Sideshow and democracy
So there’s been a lot of talk about Lindsay Tanner’s book Sideshow. Essentially Tanner argues that the faster paced media cycle is trivialising politics. Only trivia gets reported, so politicians must deal in trivia in order to get coverage, the lifeblood of any politician. Detailed policy is routinely summarised and twisted to make a more eye catching headline until the story no longer resembles the facts.
In my opinion the cycle has become self reinforcing. Politicians change their behaviour to get better media coverage, thus rewarding poor media coverage and making it harder to provide good media coverage. Politicians get defensive and are reluctant to enter into nuanced policy discussions for fear they will be misrepresented.
Media therefore not entirely to blame, but to be fair, the media is the only side in this debate with an additional external pressure. News organisations are struggling to stay profitable in digital age. (Check out this Time article which lists the 10 most endangered news papers in the U.S.. It’s not really just about digital news being available for free, but that’s clearly part of the picture. ) Regardless of the cause, the effect is that the increased pressure for clicks and catchy headlines further drives the demand for trivia.
But to a certain extent people have always been interested in the circus. Barrie Cassidy cites a historical example of the enduring public interest in Lady Blamey’s travel arrangements in 1941. And Chris Uhlmann’s piece on Tanner’s book cites an example of politicians attacking each other with bullwhips and pistols in the streets.
Uhlmann also argues that Tanner’s proposed golden age of politics in the eighties was not a high point of democratic involvement.
Policy used to be debated only by a closed group. Only elites with high levels of political access could realistically participate in detailed policy discussions. But the modern information age means people are starting to expect that they should have a greater degree of access and participation. People expect to be consulted and informed and have their opinions heard. The barrier to entry in the policy debate is lot lower.
All of this presents some new challenges for how politicians and the media engage with the public. I’ll use two examples, the RSPT and Carbon Pricing System. For the RSPT the Government put all the detail out at once, and industry complained about not being consulted. For the Carbon Price, they put the idea out and said they’d consult, but got complaints that there was no detail to discuss. Both show teething issues with the new reality of a public that has more access and involvement than ever before. Politicians, media and the public need to learn how to make this new dynamic work. New standards of “normal” behaviour need to be set. Policy isn’t negotiated with a small group of key stakeholders behind closed doors anymore. It’s out in the open in a complex debate where everyone has their say.
Chris Uhlmann says the way forward needs to be worked out, but that it’ll be complicated. That might be true, but it doesn’t mean we don’t already have some ideas.
Some of the answer, I think, lies in deliberately ignoring some of the apparent “rules.” A lot of the complaints about politics and the media recently are because, despite what the news men tell us, a lot of people don’t actually want trivia. They want facts. They want detail. They want to see all the ins and out of an issue. This is part of what is driving the rise of bloggers as alternatives to media and, more recently, independent news organisations such as factcheck.org and Polifact.com and the fabulously intriguing investigative journalism group ProPublica. The bloggers and independents cite their sources. They provide links so people can get further information themselves. They offer a considered picture of what is actually going on, why it’s happening, what the possible consequences are and most importantly they don’t just accept whatever some politician said as truth. I don’t care that Tony Abbott said a Carbon Tax would wipe Whyalla off the map. I want to know if it’s true.
I think it’s time that both media and politicians dump some of the assumptions they have about the public only being interested in trivia. People learn from their news. They don’t just read one story in isolation from everything else, the piece it together with other things they know about the world. If all you feed them is trivia, then all the public becomes able to process is trivia. Don Watson wrote a book called Death Sentence about the decline of public language. He argued that by dumbing down and mutating the language we see in public documents like government publications and newspapers, we gradually lose the language processing capacity to use better and more precise language. The dumber language becomes the only language we know.
The same happens with policy. If economic stories assume we can handle the details and start talking about what’s really going on (e.g. what does returning the budget to surplus actually do to the economy? What is a two speed economy and why is it a problem? What was the RSPT actually supposed to do? How is an emissions trading system actually going to reduce carbon emissions? etc.), then the public will gradually learn things about these issues and be more able to understand complex policy debates in the future.
So I think part of the answer to break the cycle, is for both politicians and journalists to start acting like the cycle isn’t there. If a politician doesn’t provide any policy detail, or does so in a way that deliberately obscures what’s going on, call them on it. Report that “the Minister did not provide any detailed policy documents until after the press conference, preventing adequate questions being asked.” If the media don’t report what your policy is really aimed to do, put your own material out on the web explaining the policy in detail. Have RSS feeds for different policy issues, so people can go straight to the source rather than seeing regurgitated press releases on news sites. Allow a comment thread or discussion forum with the policy material on the government website so people can discuss it there instead of at the news site.
The wonderful thing about the digital age is that the 10 second soundbite suitable for a spot on the nightly news isn’t that important anymore. More and more people are getting their news from the internet because on a website you can provide the full brief with all your research and evidence and information and people can click through to it if they’re interested.
The digital news age is good for democracy. I just wish the damn politicians and journalists would catch up.
As an aside, check out the thoroughly awesome OurSay.org, which allows users to suggest and vote for three questions that OurSay will ask a key political figure.
In my opinion the cycle has become self reinforcing. Politicians change their behaviour to get better media coverage, thus rewarding poor media coverage and making it harder to provide good media coverage. Politicians get defensive and are reluctant to enter into nuanced policy discussions for fear they will be misrepresented.
Media therefore not entirely to blame, but to be fair, the media is the only side in this debate with an additional external pressure. News organisations are struggling to stay profitable in digital age. (Check out this Time article which lists the 10 most endangered news papers in the U.S.. It’s not really just about digital news being available for free, but that’s clearly part of the picture. ) Regardless of the cause, the effect is that the increased pressure for clicks and catchy headlines further drives the demand for trivia.
But to a certain extent people have always been interested in the circus. Barrie Cassidy cites a historical example of the enduring public interest in Lady Blamey’s travel arrangements in 1941. And Chris Uhlmann’s piece on Tanner’s book cites an example of politicians attacking each other with bullwhips and pistols in the streets.
Uhlmann also argues that Tanner’s proposed golden age of politics in the eighties was not a high point of democratic involvement.
Policy used to be debated only by a closed group. Only elites with high levels of political access could realistically participate in detailed policy discussions. But the modern information age means people are starting to expect that they should have a greater degree of access and participation. People expect to be consulted and informed and have their opinions heard. The barrier to entry in the policy debate is lot lower.
All of this presents some new challenges for how politicians and the media engage with the public. I’ll use two examples, the RSPT and Carbon Pricing System. For the RSPT the Government put all the detail out at once, and industry complained about not being consulted. For the Carbon Price, they put the idea out and said they’d consult, but got complaints that there was no detail to discuss. Both show teething issues with the new reality of a public that has more access and involvement than ever before. Politicians, media and the public need to learn how to make this new dynamic work. New standards of “normal” behaviour need to be set. Policy isn’t negotiated with a small group of key stakeholders behind closed doors anymore. It’s out in the open in a complex debate where everyone has their say.
Chris Uhlmann says the way forward needs to be worked out, but that it’ll be complicated. That might be true, but it doesn’t mean we don’t already have some ideas.
Some of the answer, I think, lies in deliberately ignoring some of the apparent “rules.” A lot of the complaints about politics and the media recently are because, despite what the news men tell us, a lot of people don’t actually want trivia. They want facts. They want detail. They want to see all the ins and out of an issue. This is part of what is driving the rise of bloggers as alternatives to media and, more recently, independent news organisations such as factcheck.org and Polifact.com and the fabulously intriguing investigative journalism group ProPublica. The bloggers and independents cite their sources. They provide links so people can get further information themselves. They offer a considered picture of what is actually going on, why it’s happening, what the possible consequences are and most importantly they don’t just accept whatever some politician said as truth. I don’t care that Tony Abbott said a Carbon Tax would wipe Whyalla off the map. I want to know if it’s true.
I think it’s time that both media and politicians dump some of the assumptions they have about the public only being interested in trivia. People learn from their news. They don’t just read one story in isolation from everything else, the piece it together with other things they know about the world. If all you feed them is trivia, then all the public becomes able to process is trivia. Don Watson wrote a book called Death Sentence about the decline of public language. He argued that by dumbing down and mutating the language we see in public documents like government publications and newspapers, we gradually lose the language processing capacity to use better and more precise language. The dumber language becomes the only language we know.
The same happens with policy. If economic stories assume we can handle the details and start talking about what’s really going on (e.g. what does returning the budget to surplus actually do to the economy? What is a two speed economy and why is it a problem? What was the RSPT actually supposed to do? How is an emissions trading system actually going to reduce carbon emissions? etc.), then the public will gradually learn things about these issues and be more able to understand complex policy debates in the future.
So I think part of the answer to break the cycle, is for both politicians and journalists to start acting like the cycle isn’t there. If a politician doesn’t provide any policy detail, or does so in a way that deliberately obscures what’s going on, call them on it. Report that “the Minister did not provide any detailed policy documents until after the press conference, preventing adequate questions being asked.” If the media don’t report what your policy is really aimed to do, put your own material out on the web explaining the policy in detail. Have RSS feeds for different policy issues, so people can go straight to the source rather than seeing regurgitated press releases on news sites. Allow a comment thread or discussion forum with the policy material on the government website so people can discuss it there instead of at the news site.
The wonderful thing about the digital age is that the 10 second soundbite suitable for a spot on the nightly news isn’t that important anymore. More and more people are getting their news from the internet because on a website you can provide the full brief with all your research and evidence and information and people can click through to it if they’re interested.
The digital news age is good for democracy. I just wish the damn politicians and journalists would catch up.
As an aside, check out the thoroughly awesome OurSay.org, which allows users to suggest and vote for three questions that OurSay will ask a key political figure.