Speaker theme: Hypes  & Scares

Communication managers do often implicitly refer to rather mechanistic models of persuasion and opinion. Every now and then, however, they are suddenly overwhelmed by extremely disproportionate public and media reactions. In fads and crazes, hypes and scares, crises and scandals. In order to understand what is going on there, we need a much more profound understanding of the mysterious fields of mass psychology and collective behaviour sociology.

More under books:

2003 Collective behavior and public opinion/ Brein-bevingen

2013 Mood contagion/ Het enthousiasme virus

2008 The battle over public opinion/ Strijden om de publieke opinie

+ Training game: 4 different stakeholders in an evolving issue have to develop communication strategies under pressure, but every 10 minutes, the situation changes