In The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal looks at a study from Cornell researcher Jeffrey Hancock. The study examines what situations are prone to make people more or less likely to lie.
Madrigal argues that the structure of most TV news “hits” would provide a good opportunity for lying.
It seems as if you’re just talking into a camera — not all the people watching the video feed — which can actually have some other strange effects on your behavior. “We see this with stuff like Girls Gone Wild, where women do these things that they would never be caught doing normally,” Hancock said. “You’d think the camera would make people wary, but it actually primed the performative sense.”
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If it is true that some technological systems encourage truth-telling or others discourage it, we should redesign this system. Why make it easier for pundits of all types to lie?
You can read his whole argument here.