Communication Making The World Less Tolerant

angkor writes "Interesting NY Times magazine article with a contrarian viewpoint: "In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place." " Reg. required blah blah - but the point the author makes is interesting - what if all the hubbaloo about connecting people via the Internet makes us less likely to like each other?

Comments

TV and the Internet

[56ker]

"global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place." - only because by the time people stop doing one of these activities they're either
1. annoyed
2. suffering from a short attention span

or both!

very true

[oo7tushar]

every since I started spending long hours on the internet I've become less tolerant of real people.

I find that if I spend a day programming or what not then I'm great with people. But as soon as I start surfing the net and chatting with people I become way less tolerant of everybody.

I think it has to do with how long it takes to communicate a thought. Online you see the entire thought in one shot, whereas in person it takes time to hear the whole conversation. Basically a speed difference. The speed is the main difference.

In terms of tolerating people of other ethnicities I notice no difference, in fact I'm more likely to talk to people within my own group of online g33k friends in real life. We talk fast and keep it short.

I think this bodes well not unless I cut down on my internet time. Perhaps all my fragging is gonna finally backfire.

Seeing people at their worst ...

[Titusdot Groan]

My brother is a cop and he said one of the most important things you have to do as a cop is remember that you are sometimes seeing basically good people on the worst day of their entire lives; that not everybody you meet is criminal scum.

This is the same problem with the media; we are always seeing the culture at it's worst or only seeing the worst parts of it's culture. You don't see the bakers, clerks, teachers, nurses, doctors, scientists of a culture you see it's brutal armies and tyrannical leaders, it's terrorists and suicide bombers.

This is the real source of intolerance -- you never see anything from the bulk of foreign cultures that are worth saving.

Education is the key

[ZigMonty]

The sad thing is that our education systems don't teach us to question the news. I remember being in my social studies class and we read the the news and treated it like it was all the facts.

Here in Australia, we in High School (senior year) had a term topic called "Representations of Truth" which basically drilled into us a distrust of everything the media says. Apparently, courses like this come up about every ten years or so but, usually, they're gone in a year or two. Someone doesn't like it.

IMHO, the article's right. The big problem is the one-sidedness of the media. The Egyptian youth only see pictures glorifying suicide bombers, while we only see pictures of barbarians who dared to attack the West, the torchbearer of everything that is good and just in the world </sarcasm>.

The people who said global media would bring peace weren't wrong. We just *don't have* a global media. We have two separate propaganda machines, one on the Islamic side (or wherever) and one on our side. We need full, unbiased reporting, not the fear and hate mongering that has filled our screens since September 11. The media shapes public opinion. Most people will believe what they're told to believe.

But then again, I'm just a kid. What would I know?

Re:Education is the key

[Anonymous Coward]

We have two separate propaganda machines, one on the Islamic side (or wherever) and one on our side. We need full, unbiased reporting, not the fear and hate mongering that has filled our screens since September 11. The media shapes public opinion.

The problem is that the people who view the media don't want unbiased reporting. See the whole flap about Reuters refusing to lable the Sep. 11 bombers "terrorists."

Reuters has an interesting point. While to US citizens, they were "terrorists," to members of the Taliban and Al Queda, they were "freedom fighters". Maybe the T&AQ are wrong on this account, but lets move into Basque sepratists, the IRA, the Ulster liberation front, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Venesualians, the Iranians, the Contras, the Viet cong, the Jura sepratists, the earth liberation front, PETA, the WTO protesters ... there's a lot of grey area we can get into.

But we don't *want* unbiased news. We want news that reinforces our preconcieved notions. If it questions them, it makes us feel uncomfortable. -uncomfortable is BAD- So instead of admitting we might be wrong, let's blame the messanger!

Not only does the media shape public opinion, public opinion shapes ther media.

Tolerance as a constant

[nhavar]

I think tolerance is a constant. I think the thing that changes is awareness. As we become more aware of other cultures we also become aware of the flaws in those cultures. Through seeing the flaws in other cultures one hopes that we see the same flaws within our own. Often that awareness causes loathing of the negative behavior and through transference we cast off our anger toward the other culture instead of rectifying the flaw in our own.

People do this all the time. Strong headed people dislike other strong headed people, models dislike other models, fat people dislike other fat people, selfish people see other selfish people as "MORE" selfish. It's a coping mechanism to avoid addressing the problems with oneself.

As we become more aware of what we are doing the "appearance of intolerance" will decrease.

Rediculous

[piecewise]

This article is way off. Beware of any editorialist's thesis when it begins, "In somy ways..."

Globalized instant communication is a wonderful thing. It does not make us like one another less. The truth is, we barely know one another.

I remember talking to a Chinese person and her saying, "You Americans really think we're so utterly suppressed over here. I love China." And I remember talking to a person from the Middle East (maybe Turkey?). He said, "I really thought you would be a lot more arrogant, but you aren't at all."

After that, we struck up a conversation about stereotypes we have of one another's countries (of course he had a lot more of America than I did of Turkey). So I'm not a rich, imposing, arrogant Cowboy after all! Good to know.

On the other hand, I once talked to a Palestinian who was so angry I could barely have a conversation with him. He wanted me dead, seriously. And I got angry too.. REAL angry. Of course, I believe this to be a special incident due to our nation's rather unbalanced policy over there.. (in my opinion, don't flame me..) so I don't fault him for it.

You can't stop globalization, and it simply shouldn't be stopped. I think we need to talk more, rather than less.

Science is undergoing a similar phenomenon...

[Tickenest]

I remember hearing on NPR last year that the rise of the internet and the ease with which researchers and scientists can now share their data and results had led to less diversity in scientific ideas.
It used to be that people all over would do the same thing in their own way, oblivious to how others were doing it.
Now, with the internet, people discovered one promising way of doing something and then everyone does it that way instead of continuing to pursue multiple paths.
A definite double-edged sword in this case, since it can lead to the avoidance of wasted time and resources on lousy research, but it can also stifle creativity.

Consumptive vs Creative Media

[lysurgon]

What the media provide is superficial familiarity -- images without context, indignation without remedy. The problem isn't just the content of the media, but the fact that while images become international, people's lives remain parochial

The author is (I think) talking about passive media here: sattelite broadcasts and CNN.com. The real value of an interconnected globe will only be realized when individuals worldwide are engaged in creating the media discourse, not merely consuming it.

As has already been noted the current "golbal media" is more like a series of biased propaganda machines with a global scope than anything else. I can read kavkaz.org and get a different viewpoint from CNN.com, but I don't know where I can log into a chat room and actually talk with a real person "over there".

It goes all the way back to the cluetrain: until the people are interconnecting and building the discourse with their own hearts and minds and stories, we will never create a social fabric that can resist being torn by demogaguery, be it from facistic leaders or bias news outlets.

Hopefully this interconnection is already happening, but it's going to take time. We (America/The West) are fairly settled into our consumer culture mode. Unless we really decide to take it upon ourselves to become citizens of our own nation and the world, we're not even going to be able to approach the utopian ideal of a global community.