“The particular emotions that we need to unlock
are arousal emotions, we’re talking anger,
excitement, pride, fear,” Guerin told a center-
right political conference after the election.
He said winning “the battle of the thumbs”
required frequent posts and varied means —
videos, memes and more — to drive home the
same core message.
“It’s an arms race for who can dominate the
news feed,” he said.
In their first TV debate of the election on Tuesday,
Johnson and Corbyn attacked each other’s
policies on Brexit, health care and the economy.
But the debate likely failed to answer the
question that has dogged the campaign: Who
can voters trust? The two leaders sidestepped
tricky questions about their own policies in the
hourlong encounter and drew derisive laughter
from the studio audience at several points.
Both Johnson and Corbyn are trying to
overcome a mountain of mistrust as they try to
win over a Brexit-weary electorate.
Johnson is under fire for failing to deliver on his
often-repeated vow that Britain would leave the
European Union on Oct. 31. Audience members
laughed when he urged voters, “Look what I
have said I’m going to do as a politician and look
what I’ve delivered.”
Corbyn, a stolid socialist, is accused by critics
of promoting high-tax policies and of failing to
clamp down on anti-Semitism within his party.
His refusal to say which side he would be on
in a Brexit referendum was met with hoots of
laughter when he suggested his position was
perfectly clear.