Pretend you have one hour to convince a random normie that the mainstream media is propaganda rather than a collection of well-meaning, objective journalists who sometimes get it wrong but overall try to deliver fair and accurate reporting.
If you fail, you die.
What's your approach?
It's a stupid hypothetical for several reasons but I'm very interested in this topic and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, so I'll ask for a pass on the overly dramatic scenario.
I'm guessing the most common response will be, "It won't work no matter what you do", and fwiw I think that's correct. But for the small group who can be reasoned with, what do you think is the optimal approach?
Loose plan:
Find out what they know about the world and what their mental model is. Eg is the news real because journalists are on the scene, or because they have "credentials" or because it's checked by editors so the multiple layers give it "truthiness"
Dismantle those pre suppositions and then get them to state and verbally take the position that it's not as real as it was at the start of the session.
Then move onto asking them what would make something "true" and get them to think about the issue and rebuild a new mental model. Once they've done this recompare their new model to what exists and highlight the gulf between reality and their new mental model.
Reinforce the primacy of their new mental model by comparing the thought they've put into that, compared to the model that had before that had no thought into it and was given to them by the media. Which they now know is propaganda. This is to prevent backsliding.
Praise them for thinking through an issue and creating a new model from scratch as most people aren't able to do that.