Political Polarization Is the Price We Pay for Social Media and Online News
Weinstein’s Fall Exhibits the Declining Power of Legacy Media
Through the prism of social media and cable news, one could understandably believe the country is irreparably splitting apart. Recent polling validates a growing divide between the left and right.
Never before have so many had the opportunity to get their views in front of an audience and to attack those with whom they disagree. It’s truly a great time for pessimists and online trolls of all ideological stripes.
Amid the pitfalls of this new connectivity, there are hopeful signs and positives we should celebrate.
Long known for building top-down hierarchal institutions, Baby Boomers are now experiencing a flatter world where barriers to entry across all industries are collapsing. For more than forty years, Boomers have controlled institutions that acted as gatekeepers, deciding what information, news, political candidates, movies, and books should be available to the country. A prevailing line of thinking across all of these industries is the belief that people can’t be trusted to decide what is good or important. In their eyes, Trump’s election is the latest validation of the dangers of the masses.
As the influence of these legacy institutions erodes, a flatter, more chaotic, technology-driven culture has emerged. This new culture offers more access, opportunity, transparency, and choice for consumers and more accountability for institutions of power.
Ronan Farrow’s exposé in Vanity Fair disclosing Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults and reign of intimidation in Hollywood is a good example. In its first few hours, the story spread rapidly online, creating a needed look at Hollywood’s cultural rot. Farrow’s employer, NBC, showed no interest in the story, which is why it ended up at Vanity Fair instead of on the air at one of NBC’s media properties.
In an earlier time, NBC could have kept the story largely buried, as it appears the New York Times and other major media outlets did over the years.
When Farrow’s piece was published, there was no containing the impact of the story. The accusations against Weinsten spread quickly online and across social media.
The days of legacy media having absolute control over the national conversation are largely over.
Technological disruption is impacting all sectors of media and society, and this is a good thing.
No Barriers to Entry
While the President worries on Twitter about NBC’s “partisan, distorted, and fake” news, the influence of NBC and other gatekeepers in broadcast news has never been weaker.
Opinion, content, and news stories now have a home online free from the whims of establishment news editorial meetings in Washington or New York.
The disruption extends across a host of other areas of society.
VICE News Tonight is challenging the way consumers access news by creating a unique take on the daily broadcast news format with streaming options and a weekly show available on HBO.
New voices in literature are no longer beholden to the whims of major publishers to distribute their work. Authors are now able to self-publish their art, distribute it like traditionally published authors, and keep a larger percentage of the revenues without the need for approval from editors in New York.
Netflix, Roku, and Amazon are changing the way video content reaches audiences, giving consumers more choice and access to entertainment they want instead of what Hollywood deems worthy for release. Plus, writers and actors have more avenues to develop and distribute video content outside of major studios.
Taxi unions and their patrons in city government no longer have a hold on how consumers can move about a city, thanks to Uber and Lyft, whose technology provides both choice and an improved user experience.
Establishment politicos inside the Beltway no longer have a firm grip on who can run for office. Potential outsider candidates now have the same access to compliant online software for fundraising and GOTV (get out the vote) as establishment party candidates who have enjoyed these perks of incumbency for decades.
Elected officials now have to be more accountable to voters, who have more access to news about what’s happening in D.C. It’s no coincidence the favorability of our elected officials has declined precipitously as the amount of political news has increased.
Voters are learning more about what’s happening, and they do not like what they see. There’s a reason incumbency is an albatross for many establishment figures assessing if they should run for reelection. It’s harder to say one thing at home and then do something else in the confines of Congress than it’s ever been.
An Increasingly Divided Country
While there are profound benefits to this disruption, there is a dark side to the increased connectivity and flow of information. We are becoming more polarized.
The Pew Research Center recently released polling data illustrating just how divided the country has become. Pew has polled ten political values questions seven times since 1994, the start of the Internet Age.
The polling shows a “36-percentage-point difference between Democrats and Republicans across these questions” which is “substantially wider than two decades ago (the gap was just 15 points in 1994).”
As the chart from Pew shows, both Republican and Democratic voters are increasingly farther apart ideologically. As the flow of online news has grown since 1994, we have become more polarized.
Republicans are becoming more conservative and Democratic voters are becoming significantly more liberal.
Anytime two candidates directly attack each other; each candidate will see a hardening of support among their base supporters. This is true for candidates, businesses, or any organization.
If Microsoft attacks Apple, adherents of both brands become more supportive of their preferred brand. If Democrat Candidate A attacks Republican Candidate B, supporters from both sides become more hardened and protective of their preferred candidate.
As the attacks and trolling on social media and online news has increased, each side of the ideological divide has moved farther away from the middle. People are now being forced to choose a side in the wars between the left and right.
This ideological clustering is particularly true for liberal and Democrat supporters. With the rise of conservative media and the declining influence of a mainstream news media that has always been more liberal than the majority of its audience, liberals now face the same scrutiny and attacks on their beliefs that conservatives have endured for years.
The disruption of the news media and how we receive information has had profound benefits. Both sides of the ideological divide have more access to information, and both a play a role in holding the opposing side accountable.
On the downside, each side will likely remain more dogmatic in their beliefs, and the ability to persuade will be more difficult. Political campaigns will focus more on identifying support than persuasion or selling big ideas. The polarization we see today is simply the price to pay for more access and opportunity for differing views from across the ideological divide.
Gatekeepers no longer determine how you get from the airport to a hotel when you’re traveling, nor do they get to decide what is important news. We now live in a consumer-driven culture.
On the whole, the positives outweigh the negatives. Technology has democratized the flow of information, and it’s a freedom we should all celebrate.
