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Does Personalized News Lead To Ignorance?
blackbearnh writes "As newspapers struggle to survive and local broadcasts try to find a way to compete with cable news, more and more news outlets are banking on what people want to hear about, rather than what they need to hear. Thoughtful analysis of problems is being pushed out of the way to make room for more celebrity gossip. Electronic news guru Chris Lee thinks that as people get news increasingly tailored to their tastes, the overall knowledge of important issues is plummeting. 'I think one of the observations about how consumers are behaving in the past five years that has surprised me the most is, again, this lack of feeling responsible for knowing the news of their country and their local government of that day. I don't think it's just a technology question. I think if you asked people now versus the same age group 20 years ago, I think they'd be stunningly less informed now about boring news, and tremendously more knowledgeable about bits of news that really interest them.'"
As odd as it sounds, I think that news should not ever be tailored to the "consumer". Telling the people only what they want to hear is just as bad (if not worse) than only telling them the news YOU want them to hear... If I was planning on becoming a repressive regime leader, ruling my country with an iron fist... I would start by telling all of the people all the "news" they wanted to hear.... In-Depth reviews of the latest "Mycountryian Idol", all the sports news they wanted, how wonderful the newest movie blockbuster is (and who the stars are sleeping with!)
Then the populace would be too busy thinking about those silly topics to even notice or care that I had just imposed mandatory impalement sentences for jaywalkers.
I think you prove the point that people only hear what they want. MSNBC is just as biased as Fox News. CNN is trying to stay in the middle, but they are getting the same pressures to target an audience. The most popular cable news shows draw 1-3 million people daily (1% of the US population), they don't have an incentive to be balanced and general. I suspect newspapers, online and paper, magazines, etc. all have the same issues. DON'T piss off the target audience.
I particularly enjoyed how they ripped apart so many aspects of 'news' over the past years and coming years. From "Do bikinis cause cancer? More at 11" to automated journalism. But then somehow claim that the newsreader is ignorant for seeking news that is personalized to him or her. Maybe, just maybe, if a wide reaching non-specific news source treated their readers with respect, produced quality and engaged in more investigative journalism than "look at this picture" or "Ten worst/best" lists then we would all be reading it.
Until then, I guarantee you that people will prefer to seek specialized news sources because the editors and writers for that source are often experts and their biases are often exactly what we want. Just look at the blogs of Michael Geist and Bruce Schneier, way more preferable than any big name news site's 'computer security' division.
My work here is dung.
In the US at least, knowing a lot about ANYTHING makes you a nerd, a social outcast, the non-cool guy. Ask a coworker how their boiler works, or how to change their oil. Ask them how to chainsaw a tree. Ask them how to wire a switch, or pull a shot of espresso. Most will look at you like you showed them dirty pictures - "What? Me? Do actual labor?" Combine this with the steady erosion of the effects of causality (helicopter parents, welfare system), combined with the death of Civics as a school subject, and you have population of effete, spoiled sheep, ready to accept whatever shackles are imposed, in order that they be safe and comfortable.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The reason people are less informed, IMO, is not because there's not enough news out there, it's that there are far too many.
That doesn't necessarily mean that there should be less. However, the pervasiveness of "news sites" and aggregators means that people can make sure that the news they are exposed to is stuff they know they will likely agree with, and furthermore, omits any details that might make that news less positive or shed any negative light at all on the causes and groups they favor. People can ensure, today, that they are only going to receive the kinds of news they want to hear and that reinforces their already-held beliefs.
My mother would keep Fox News on every television in the house so when walking from one room to another, she wouldn't miss a thing. She'd turn it off only to listen to Rush or the like on the radio, and she got her online news and opinions from Fox, Townhall, etc. This meant that everything she was exposed to not only was something she was likely to agree with, but it reinforced her beliefs, leading to her implicitly trusting everything they said - even if it was demonstrably untrue.
My aunt is the opposite, reading DailyKos daily and Rachel Maddow. It doesn't matter whether it's the left or the right - what matters is that with so many news sources today, you can make sure that the news you see, read, and hear, is news that the source knows you'll agree with, and they can take advantage of that.
A great example is getting on the Metro to go to work this morning, I was handed both the Express (slanted left) and the Examiner (slanted right). The Express cover story was on the State of the Union address. The Examiner cover headline was "GOP Governor Challenges Obama on National TV", with a big picture of said governor, and you'd never even know that the reason was the State of the Union address and they were highlighting primarily the Republican response.
The problem with this is that it leads to severe polarization - my mother trusted Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to the point that even when it could be proved beyond all doubt that something they said was 100% false (or even contradictory), it instead led to her shouting at the person because she agrees with so much of what they said on other topics that they can't possibly be wrong. The fact that almost anything positive done by the "other side" would be ignored, never reported on, twisted into having "her side" take credit for it, or the like.
If someone dislikes gay people, they can be sure to find a news organization that will only post negative stories, ignoring all else, even if a gay person cured cancer or saved a thousand children from a fire. And they go on happy that their opinion is being reinforced because hey, look at all these nasty people, and don't have to feel uncomfortable by being exposed to stories that potentially might challenge that worldview. If they dislike organized religion, there's sites out that that will make sure to only point out the negatives thereof.
The polarization this leads to is tearing not just this, but many countries apart, with sides that, day after day, are hearing nothing but awful things being said about the "other side", and nothing but good things said to them about "their own side", daily reinforcement of something they're already predisposed to believe. This ends any possibility of compromise, of discussion, of reasonable governance, because the other side is not just wrong, but evil, and compromise with evil is abhorrent. The left can't just be to the left, they must be Communist and Socialist, and the right can't just be to the right, they are Fascist and Authoritarian. No wonder we can't get anything done.
This was rather explicitly covered in Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age. In the Neo Victorian phyle, the higher social ranking a member has the less personalized their newspaper is due to the thought that there are certain things higher ups need to know and it's best if they were all on the same page.
Then again, the Vickies are also depicted as un-curious and possessing of a stagnant society, so take from that what you will.
I like Slashdot as a geek news source because of the unfiltered comments (I run at -1 and I like it). The summaries (of dubious accuracy) and the comments give you an unbiased feel for public sentiment on a subject. Sometimes I read TFA, sometimes not. Either way, I'm more informed about a topic even if I just read the comments and the slant comes from both sides. Were there a similar site for "real" news, I'd probably use it as my main source; unfortunately, the Internet has bred so many Trolls and Spammers that any general news site with a similar comment system would attract way more of those types than Slashdot ever will. So, for now, I'll just scan headlines and summaries at various "real" news sites and read the few articles of relevance to me.
Clearly it's true that if you're interested in sport you're going to watch that part of the news more than if you aren't. That's not the problem.
The problem is that if you believe that socialized medicine == death panels, you're going to exclusively read news sources that tell you that[1]. Likewise the moon hoax brigade and the ones who see the illuminati everywhere. No matter how much of a nutter you are, there's other nutters out there you can link up with. Mutual bias confirmation. There's no balance. Nobody uis ever exposed to a different viewpoint.
[1] I believe the name is "Fox News".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Mostly, the folk expressing this sentiment don't know each other, and only a couple know me (e.g. friends, friends of friends, strangers to each other).
This isn't merely based on blatant falsehood, it's a very peculiar notion, one that stands out from the daily din. I've seen it raised, independently, three or four times this week. Where did this notion come from? Why do they uniformly cite both of those examples, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina? Coincidence, or did they get this from the same source? Perhaps it's merely because these are the two largest disasters to strike the U.S. in the past ten years, but why cite both, and not merely one, or the other, particularly when one is a man-made "disaster", not really parallel to the hurricane and the earthquake. I wonder if maybe they are parroting the same original source. Did someone like Sarah Palin tweet or MyBookFaceSpace it, as with the "death panels" thing?
Uniformly, these folk have chosen to ignore simple evidence that the claims, that other countries didn't offer assistance to the U.S. after 9/11 nor after Katrina, are false. (In fact, many nations assisted the U.S. following both incidents, offering even the lives of their sons and daughters in the case of those allies fighting in Afghanistan, and serious assistance of various kinds during the International Response to Hurricane Katrina).
This is just one example, but it's a curious one, based not only on ignorance of a few specific facts, which ought to be common knowledge, but apparently on a militant desire to remain ignorant. (Offering the link above leads them to resort immediately to changing the subject, occasionally to what they consider to be my own personal failings, particularly in people I've never met. The sudden and fairly extreme hostility offered up by both acquaintances and strangers when simple evidence is presented reminded me of the term "splitting.)
I wonder if the insulating bubble effect of modern segmented news and opinion delivery is building a society which is incapable of or at least resistant to the synthesis of new ideas, which itself is a rational response to the cognitive dissonance which results from inconvenient facts.
I still think facts matter, but if they only matter to a handful of people, can democracy survive?
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's called a confirmation bias. People tend to pursue information that agrees with their opinions.
Now, in the past, news sources were forced to be balanced, to reach the largest possible audience. Only one newspaper in town, so it can't be too far to one side or the other unless the whole coverage area also leans that way.
Now, the market is so diverse that there is plenty of room for specialized news sources, and people can tune in to whichever one makes them feel best about their own opinions, and when all the information they receive conforms to their bias, they become more biased, and you end up with the sort of crap polarized political situation we're in right now.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I have several solid reasons for objecting to government run healthcare in general and the instant legislation in particular. The problem is that true believers in government run healthcare are deaf to them, succumbing to the same malady as you and others here lament regarding opponents who may or may not be opposed on solid merits, namely only subscribing to media outlets that tell you what you want to hear.
1. I'm a fan of civil liberties, so any system that gives the people with the guns and cages (government) more information to use against me (or you). Or Eliot Spitzer who in fact was hoisted by legislation he championed as being necessary to combat terror. Problem is... scope creep. It was such a "useful tool" that its use was expanded to fraud investigations when it was previously promised to us civil liberties "nuts" that such would "nevar happen". So, yes you could still make universal government-funded healthcare that collects no information about the consumers, but no one would ever do it on grounds of thwarting fraud and hypochondriacs. And in order to make the calls about whether a given citizen is worthy of continued medical care. Oh, and because our new J. Edgars want more complete dossiers on everyone so they can use the fact that you (potentially a legislator) have AIDS and your family doesn't know it to keep you from voting against certain expenditures, or to ensure you confirm certain nominees. Not that any of this could evar happen here in the land of the free. Oh, wait. Hoover would drool over the current "toolbox" much less what he'd have with the current and politically possible plans for government funded healthcare.
2. efficiency and % of GDP. proponents direct us to look at other socialized systems that consume less % of GDP, and this is good, but do you really think congress are going to pass anything that increases efficiency in the "booming healthcare industry"? That would necessarily mean decreasing the number of jobs in that industry, and healthcare is the only industry that has consistently grown through the current depression. Thus, anything that congress is politically able to do will impoverish us with people doing make work, like medical data entry and such, one of the chief drivers of unnecessary expense in the current system which makes it unaffordable for average people now.
3. all that really needs to be done is to remove industry protectionist measures like state restrictions on competition from out of state insurers and barriers to market entry for new insurance companies. shortly, as mentioned above, too many people are eating off the healthcare industry in a parasitic manner. Maybe trying something like this guy has for non-emergency care should be on the table...
http://jayparkinsonmd.com/
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
60 years ago, people got narrow biased news reports that were chosen by someone else. Today, people get narrow biased news reports that are chosen by them. I wold say that the situation has improved when it comes to exposure to different views. 60 years ago, if the town newspaper decided that they didn't like the mayor of the city two cities over, you were unlikely to meet a single person that didn't 'know' that he was a wife beating child molester, irrelevant of the facts. Today, you would have some people who 'know' this, some people who 'know' it isn't true, and a lot of people that just don't care about he mayor two cities over. When your standing around the water cooler at work, which time period is more likely to give you dissenting opinions?
The problem doesn't seem to be that people are getting biased inaccurate news. The 'problem' seems to be that people are now becoming aware that the news they get is biased, and are struggling with the idea of choosing the bias themselves instead of having it chosen for them.