Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Truth and Consensus
This morning on NPR I heard a segment that reminded me that the major media outlets still have an important role to fill, even if they are not always successful in doing so. The piece was an analysis of the struggle going on in defense strategy circles regarding the balance between the physical war on terror and the battle for hearts and minds, particularly with regard to the situation in Iraq. The reporting was truly balanced, giving a fair amount of time to a number of perspectives, including the position, taken by a number of the Administration’s advisors and many in the military, that what some would cast as a “battle of ideas” is actually “a test of will,” that will be decided entirely on the battlefield.
This is not a defense of the mass media in general, and it is certainly not a defense of NPR in particular, which often skews hopelessly to the left. What it is, is a suggestion that, as much there may be real benefit to society from the development of “the people’s media” in the form of the blogosphere, something will certainly be lost if we are not able to develop and sustain a few mass media outlets that can provide us with deeper, non-partisan analysis of complex issues. What was so striking to me about the segment this morning was that there was no manipulation of the terms of the debate. The reporter provided context without inserting weighted language intended to promote one position over others.
It seems to me that it is overly optimistic to assume that the emergence of the blogosphere will improve the objectivity of the mass media. Instead, there is a great deal of evidence that the blogosphere provides partisans tremendous leverage to manipulate the terms of the discussion. So far, the right has had much greater traction in this endeavor than the left has, but there is no particular reason to believe that this will continue. The longer the right remains in power, the more adept the left will become at attacking it from the grassroots.
The most troubling result of the “capture” of the mass media by partisans is that it becomes increasingly difficult to build national consensus on any issue. The political scientist Robert Dahl argues that the only real guarantor of democracy is a culture imbued with a certain degree of intellectual and moral homogony. In other words, democracy requires that a majority of citizens agree about more than they disagree about, so that we can operate within the context of consensus world-view. It is impossible to achieve this if we are never able to reach consensus on the basic facts - aka “the truth” - and it is impossible to reach consensus about the truth if we continue down the path towards getting our information only from partisan sources.
- posted by Simon Marcus @ Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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A great response, which I don't have time to reply to at the moment, but will get to tonight.
One quick comment, if I suggested that partisan=inaccurate, I didn't mean to. One might even argue that my point is that accuracy is not as important as consensus.
One quick comment, if I suggested that partisan=inaccurate, I didn't mean to. One might even argue that my point is that accuracy is not as important as consensus.
Dani:
Unfortunately it looks like I will never find the time to give your response the attention it deserves, so I thought that I better respond to this before it disappears to far down the page.
By no means did I intend to gloss over the fact that the blogosphere has created a discussion where before there was none, I took that as a given, and a positive one at that. My questions are these: 1) what is the impact of that discussion on national cohesion, especially if 2) most of the discussion occurs on partisan terms.
Nor did I intentionally equate partisan with inaccurate. In point of fact, I do think that partisan blogs tend to be less accurate then the mass media for a number of reasons, but I am not objecting to the inaccuracy per se, I am more concerned about what it means that roughly half of the politically engaged population is getting more and more of their information from one-sided sources and less and less of us are ever going to consider a situation from the other sides perspective. Being an unabashed elitist (as were the founding fathers, who took great pains to make it clear that the system that there were devising was intended to be stewarded by elites), I am also very concerned about what it means that the mass media is no longer looked to as a sort of arbiter of national consensus.
To be clear, I am not even attacking partisanship. I have really been focusing lately on the work of two thinkers: Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom (you might have noticed that I am considering everything through the prism of these two guys lately). Lindblom wrote an awesome book called The Intelligence of Democracy in which he argues against formalism (rule of law theory, constitutionalism, etc) on the grounds that something he calls Partisan Mutual Adjustment is more efficient and effective and is more likely to maintain a democratic system. To radically oversimplify, Lindblom, who is an economist by training, applies the theory of the free market to politics. Individuals engaging in the political sphere in order to achieve their own goals should be left alone to pursue those goals as much as possible, on the grounds that the interplay of these self-interested players is more likely to achieve a satisfactory outcome then the machinations of any overarching power.
I think that Lindblom would probably welcome the development of the people’s media as yet another location for partisan mutual adjustment to occur, and since I agree with the general outlines of the theory, I can’t argue that the development of the blogosphere is all bad (that, plus, I started a blog). Its not partisanship itself that concerns me, its what it means in the context of information gathering by individual actors.
The only reason I care about the impact of the blogosphere on the mass media is within the larger context of what the blogosphere is doing to our larger political culture. Essentially, we are all imposing a permanent condition of asymmetrical information on ourselves, and I don’t think that is very healthy. You state that most bloggers get their information from the mainstream media, but I think that this is becoming less and less true. I think that the blogosphere is becoming ever more self reverential, especially as more bloggers (like the fellows from ratherbiased) actually take it upon themselves to become investigative reporters.
I don’t share your comfort level with the way in which the blogosphere is exercising its leverage within the political sphere. I general, I think that you give bloggers to much credit. Bloggers share the same motivations as editors and writers from the mass media, namely, money, power and attention. Why should I believe that the name of their game is “accuracy” and not “a dubious veneer objectivity?” In fact I would argue that there are many reasons why we should assume that bloggers will be less accurate and less objective then representatives of the mass media. Bloggers are subject to fewer internal controls and external influences that would tend to mitigate towards a higher quality output. They are subject to no fact checkers, editors, or rules of reporting (of course, you will argue that all of those factors didn’t save the Tiffany Network from Dan Rather or the Old Grey Lady from Jason Blair, but I think that those are exceptions that prove the rule.) Additionally, mass media outlets (at least most of them) have to achieve a certain level of objectivity to maintain the support of their readership, stakeholders and advertisers.
I wish it were true that that influence of a blogger is prescribed only by the quality of his writing, but I don’t think you thought that statement through with your usual laser like clarity. Muddle-headed idiots have been successfully convincing lots of people to think and do stupid things since the beginning of time, and they have rarely been limited by their fluency with their language of choice. Blogging is a “hot” medium – as hot as it gets. Bloggers have influence through their ability to disseminate information widely and quickly. The more sensational the information, the faster and more quickly it will disseminate. The more it appeals to and confirms the biases of an interested minority, the more quickly and widely it will be disseminated.
Phew, I am out of time. Sorry for the lack of cohesion.
SM
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Unfortunately it looks like I will never find the time to give your response the attention it deserves, so I thought that I better respond to this before it disappears to far down the page.
By no means did I intend to gloss over the fact that the blogosphere has created a discussion where before there was none, I took that as a given, and a positive one at that. My questions are these: 1) what is the impact of that discussion on national cohesion, especially if 2) most of the discussion occurs on partisan terms.
Nor did I intentionally equate partisan with inaccurate. In point of fact, I do think that partisan blogs tend to be less accurate then the mass media for a number of reasons, but I am not objecting to the inaccuracy per se, I am more concerned about what it means that roughly half of the politically engaged population is getting more and more of their information from one-sided sources and less and less of us are ever going to consider a situation from the other sides perspective. Being an unabashed elitist (as were the founding fathers, who took great pains to make it clear that the system that there were devising was intended to be stewarded by elites), I am also very concerned about what it means that the mass media is no longer looked to as a sort of arbiter of national consensus.
To be clear, I am not even attacking partisanship. I have really been focusing lately on the work of two thinkers: Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom (you might have noticed that I am considering everything through the prism of these two guys lately). Lindblom wrote an awesome book called The Intelligence of Democracy in which he argues against formalism (rule of law theory, constitutionalism, etc) on the grounds that something he calls Partisan Mutual Adjustment is more efficient and effective and is more likely to maintain a democratic system. To radically oversimplify, Lindblom, who is an economist by training, applies the theory of the free market to politics. Individuals engaging in the political sphere in order to achieve their own goals should be left alone to pursue those goals as much as possible, on the grounds that the interplay of these self-interested players is more likely to achieve a satisfactory outcome then the machinations of any overarching power.
I think that Lindblom would probably welcome the development of the people’s media as yet another location for partisan mutual adjustment to occur, and since I agree with the general outlines of the theory, I can’t argue that the development of the blogosphere is all bad (that, plus, I started a blog). Its not partisanship itself that concerns me, its what it means in the context of information gathering by individual actors.
The only reason I care about the impact of the blogosphere on the mass media is within the larger context of what the blogosphere is doing to our larger political culture. Essentially, we are all imposing a permanent condition of asymmetrical information on ourselves, and I don’t think that is very healthy. You state that most bloggers get their information from the mainstream media, but I think that this is becoming less and less true. I think that the blogosphere is becoming ever more self reverential, especially as more bloggers (like the fellows from ratherbiased) actually take it upon themselves to become investigative reporters.
I don’t share your comfort level with the way in which the blogosphere is exercising its leverage within the political sphere. I general, I think that you give bloggers to much credit. Bloggers share the same motivations as editors and writers from the mass media, namely, money, power and attention. Why should I believe that the name of their game is “accuracy” and not “a dubious veneer objectivity?” In fact I would argue that there are many reasons why we should assume that bloggers will be less accurate and less objective then representatives of the mass media. Bloggers are subject to fewer internal controls and external influences that would tend to mitigate towards a higher quality output. They are subject to no fact checkers, editors, or rules of reporting (of course, you will argue that all of those factors didn’t save the Tiffany Network from Dan Rather or the Old Grey Lady from Jason Blair, but I think that those are exceptions that prove the rule.) Additionally, mass media outlets (at least most of them) have to achieve a certain level of objectivity to maintain the support of their readership, stakeholders and advertisers.
I wish it were true that that influence of a blogger is prescribed only by the quality of his writing, but I don’t think you thought that statement through with your usual laser like clarity. Muddle-headed idiots have been successfully convincing lots of people to think and do stupid things since the beginning of time, and they have rarely been limited by their fluency with their language of choice. Blogging is a “hot” medium – as hot as it gets. Bloggers have influence through their ability to disseminate information widely and quickly. The more sensational the information, the faster and more quickly it will disseminate. The more it appeals to and confirms the biases of an interested minority, the more quickly and widely it will be disseminated.
Phew, I am out of time. Sorry for the lack of cohesion.
SM
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