Trump Lessons Part 3: Voters & Prospect Theory

NB: This post was first published in another blog and imported into this one. Please forgive any formatting issues. This concept from Behavioral Economics is important in understanding why Trump won. Simply put, prospect theory posits that individuals are risk averse when facing favourable prospects but are more accepting of risks when faced with losses. In the case … Continue reading Trump Lessons Part 3: Voters & Prospect Theory

Trump Lessons Part 1: picking your battles

NB: This post was published in a previous blog and imported into this one. Please forgive any formatting issues. The problem from a political campaigning perspective with the type of handwringing articles we’ve seen about Trump’s sexism and racism is that they focus on the wrong thing. This happens in Sri Lankan politics too. In … Continue reading Trump Lessons Part 1: picking your battles

Strict fathers, Trump and Appachchi

NB: This post was published in a previous blog and imported into this one. please forgive any formatting issues. These were very intriguing articles quoting George Lakoff (one of the great thought leaders on political communication) about the influence on voters of moral frameworks and perceptions of parenting. He describes the two models as “strict … Continue reading Strict fathers, Trump and Appachchi

Experts, framing & communication

NB: This post was published in a previous blog and imported into this one. Please forgive any formatting issues. “Not only were we facing the British establishment in the government, we also, in some ways, took on the world establishment because all these heads of government [including Obama] were coming out to say that Britain … Continue reading Experts, framing & communication

Unscaling political parties and disintermediation

Unscaling was not a  phrase I was familiar with in a political context, though the basic principle is certainly well known: conventional business paradigms are being disrupted by technology.  To unscale refers to the specific act of “dismantling all large-scale, vertically integrated, mass-market institutions”. I have been writing about the disintermediation effect that we are … Continue reading Unscaling political parties and disintermediation

Media disintermediation and priming in politics

NB: This post was published in a previous blog and imported into this one. Please forgive any formatting issues. Having posted earlier on the way agenda setting and priming have functioned in the US Presidential Primaries, I thought it useful to take a look at how social media affects this process, focusing on the impact of … Continue reading Media disintermediation and priming in politics

Agenda Setting in Trump’s Triumph – Politics, Policy & Media

A note about one of the many things that struck me while observing the Republican primaries. I thought it an interesting exercise to evaluate this using the agenda setting marketing theory. Agenda-setting theory describes the “ability [of the news media] to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda.” Using this, it is apparent … Continue reading Agenda Setting in Trump’s Triumph – Politics, Policy & Media