People most confident in detecting propaganda are the most susceptible to it.

Evidence

Viewers of television had conditioned themselves to believe that their choices were still their own, whatever commercials might be telling them to do. Having been given cause to think otherwise must have induced a shock of recognition. For as Ellul wrote of propaganda, those most susceptible to it are often those most confident in their skills of detecting it and therefore think themselves immune to its effects. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 520

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures Ellul’s paradox about immunity to propaganda.
• ADDENDUM: Reinforces the attention-economy themes of the grafting article and the reader’s broader surveillance-history project.
• XREF: connects to: People resist updating beliefs even at the cost of accuracy; Polemical claims grow more cautious when examined against actual sources — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1314

Broader Connections

• People resist updating beliefs even at the cost of accuracy #expands (0.75)
• Polemical claims grow more cautious when examined against actual sources #contradicts (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1314