Side Effects
A side effect of stirring up the public in this manner comes when an authentic story is dismissed as a prank, or when a superfluous story is taken as legitimate.
A 1950 short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth, titled "The Silly Season," makes use of this concept by having invading aliens stage one strange but harmless event after another. All are duly reported by the newspapers until the public is bored with them, and when a final "strange event" occurs, no one is prepared to accept it as an invasion until it is too late.
Read more about this topic: Silly Season
Famous quotes containing the words side and/or effects:
“Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them—as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)