02-12-2007, 09:30 AM
Quote:Videos such as "Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out" and those posted by Lonelygirl15 on You Tube may help sell products or kick-start a budding actor's career. But they also have a more pernicious effect on our tendency to trust what seems genuine.
"I can't see how they don't make people more cynical," says Gillian Watson, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia...
By exploiting our tendency to trust in the veracity of such online videos, it is only a matter of time, says Prof. Watson, before we will dismiss even real events or sincere emotional outpourings as just another buzz-building brand strategy...
full article: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/...b627f4f984&k=45802