The Illusory Truth Effect

     When you think of the illusory truth effect, think about the things you see on any media over and over that at first did not seem to be a very believable story or situation until they showed it enough to make people see the truth they wanted to push. There are many sources in the modern society that use this technique and spread lies continuously over time until the narrative they push out is believed. The news is a huge source of this type of behavior and often uses their important stance as a news media to persuade people to believe what they hear because of where they are hearing it. It is an unfortunate use of communication that often is more harmful than helpful. Using the illusory truth effect can be used on children in a way of protecting them from certain things until they are old enough to discuss it, but the political uses for it are far worse and pushing false hope into the citizens of this country. This tactic should not be used in politics or medias to help push people to a side that they may not actually agree with if they knew what the people they vote for are actually pushing to happen. I personally had no idea of this theory of communication but instantly recognized the situations it applies to when I looked deeper into the theory itself. In an article on this theory on mentalhealthathome.org, they explain how in politics they often try to provoke the truth out of the theory by "fact checking" their comments, however, the truth often is just buried further when the questions actually reinforce their false comments to allow for more control on people and making them believe their lies. 

    With this theory being so widely used in the modern society it is very easy for misinformation to take place. Misinformation is a big issue we face now with social medias and so many amateur journalists who speak their own biased views. We need to filter out the misinformation and do what they can to slow the false accusations and news from reaching the public and being so easy to mislead the public. It is easy as a human being to believe a lot of what we see, especially with how often you see the same information over and over. The misinformation is spread so rapidly now with the internet being so widely used and it is often better now to use sources from outside of the country often. The sources looking in from the outside actually focus on the issues and situations our country is in at the current moment and does not use biased opinions to explain the news we want to view. As a caring citizen that wants the truth you can access many great sources on worldly news that will include information you want on our nation and will hopefully allow for better views to see what side or choices are correct for this country. It is also valuable to see the bad things our country does behind our backs and understand some things we need to put to and end and things we need to hold our government accountable for.