The Most Dangerous Telephone Game
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Study the Two-Step Flow Theory
Election season will be here before we know it, so ensure you have all the vital facts and information about each candidate by doing research from reputable sources. Or, you could vote for somebody your aunt tells you to vote for via her Facebook page, as we all know an aunt’s Facebook page is the most reliable source for unfiltered information.
What’s that you say? My aunt’s Facebook page may not be the most reliable source of information? She may be just repeating news that she wants me to hear from some other person who reported only the part of the news that they wanted her to hear? And I probably shouldn’t be taking political advice from a family member’s social media page anyway? Uh-Oh.
With all of the vast informational landmine-fields of misinformation on the internet, where should one go to get their news from? Is there an actual original source anywhere, or are we doomed to be informed from various secondhand shops around the digital realm? The idea that we all get our news from a secondary source is known as the Two-Step Flow Theory.
The premise of the Two-Step Flow Theory is fairly simple. Opinion leaders gather the news from mass media. They then pick out the parts of that news that they want to convey to their audience, and they filter out the rest. They then deliver this message to people in their social group, thus directly influencing what information the other members of their group receive.
While you may be thinking this seems like the natural order of things, I think that this sounds like a high-stakes version of the “Telephone Game”. The information could be easily changed and skewed going from Point A to Point B.
Thinking about the Two-Step Flow Theory got me thinking about how I receive, process, and distribute information. I usually get my news from sources that I trust and find soothing even in bad times, such as NPR, CNN, or a couple of my local network affiliates here in the Houston area. I find the anchors to be pleasant, I find the stories to be well-produced, and I feel that the overall tone isn’t as divided as some of the other options out there.
However, I also understand that this means that I am comfortable in this space, regardless of whether they are giving me unbiased news are not. There is a modern-day term for when people surround themselves with like-minded people, known as an Echo Chamber. An Echo Chamber occurs when only one side of a story is being told, which reinforces the beliefs of those who inhabit that space. This makes room for the possibility of misinformation, as there is no fact-checking or counter-arguments happening within an Echo Chamber.
This is where we get back to the idea of the “Telephone Game”, as the original message has been changed by another party, and the receiver of that message is not interested in fact-checking or changing their inherent assumptions. So, how do I try and avoid this pitfall when sharing news with others? First, I gather news from multiple sources. Now I’m no Edward R. Murrow, but I do believe that journalism is alive and well, and I am open to hearing multiple sides to one story.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, I am open to hearing other people’s opinions. I think that this allows me to converse with people who allow me to share news stories from sources with them that they otherwise wouldn’t go to themselves. I also only bring up hard-hitting news and politics at times and places where it seems acceptable to do so. For example, family gatherings during a friendly game of Scrabble aren’t usually the time to bring up who your aunt is going to vote for in November… unless you are running for office and really need her vote, of course.
