Cunningham’s Law and its actualization in the space of modern social communications

Abstract

This article analyzes an unusual and rather curious rule of applied socio–communicative interaction, called «Cunningham’s law». Its essence is to establish the effectiveness of deliberately «stuffing» into offline or online interactive discourse obviously incorrect or controversial information in order to provoke the interlocutor to correct this error and actively engage in dialogue. The primary goal of this publication is to identify the causality and describe the mechanism of action of this law, as well as to determine the optimal areas for its constructive practical application in the space of modern social communications. The issue of socio–psychological and moral–ethical restrictions on the actualization of Cunningham’s law is considered in a special way due to the presence of a pronounced manipulative component in it. In general, the undertaken research is intended to contribute to overcoming the relative lack of knowledge of this communicative phenomenon and to promote the facilitation of everyday, socialite, educational and professional communication between people in various social situations.