Democracy is not just a right. It is a responsibility.
If you are lucky enough to live in a democracy, then your country’s future depends on its people having well-informed opinions. Whatever that opinion might be, it is each and every citizen’s obligation to be as knowledgeable as they possibly can be about their country’s policies. That’s the very foundation of having a well-working democracy. The problem is that it’s impossible to keep up. Environment, school, welfare, immigration, equality, work, taxes — if our best politicians can’t fully cover this spectrum, how are voters expected to keep up? To make things worse, political communication isn’t about educating and allowing voters to form their own opinions. It’s about nudging them to like political party X a little bit more than political party Y.
UNINFORMATIVE EMOTIONAL CLICKBAITS
In order to successfully nudge voters towards their own policies, politicians need to get their voices heard as frequently and as loudly as possible. The big televised debates where they have voters’ undivided attention is simply not enough anymore. Therefore they have started to fight for attention in spaces where wedding photos, football scores and Game of Thrones should shine.
To break through this clutter, politicians learned that a play on controversy and emotions beats a presentation of solutions. Ideas are treated as shareable content. Donald Trump obviously personifies this with his active tweeting and social media presence, but bear in mind that it’s happening all over the world. For instance, The Swedish Democrats took this concept very literally when they turned competing Swedish political leaders into Scumbag Steve-memes.
The principles of uninformative emotional clickbaits are rooted in highlighting what competitors are doing wrong instead of what they want to do right. Big emotional speeches overtake presentations of solutions. This successfully gets voters’ attention and makes them drawn to political party X more than the others.
If people want to find out more about actual solutions, the information is straightforward enough for everyone…right?
UNINFORMATIVE LICENSE AGREEMENTS
With the amount of jargon and impenetrable information, policies start to look a lot like the license agreements we all tend to skip without reading.
To ensure that our financial politics works in the long-term and is sustainable, the Alliance Government has sharpened our regulations and formed a Financial Policy Council. The Council’s task is to do an independent review of the government’s financial policies, and monitor how our politics relates to the fundamental objectives for long term sustainable public finances as well as economic development…
- Except from Moderaternas (Swedish party)
‘Future suggestions for Sweden’ document : a 134 page long PDF
Confused? Tired? Ready to give up on the other 133 pages? I am.
Politicians know that very few people will seek out this information and even less will actually take the time to compare these policies across parties.
PLEASE WELCOME: USEFUL INFORMATION
There is absolutely no reason why we can’t present political ideas in a useful and exciting manner that also successfully breaks through clutter. In fact, to shine some light and hope on this problem, it has never been easier. Humans are inherently conversational creatures and we have an innate inclination to discuss and share ideas — as a result we’ve developed great ways to do just that.
There’s a wealth of beautifully digestible infographics, videos, and data visualisations to be found all over the web. A great example of complex information being presented with simplicity is Hans Rosling’s famous TED Talk about global population growth visualised with IKEA boxes.
The problem is not that politicians can’t communicate their policies with simplicity.
The possibilities to make information useful and interesting has in fact never been more simple.
The problem is that there is no reason for politicians to do it.
As long as they can get votes by treating politics as entertainment, they will continue doing so.
However, as voters, we have a democratic responsibility to give politicians a reason to present their policies in a way that we can understand. This is the only way that we can form well-informed opinions (whatever they might be) about our country’s policies, and hold true to the foundation of democracy.
We can achieve this by recognising that politicians use a play on emotions to maneuver their way into our hearts, when they should be using solutions and ideas to earn our approval. Luckily, we have still control over what we decide to direct our attention to. We can focus on and encourage initiatives such as NoCeilings, a site that raises awareness by beautifully visualising data about gender inequality, and NSA Files: DECODED which tells the story of Edward Snowden and what mass surveillance means for you. That way, for politicians to get voters’ attention, they will be left with no other choice than to shift the current political discourse from attention-seeking-entertainment to useful information that allows voters to form well-informed opinions.
But how do we make this happen? Well, there’s a lot to it but here’s a good start:
- Stop seeing democracy as purely a birth-given right.
It also comes with a responsibility to be as informed and educated as we possibly can be about our country’s policies. Read and discuss as much as you realistically can. - Stop sharing political outbursts and jumping on social bandwagons.
This will only encourage politicians to continue treating their ideas as potential viral entertainment instead of an understandable presentation of solutions. - Stop ignoring significant political debates
Instead, do your best to watch the big televised debates where politicians are pushed to fully present their ideas and policies.
There is undoubtedly a lot more to it than what’s listed above but my intent is to argue that we can and should change the current political discourse. It’s not set in stone that political communication should look the way it does right now. That’s why I want to keep exploring and discussing this topic to reach a deeper understanding on what we can do long-term. Therefore I encourage you to drop a comment with any thoughts or ideas.
