Here's the abstract:
I must admit that when I saw the article for the first time, I assumed it was a spoof. The author is listed as Ron C. Rhodes. The Ron Rhodes that I'm familiar with is the president of Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries, former associate editor of the Christian Research Journal, and author of such classic works as 10 Most Important Things You Can Say to a Mormon and Reasoning with the Scriptures with the Mormons. However, the author of the 14-page Interpreter article "spent many years in the banking and direct sales industries," is the "owner/administrator of the Answering LDS Critics website ["This website will provide verifiable evidence that prominent LDS Critics are flooding social media with misinformation, to intentionally cause a faith crisis and cultivate contempt for the Church"] . . . and associated YouTube channel," served a full-time mission, and "has fulfilled many callings over the years, finding particular joy in teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ," so this Ron Rhodes possesses the necessary credentials to conduct this type of learned financial analysis.With the popularity of social media growing exponentially, prominent critics of the Church are leveraging the platforms, particularly YouTube, as a key resource to produce thousands of negative videos about the Church. The accusations in the videos about Church history, leadership, doctrine, and culture are so numerous that it could take months or even years to research fully, all while the flood of new content continues. It is easy for those exposed to the accusations to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume and, therefore, assume at least some of it must be true. This could place at least some members on a path to a faith crisis. While many members understand the need to seek information from reliable sources to cope with such accusations, for some it may also be of value to consider the financial incentives for the extensive hostile content being created. In this paper the business models and apparent revenue of several influential organizations are considered, which may help explain why the content, especially video content, is being produced in such volume. Financial incentives, of course, do not necessarily call a work into question but can be of interest in seeking to understand behaviors and the relationship between business models and organizational output and success.
Spoiler alert: Brother Rhodes identifies Mormon Stories and Mormon Discussion(s), Inc. as "the primary critics of the Church."
