Persona management - are you for real?

It sounds like something out of 1999’s Watchowski brothers’ film The Matrix. This being the utilisation of software programs to create credible personas to walk among us and have outspoken opinions that might persuade us into believing that this is widespread in our online, ‘plugged in’ reality.

Computer programs called 'agents' from The Matrix

In 2012, George Monbiot says that the use of persona management software is a common tool used by companies, lobby groups and politicians involved in online astroturfing.  You can read more about how this software actually works here. 

Whilst the concept of a rent-a-crowd in PR and marketing is not a new one, our online performances of everyday activities such as simple information gathering to household purchases makes this practice more intrusive. Persona management software programs have been developed to leave a digital footprint of an online life and they help in further blurring the distinction between the real and the unreal online. No wonder media panics regarding authenticity and the web continue with plenty of fuel. (This includes headlines such as this!) 

Our group is in the early stages of investigation of this topic and it presents a myriad of salient issues regarding the difficulty in ascertaining authenticity online, which I believe is the key anxiety underlying the practice of astroturfing.

One of the proposed activities I am particularly excited about is our own ‘astroturf yourself’ campaign, in which we might conduct our own tongue-in-cheek demonstration of how easy it is to fake a grass roots support of any idea or product in order to draw attention to its prevalence online. Our social media strategy, which will be the second part of my blog next week, will also seek to engage our readers in spotting astroturfing online and hopefully might result in an anti-astroturfing community.