Is the Internet subverting democracy? Robert Wright makes the case (via Andrew Sullivan):
The division of readers and viewers into demographically and
ideologically discrete micro-audiences makes it easy for interest
groups to get scare stories (e.g. “death panels”) to the people most
likely to be terrified by them. Then pollsters barrage legislators with
the views of constituents who, having been barraged by these stories,
have little idea what’s actually in the bills that outrage them.It’s no exaggeration to say that technology has subverted the
original idea of America.
He goes on:
The founders explicitly rejected direct
democracy — in which citizens vote on every issue — in favor of
representative democracy. The idea was that legislators would convene
at a safe remove from voters and, thus insulated from the din of narrow
interests and widespread but ephemeral passions, do what was in the
long-term interest of their constituents and of the nation. Now
information technology has stripped away the insulation that physical
distance provided back when information couldn’t travel faster than a
horse.
It’s true that the Internet lowers the barrier to creating information
and allows easy access to that information, which helps
“micro-audiences” cocoon themselves in corners of the Web. The
fragmentation of the Internet
allows different groups to create, and live in, their own “split”
realities, as I’ve written.
But here’s the rub.
[Be forewarned: The rest of this piece has nothing to do with
Obama’s health care plan, it’s just general thoughts about technology
and the media… OK, proceed!]
Wright is interested in how scare stories in one corner of the
Internet become national news stories. He blames technology and
pollsters. I’ll blame the media. The media likes to give hyperbolic
statements both a platform and a panning. But statements like Sarah
Palin’s “death panels” and Joe Wilson’s “you lie” seem to provide the
only avenue for mainstream media to discuss issues like Medicare cuts
and insurance for immigrants. Before mention of death panels,
there was no national conversation about cuts to Medicare. After death panels, talking heads faced off on the issue every night for a month.
Last year I wrote a blog post called How Joe Wilson, Sarah Palin Killed the Health Care Debate. I wrote: “Just as Sarah Palin’s death-panel blathering obscures what should be a
substantive debate over how to cut Medicare costs without harming
services, Joe Wilson’s locker-room shout-out caricatures the real
controversy about health care for illegal immigrants.” Regular commenter John Thacker objected:
Quite frankly, this is completely untrue. The media ignored the
“real controversy” until Joe Wilson’s screaming…No one pays attention to reasonable criticism. Only hyperbole.
Maybe we’re both right. What if hyperbole eclipses honest debate in the mainstream media precisely because
there is no mainstream media debate outside the shadow of hyperbole?
What if complicated issues like Medicare inflation and immigrant care
are doomed to loiter outside our attention until some controversial and
seductive comment — “Death Panels!”; “You Lie!” — turns them into a
national fixation? It’s our fault, too.
