How many Trump administration executive orders, policy announcements, or social media blasts have you heard about this week? Can you even begin to name them all? U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration have been said to engage in a strategy called “flooding the zone”—releasing a great deal of information with the goal of distracting the media and the public. (Almost certainly, they are not the only politicians to do this. For example, Boris Johnson’s London mayoral campaigns were said to use the “dead cat strategy,” shocking the public with an announcement to distract them from news they preferred they not see.)

The U.S. political application of this term, which was borrowed from the name of a tactic used in American football, can be traced to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who said, “All we have to do is flood the zone...Every day we hit [the media] with three things. They'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang.” Flooding the zone might work as a political strategy, but it takes a psychological toll on media consumers. For example, polls show that 65% of U.S. adults have felt the need to reduce........

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