One hundred days into the Trump Presidency and his supporters are delighted. He continues to focus on the issues they hold dear, and most blame Congress rather than the Administration for the failure to repeal Obamacare.
Interestingly, though, many are irritated by his un-presidential use of Twitter. Yet that – his constant and direct communication with citizens – is part of the package. Some think he should and will stop in due course. He may. But if he does, won’t he lose the initiative to impact (shock/entertain) public opinion, and might not others, including his political competitors and opponents but also those seeking to influence him, fill the void?
Mass communications technology has had revolutionary impact on the way we interact and think, and how our societies are structured and governed several times before. The move from an oral tradition to the written word was lamented by Socrates as highly deleterious to memory. The printing press empowered populations and challenged ecclesiastical elites across Europe.
Telegraphy collapsed timeframes and invented the novelty of “news” and the desire for instantaneous gratification. Television might have damaged community interaction and civic society (Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” thesis). But now the internet and social media have enriched us and brought many new opportunities to interact, as have all previous communications revolutions. They have also, like the others, challenged the elites.
In the short term, at least, such challenges damage the ability of elites to govern using established and legitimate channels of argument and compromise. It dumbs down politics. The virulent reaction to Trump is in large part a reaction by elites and those they influence not so much to policies or ideas per se, but more to his perceived foul play. He did not play by the rules, by the norms of acceptable rhetoric, through tried and tested channels.
If history is repeating itself, then appeals to previous norms will fail to make a difference to how the business of politics is conducted. Pandora’s box is open. President Trump and other politicians will now find it hard to stop tweeting, and stay stopped.
Politics has always been part entertainment, and with it the entertainer’s lament at bending to the caprice of public opinion, however hideous. Twas ever thus – so the demand for social media content stimulates the supply. Demand in turn is driven by the collective desires of millions. Social media is addictive and influential because it so easily helps create new shared identities.
Through these complex and vast interconnected networks the desire for objectivity is a long way down the list of importance in content creation. Truth and facts do not sell newspapers nearly as well as gossip and sleaze – even more so in this age of social media.
It is because people enjoy belonging to social groups, and social media is so flexible and efficient at enabling new identities, that the checks and balances from individual scepticism to independent verification of facts are so lamentably absent. The desire to conform trumps the thirst for knowledge. Memes can roar across social media irrespective of underlying validity – memes which become powerful, but which also can be fabricated, moulded and manipulated.
Effective influence via the new media will grow further, though not necessarily rapidly. Many people will continue to rail against this, but to fight back they might usefully bear two things in mind.
Firstly, the dominance of the previous way of doing things was based on its own irrationalities and biases. Lies are still lies – such as false numbers attending the inauguration – but we should expect less outright falsity as the Administration becomes a bit more experienced. However, most cases of ‘alternative facts’ are less categorical. It is simplistic to argue that the challenged version of reality is more objective than the new version. In other words, there is no sudden change to a post-fact society. We have been a post-fact society for as long as politicians and rhetoric have existed. We are merely experiencing an uncomfortably fast shift from one set of perspectives to another.
Secondly, to re-establish influence the outraged elites need to engage in debate according to the new rules not the old. Thinking of Europe four to five centuries ago: if the printing press challenges your version of religious truth, trying to stop printing will eventually fail – better to print your version of the bible in accessible language for mass consumption. The fight to re-establish objectivity in the new media requires engagement in that media. Mere indignation is a sign of the bad loser.
By Jerome Booth