Chapter 9 Exercises: Bandwagon, Social Proof, and Manufactured Consensus

Exercise 9.1 — Conceptual Identification

Instructions: For each of the following scenarios, identify the type of manufactured social proof at work (astroturfing, bot amplification, coordinated inauthentic behavior, manufactured polling, spiral of silence) and briefly explain the mechanism.

  1. A pharmaceutical company creates a patient advocacy organization that campaigns for a particular drug's approval, without disclosing the funding relationship on the organization's website or materials.

  2. A political campaign's social media posts consistently receive thousands of likes within minutes of posting, despite the account having a follower count that would not normally generate such rapid engagement.

  3. A news outlet reports that "a new poll shows 68% of voters support the bill," but the poll was commissioned by the bill's primary corporate beneficiary, used question wording that framed opposition as a "tax increase on working families," and surveyed 180 people through an online opt-in panel.

  4. An online forum discussing a proposed housing development is flooded with comments from multiple accounts created within the past week, all expressing opposition using nearly identical language, none of which have any prior posting history.

  5. Following a public statement by a local politician, a region's residents notice that it has become socially uncomfortable to express support for an unpopular policy even in private social gatherings, even though privately many residents agree with it.

Exercise 9.2 — Asch Conditions Analysis

Instructions: Read the following scenarios and, drawing on Asch's conformity research, predict how the degree of social conformity pressure would differ across them. Explain your reasoning by reference to the specific variables Asch's studies identified as significant.

Scenario A: A city council meeting at which seven council members have visibly voted "yes" on a zoning proposal before the final member votes.

Scenario B: The same council meeting, but one of the seven "yes" votes was cast by a council member known for independent, evidence-based reasoning rather than bloc voting.

Scenario C: The same meeting, but votes are cast by secret ballot rather than public show of hands.

Scenario D: A university seminar in which twelve students have all expressed the same interpretation of a historical document before the final student offers their analysis.

Scenario E: The same seminar, but the document is ambiguous enough that multiple interpretations are plausibly defensible.

For each scenario: predict whether conformity pressure is high, moderate, or low; identify which Asch variables are operating; and assess whether any "ally effect" is present.

Exercise 9.3 — Follow the Money

Instructions: This exercise practices the financial disclosure research method for detecting astroturfing.

In the United States, 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations must file IRS Form 990 returns annually. These are publicly available through databases including ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer and the IRS's own Tax Exempt Organization Search.

Part A: Using ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (nonprofits.propublica.org) or a similar tool, look up the Form 990 for one of the following organizations and answer the questions below: - The Heartland Institute - Citizens Against Government Waste - Any national "taxpayers alliance" or "freedom foundation" operating in your state

Questions to answer: 1. What is the organization's stated mission? 2. Who are the listed officers and board members? Do any have backgrounds in specific industries? 3. What were the three largest disclosed donors in the most recent available filing? 4. What is the ratio of disclosed to undisclosed funding (many 501(c)(4)s are not required to disclose donor names)? 5. Based on this information, how would you characterize the relationship between the organization's stated mission and its funding sources?

Part B (written reflection): Write two paragraphs. In the first, explain what the Form 990 data tells you about whether this organization might function as an astroturf group. In the second, explain what it does not tell you — what further information would be needed to make a confident determination?

Exercise 9.4 — Bot Detection Indicators

Instructions: Social media platforms and independent researchers have identified several behavioral indicators associated with bot or coordinated inauthentic accounts. Apply these indicators to the hypothetical account profiles below and assess each on a scale from "likely genuine" to "likely artificial."

Indicators of potential inauthenticity: - Account created very recently (within days or weeks of the activity you are observing) - Posts at times inconsistent with human behavior (e.g., high-volume posting at 3 a.m. local time daily) - Engagement metrics disproportionate to follower count (very high likes relative to followers) - Posting identical or near-identical text across multiple accounts - No personal content — no personal photos, biographical information, or conversations - Following a very large number of accounts with very few followers in return - Engagement focused entirely on political or commercial content with no organic social interaction

Account Profiles:

Profile 1: Created eight days ago. Has 12,000 followers. Posts exclusively about a ballot measure. Posts 40–60 times per day, including between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Retweets 15–20 accounts with similar characteristics. No profile photo.

Profile 2: Created four years ago. Has 850 followers. Posts personal content (food, travel, sports) alongside occasional political commentary. Engagement rate (likes + comments / followers) is approximately 3%. Has a history of conversations with named individuals.

Profile 3: Created six months ago. Has 4,200 followers. Posts exclusively motivational and political content. Engagement rate is 0.2%. Profile photo is a stock image. Follows 11,000 accounts.

Profile 4: Created three weeks ago during a high-profile political controversy. Posts only about that controversy, 20–30 times per day. All posts quote or retweet a small set of four other accounts. No prior posting history.

Instructions: For each profile, identify which indicators are present, assess the likely authenticity, and note any information that would help clarify the assessment.

Exercise 9.5 — Polling Literacy

Instructions: Evaluate the following polling claims using the framework introduced in this chapter.

Claim A: "A new survey finds that 72% of small business owners oppose the minimum wage increase. Small Business United surveyed 500 business owners online."

Questions: Who is Small Business United and who funds it? What population does "small business owners" actually describe — does this survey claim to represent all small businesses nationally? What was the exact question wording? Was the survey conducted online with self-selected respondents? What does a 72% figure mean if the sample is not representative?

Claim B: "According to a Gallup poll, Americans support stricter gun laws by 57% to 34%. The poll surveyed 1,015 adults nationally, with a margin of error of ±4 percentage points."

Questions: What is Gallup's general reputation for methodological rigor? What does "stricter gun laws" mean — did the question specify any particular policy? What is the margin of error's implication for the 57% figure? How does this result compare to other recent polls on the same question?

Claim C: "Polling shows that the incumbent is down 15 points among likely voters, with the challenger now leading 52-37. This poll was released by the challenger's campaign."

Questions: What is the most obvious concern with this claim? What specific methodology information would you want before treating this as reliable evidence? How should campaign-commissioned polls be weighted relative to independent polls?

Written exercise: For each claim, write a one-paragraph assessment of how much weight to give the polling figure as social proof of genuine public opinion, with explanation.

Exercise 9.6 — Spiral of Silence Mapping

Instructions: Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's Spiral of Silence theory predicts that perceived minority opinion status reduces public expression, which further reduces visible prevalence, which further reinforces the minority perception. Apply this theory to a contemporary case.

Choose one of the following scenarios (or propose an alternative with instructor approval):

  • A social policy issue in your campus or community where you have observed that one side of the debate is expressed more publicly than the other
  • A political opinion that seems to be expressed less often on social media than in private conversation
  • A professional or academic context in which certain views seem not to be expressed even by people who privately hold them

Questions to address:

  1. Describe the issue and identify the view that appears to be expressed less publicly than its actual prevalence might suggest.

  2. What evidence do you have about the gap between private belief and public expression? (Consider: private conversations you have had, survey data if available, social media observation)

  3. Apply Noelle-Neumann's spiral mechanism: what are the perceived costs of expressing the minority view publicly? What social, professional, or reputational risks might a person perceive?

  4. What, if anything, would break the spiral — what kind of "ally effect" might reduce the perceived isolation of the minority view and permit more open expression?

  5. Could a bad actor deliberately exploit this spiral? How might manufactured social proof accelerate the spiral in a way that serves a political or commercial interest?

Exercise 9.7 — Inoculation Campaign Application

This exercise is a component of your ongoing Inoculation Campaign project.

Instructions: Apply the six-step Action Checklist from this chapter to a social proof signal you have recently encountered in your target community's media environment. Document the process.

Your documentation should include:

  1. The signal identified: Describe the specific social proof claim or metric you encountered (engagement numbers, claimed consensus, organizational advocacy, polling data, trending status).

  2. Source and methodology assessment: What investigation did you do? What did you find?

  3. Coordination indicators: Did you find evidence of coordination or did none emerge?

  4. The ally test: Were there dissenting voices assessing this signal critically? If so, how credible were they?

  5. Interest alignment: Who benefits if this apparent consensus is accepted as genuine?

  6. Independent content evaluation: Setting aside the social proof signal entirely, how do you evaluate the underlying claim on its own merits?

  7. Overall assessment: Based on this process, characterize the social proof signal as: likely genuine, likely manufactured, uncertain. Explain what additional information would change your assessment.

Submit a 600–900 word written analysis following this structure, to be added to your Inoculation Campaign portfolio.

Exercises for Chapter 9. See the Further Reading list for methodological resources on bot detection, polling evaluation, and financial disclosure research.