feels the impact on their neighborhoods, schools and streets. Quality of life goes down. Taxes will have to go up. Use your common sense. If you bring in millions of Third world men in their teens and twenties from underdeveloped countries, many of them violent countries, most of them unskilled, uneducated. They come here sponsored by cartels and make their way into our neighborhoods. A percentage of these men will move into street crime. They'll stick together and fly under the radar and metastasize.”
Petrocelli: It's not the concerned mother, you know, it's Yeah. I mean who wouldn't trust a concerned mother. I mean that's, that's one of the things that makes propaganda so influential is that people, if you can increase trust, then you can increase the influence.
But what I just couldn't get past the very beginning when he refers to the left as sadomasochism. Yeah. And and executives who are shielded from the pain. I'm not really sure whom he's referring to there, but. But sadomasochism is involved involves getting sexual pleasure from hurting other people and from being hurt by other. Yeah. So I don't I wasn't really sure where it was going with that.
But I guess the his definition of the left is just expanding. But this is yeah, it's just another use of language to influence the interpretation and beliefs about what's really going on in our world. And I think this yeah, this clip really comes full circle with, with Ainsley Earhardt’s fear mongering tactics.
But it's just, it's just another example of it and how it can be done. But he seems to know exactly, you know, what is happening, what's going on as if these things weren't happening before. And you'd mentioned the sort of the certainty though, especially in Ainsley's tone, because she actually slips in. She says it's not only conservatives who are concerned with this.
She also it's also liberals. It's also Democrats who are concerned. And so I think she was actually a little more effective than Jesse Watters. And she actually had she pointed out other issues and he's got the videos playing as well. So, he's he's trying to show you anecdotal evidence. And that works, too. I think she worked more on the sort of the the the false consensus or the portrayal of of consensus, because that's actually one of the first things that can increase people's feelings of the certainty of the opinion or attitude.
Jeske: I would agree with that. I think to the words that I wrote down, because I remember when I saw this the first time my tweet about it was just a list of the crazy words in it. I didn't really write much. I just went Sadomasochistic, feast. That's a very specific verb - feast. You know, like if you're consuming your eating and then on other human beings, carpet bombing, then taxes go up. Common sense, which is used all the time on the far right where they just say it's common sense, just, you know, duh, that kind of let's dumb everything down and just say these people are evil. It's common sense. It's common sense is is if you don't need to think, unskilled, uneducated, meaning they're lesser, then he says street crime.
And then finally he, you know, just assumes they're going to go to street crime, not just crime, but street crime, which is personal and scary, where you go to a stranger and you hurt them. And then he uses the term metastasized as if it's a cancer.
I don't think he wrote that.
I think somebody on his staff wrote that is I don't think he has the intellectual capacity. I use that term so many times with him. I've said when people say, well, do you think he meant that I go, I do not think that Jesse Watters has the intellectual capacity and then I'll just explain whatever. I don't think he gets satire because somebody said once, do you think he's kidding?
Do you think that's like satire? I said, no, no, no, no. He does not have the intellectual capacity for satire. He's not very bright.
Petrocelli: And yet, as you reminded everyone before, he has he has noted that himself several times.
Jeske: He just did it last night. He did last night on his show. He just said somebody else said, but you're intelligent. You said, no, actually, I'm not intelligent. And I was like, like at least you have self awareness. Like, I have self awareness that I'm a complete and utter nerd and will tell will enter a conversation and say stupid stuff like, you know, and in the Middle Ages, you know, what they used to do and people just stare at me like, Wait, why is this woman talking?
And then I'm like, I'm going to go,
Petrocelli: Yeah, yeah. My my guess. My guess is that he actually watches himself after recordings and he probably figures out, yeah, some of that was stupid.
Jeske: Well, and he probably has gotten that note his whole life. Like, I, he has a degree in history and I mentioned that once and people who had degrees in history got offended. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean that as an insult to history majors. I'm baffled that he has a degree in history that's just meant by it. I'm baffled that he he made it through college. I, I don't know how I mean, anyway, so let's move on to this one I thought was very interesting because it's short it's.
Gutfeld talking about abortion also from late January and it's more more about the tone and the way he uses the word abortion. So
“The Five,” January 29, 2024, Greg Gutfeld and Jessica Tarlov
“Regarding Taylor Swift. Jessica, on a scale of 1 to 10. What do you think she's going to do? Will she endorse him or not?” Gutfeld asked.
“I'm going with at 9.5. really? Yeah, I think so. Because for her and she expressed that there was a documentary about her where she was talking about her decision to get involved in politics. And her father raised some of the issues that you just said. She said, It's too important to me the issues that are on the ballot now and the danger that Marsha Blackburn's agenda poses to people, especially folks who would be my fans. Her core demo is Women in their thirties. It's not young Gen Zers, but millennial women like myself on the younger end of the millennial scale,” said Tarlov.
“What was the issue that was so important to them? Abortion? ” asked Gutfeld.
“Abortion,” said Tarlov. “Abortion. You don't have to whisper it. Abortion is a really big issue and it matters a lot to women on both sides of the aisle.”
“Now, just wanted to make it clear that all because people always say women's issues, but they never say abortion. So she did it for abortion,” Gutfeld said putting extra emphasis on the word - abortion.
“Right, also known as reproductive freedom, also known as it’s none of your business. What I do with my body,”
As she spoke Gutfeld interrupted her while he smugly shook his head, “whatever euphemism you choose, whatever euphemism you want.”
Petrocelli: Yeah. So, Jessica Tarlov, she she's the first to use what I guess is labeled the harsh word abortion to label a major issue rather than the alternative like reproductive freedom, which she does sneak in there. And then there's I find it odd there was this pause and you can see Gutfeld is kind of stewing for a moment, and then he decides to capitalize on it and highlight Tarlov's use of the word abortion.
Yeah, but he also rather condescendingly right after that, tries to paint the picture that like, no one ever uses that word as some intentional way to kind of skirt the importance of the issue. And this is actually this this kind of tactic is sometimes people will bring up the the what's called the linguistic relativity hypothesis. And this is a very old idea that the sort of like the structure of language, it determines the speaker's worldview and their mental processes, you know, and an individual language is then determined or shaped how we think about the world.
And it's quite well known in the cognitive science and the literature that this hypothesis is actually false. But but that that doesn't stop people from actually trying to shape what other people think by use of their language. And we know that, you know, although language doesn't determine like the language we use, doesn't determine how we think, it certainly influences what we think and how we interpret something.
So so language, it affects memory. We know that, too. It it and the recall of events. There was a scientist, this experimental psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, She showed many years ago that if you and I, we were to watch the same video of a car accident, for instance, and she asked me how fast the cars were moving when they hit each other.
But she asked you how fast were the cars moving when they slammed into each other? You you will likely recall the cars moving significantly faster than I do, and you will be more likely to recall there being broken glass or maybe serious injuries than I would be. So for a language that it hasn't an effect, It doesn't have to be immediate. The influence can show up later. And this is what often happens with with language. Like you might not accept it initially or you might think, okay, this, you know, I can blow off the the unwanted effects of something initially. I don't like the word or using or I do like the word they're using. And it can plant a seed later when you recall the event or you call the topic, you might be more likely to use those words now.
Jeske: Do think it's interesting too, with the whole pro-life, pro-choice, you're basically saying are you say anti anti-life, anti-choice, you know, depending on how you want to frame it. And I'm a big believer in if somebody says they're pro-life, I just call them pro-life. And then people get mad at me because they're like, no, you're supposed to say anti-choice and like, but they identify as pro-life. So what? I mean, I don't view the language as being that important. But I will say one of the things that are many, many abortion activists will call themselves pro-abortion and do not apologize for it. So I thought his bizarre attack on her when he was trying to use abortion as if it was a dirty word to a true believer in reproductive rights, It's just going to be like deflect because they don't care.
They're like, Yeah, it's abortion. What's your point? And when I did post that on social media, especially from pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro reproductive rights people, they said the exact same thing. They were just like, I don't know what he thinks he's trying to accomplish there, because we don't see any shame in abortion because it's not like he views it as it's a baby in your room and that you, you know, you kill it, you're murdering.
And many people would say it's a clump of cells. It's two months old. It's, you know, I was brutalized. I'm being stalked by my ex-boyfriend. You know, I, I was told by my doctor, it's not viable. All the things that you know, all the other things that go along with abortion that a person would say, I've got three kids, I cannot handle another one.
My husband just left me all the things that, you know, all the horrible things, all the tragic reasons why women have abortions. And then sometimes they just have abortions because they're not ready to be a mother. You know, it's just a whole slew of things that you don't know anything about. So why, as an outsider, do you have such strong feelings about a stranger's choices with a pregnancy?
You know, so that's why he viewed it as this sort of I got I'm going to get her because she used the term abortion and I'm going to use that as a weapon. But it's not a very effective one, because I think for people who already view it as reproductive rights, that's going to be just deaf ears. You know, we're just going to be like, I don't really know what you're talking about.
So I just also find him as a commentator on Fox to be very interesting because I could give you we won't do it today because of time, but I could go through a whole we could do a psychoanalysis of Greg Gutfeld. Not that I want to I don't worry. I don't want to. But he uses emotion a lot and weirdly takes things kind of personally and like a bully, He's a very, very thin skinned person who cannot handle criticism.
But yet he throws it out all the time like he's called the women on ‘The View,” whales. He talks about their weight all the time. He says they're unattractive all the time. He's absolutely vicious towards them. And then if he's criticized even slightly, he flips out. So it's like, you know, classic bully, classic bully, because he a friend of mine who's not Christian, tweeted about him on Easter and he got all bent out of shape like, how dare you tweet about me on Easter?
Are you shouldn't you be with your family? And like you might want to check her last name because it's Muslim buddy.
Petrocelli: Yeah it's it's a lot of yeah he does a lot of grandstanding. Yeah but yeah I find him I find him to be one of the more obnoxious but he does sort a he does remind me a lot of of how Jay Leno used to act on his late night show any. I mean, it's his job to make fun of all of the guests. Right. And and people who are not even on the show but the moment somebody turned it around on him, you know, you'd have this, yeah, really like this, this flushed face. And he would be, like, really uncomfortable with somebody with it. Could you ever take it? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen the same thing with Gutfeld. It's like.
Jeske: He can’t handle it. He can’t be criticized. And how dare anybody criticize him? And I'm like, okay, you have a job on television. I think you need to get used to this because it's kind of part of your gig. Before I play this clip, Hannity makes, just for context, $35 million a year. Okay. Yeah, I know. Because in addition, I know when even even even people who work in broadcast news are like, “WHAT?” Because that's just great so much more than anybody else. In addition to his show on Fox, also for reference, he has a three hour radio show that's part of the whole Fox Media universe. So that's part of the reason why he's paid so much. But here we go. This is Hannity on the richest 1%.
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