{"id":278359,"date":"2010-02-04T17:45:51","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.35389"},"modified":"2010-02-04T17:37:59","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:37:59","slug":"the-mainstream-media-needs-hyperbole-to-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/278359","title":{"rendered":"The Mainstream Media Needs Hyperbole to Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the Internet subverting democracy? Robert Wright makes the case<\/a> (via Andrew Sullivan):<\/p>\n

\n

The division of readers and viewers into demographically and
\nideologically discrete micro-audiences makes it easy for interest
\ngroups to get scare stories (e.g. “death panels”) to the people most
\nlikely to be terrified by them. Then pollsters barrage legislators with
\nthe views of constituents who, having been barraged by these stories,
\nhave little idea what’s actually in the bills that outrage them.\n<\/p>\n

It’s no exaggeration to say that technology has subverted the
\noriginal idea of America.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He goes on: <\/p>\n

\n

The founders explicitly rejected direct
\ndemocracy — in which citizens vote on every issue — in favor of
\nrepresentative democracy. The idea was that legislators would convene
\nat a safe remove from voters and, thus insulated from the din of narrow
\ninterests and widespread but ephemeral passions, do what was in the
\nlong-term interest of their constituents and of the nation. Now
\ninformation technology has stripped away the insulation that physical
\ndistance provided back when information couldn’t travel faster than a
\nhorse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that the Internet lowers the barrier to creating information
\nand allows easy access to that information, which helps
\n“micro-audiences” cocoon themselves in corners of the Web. The
\nfragmentation of the Internet
\nallows different groups to create, and live in, their own “split”
\nrealities, as I’ve written<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But here’s the rub.<\/p>\n

[Be forewarned: The rest of this piece has nothing to do with
\nObama’s health care plan, it’s just general thoughts about technology
\nand the media… OK, proceed!]<\/i> <\/p>\n

Wright is interested in how scare stories in one corner of the
\nInternet become national news stories. He blames technology and
\npollsters. I’ll blame the media. The media likes to give hyperbolic
\nstatements both a platform and a panning. But statements like Sarah
\nPalin’s “death panels” and Joe Wilson’s “you lie” seem to provide the
\nonly avenue for mainstream media to discuss issues like Medicare cuts
\nand insurance for immigrants. Before mention of death panels,
\nthere was no national conversation about cuts to Medicare. After death panels<\/i>, talking heads faced off on the issue every night for a month.<\/p>\n

Last year I wrote a blog post called How Joe Wilson, Sarah Palin Killed the Health Care Debate<\/a>. I wrote: “Just as Sarah Palin’s death-panel blathering obscures what should be a
\nsubstantive debate over how to cut Medicare costs without harming
\nservices, Joe Wilson’s locker-room shout-out caricatures the real
\ncontroversy about health care for illegal immigrants.” Regular commenter John Thacker objected:<\/p>\n

\n

Quite frankly, this is completely untrue. The media ignored the
\n“real controversy” until Joe Wilson’s screaming…\n <\/p>\n

No one pays attention to reasonable criticism. Only hyperbole.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maybe we’re both right. What if hyperbole eclipses honest debate in the mainstream media precisely because<\/i>
\nthere is no mainstream media debate outside the shadow of hyperbole?
\nWhat if complicated issues like Medicare inflation and immigrant care
\nare doomed to loiter outside our attention until some controversial and
\nseductive comment — “Death Panels!”; “You Lie!” — turns them into a
\nnational fixation? It’s our fault, too.

\n

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\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}