Spin Doctor #2
Resonance versus Vanity
The value of information is not in its longevity but in its impact. It cannot be predicted or controlled, even less so in the viral age of social media, and it is less a matter of moral concern or values. The most concerned and inspired piece of story telling / reporting may be without impact if it is not on target and does not answer an information pain among the audience.
To hit the target is not the result of meticulous planning, research and SEO engineering, and information pain alone is not sufficient for evaluating a story’s value. The term impact acknowledges a story’s potential to alter its readers’ perception, awareness, and by consequence their attitude and way of life.
However, it is not the writer’s / journalist’s job to educate and enlighten the reader ( the ‘masses’, educated or not ). Such quaint notions from the seventies and earlier on would only harm a writer’s ability to be in tune with their prospective audience. Work of value is not accomplished by whoring and delivering ‘on demand’ as has become fashionable in production and services. For content to have an impact, the creator’s mind and senses must be immersed in and absorbed by the task itself like a Zen archer dissolves his ego and merges with the bow, the arrow and the target. He does not care whether he / the arrow will hit or miss. Similarly the creator of meaningful content does not care whether he or she will be on target. He or she IS the target, the purpose and issue, the message and its own resonance. He or she is charged, vibrating and responding within the moment of now, of creation, with no idea where it will take them.
The impact on the reader is a side-effect, the result of self-surrender, and results from correlation and resonance within the reader’s heart and mind. It cannot be planned and programmed, it only happens for those who abandon control, safety and comfort and move on out where nothing is safe and guaranteed. Impact and resonance are an echo of those cold chills and thrills the creator has experienced as he or she was airborne above the abyss. What consumers usually are looking for in adventure, shock and horror entertainment. Something that takes them beyond the common and familiar. The feedback occurs long after the work has been published. The creator meanwhile has moved on.
Impact and resonance are a result of the creator’s synchronicity with the dreams and fears that feed the public’s subconscious thoughts and dreams. The less a creator knows what he or she is doing, and the less they try to force an anticipated result, the easier they can tap into that subterranean river. Despite reality’s fragmentation into myriad aspects, many of which may appear to be contradictory, in its essence life and reality can be reduced to a few core matters, and the impact of a story depends on how successfully the author connects reality’s myriad aspects with its core matter/s that most of the readers are familiar with and do connect by. This is the lesson and secret of pop(ular) art and music, movies and comics. It does not need market research to understand that.
Despite its medical connotation, the term ‘information pain’ should not be understood in its strictly medical frame of reference. If a writer / editor has a problem with making less money than those who report on Kim Kardashian’s baby and Justin Bieber Baby Boy, then maybe they should ignore their own assumptions on what really matters, and instead tune in and listen, and thus learn to understand why the audience is not interested in the author’s inspired and oh-so-concerned reporting on the latest worst case scenario of corrupted, malfunctioning reality. The author / writer might begin to understand that it is not enough to be right, that actually it can be downright aggravating to hear people playing the blame game non-stop. Negativity does not offer hope, whether the facts have been checked and verified or not.
The fact that audiences prefer the latest gossip on celebrities has information value for those in the media business, including those who create content. Blaming and guilt-tripping feed on negativity, they foster self-righteousness among the creators, and gloating mischief among the audience. An educated version of reality-TV for the more erudite. The audience meanwhile is checking on Kim Kardashian, Justin Blubber and Miley Vitriolious.
Apparently the audience’s ‘information pain’ is not about who is right and who to blame. The elite of knowledge, information and education seems to be out of touch, absorbed as they are with their own standards of expertise. Either they have forgotten the purpose of their trade, namely whose ‘information pain’ they ought to alleviate, or else they assume to know better what the ignorant ‘masses’ want and need.
No matter what system we consider, open or closed, economic, social or biological, it does not pay off to ignore the needs of its constituents. Imbalances tilt its equilibrium, and the more it deteriorates, the more of an effort is required to keep it running. Effort, however, does not mean more rigorous control but more allowances and generosity, amending needs and pains that have been ignored for too long.
The elite of knowledge, information and education has been far too successful ignoring the needs and pains of the ‘uneducated’ masses. Their concerns have been absorbed by their own pains and ailments. The anonymous masses are taken account of as power factors and vectors in the game of traction and attention: “How do they do it? How do they manage to change the course of history? How can we apply that knowledge to serve to our own purposes and gain the same attention, leverage and attraction?”
Where would they be without war, rape and abuse, abductions and human trafficking? To an unassuming observer something must be seriously wrong with a trade and society that feed on bad news and negativity. Blaming fosters self-righteousness, and guilt feeds feelings of inferiority. The objects of reporting, the victims live in the beyond of the audience’s screens. The deluge of guilt riddled reporting primarily serves as a means to support the elite of knowledge and education, morally as well as economically.
The one lesson of marketing and pop culture for any writer, reporter and creator is to be in tune with your audience. Being in tune goes far beyond knowing whatever the audience’s presumably ’objective’ problems may be. Understanding begins with empathy; being in tune means sharing the emotional needs and pain of the victim on the other side of the screen and of the camera’s lenses. Responding means to resound with the victim’s pain and needs. Anyone who has ever felt and shared the pain and need of someone helpless and abused should be cured of ego’s vanity. And a professional’s concerns over his or her standing as a representative of their trade is as vain as any celebrity’s posing. The more educated and renowned, the more ravenous a professional’s ego, and the easier it is offended. Forget about the victims of the reporting …
It may be a matter of the writer’s / journalist’s inclination what pain and needs they answer, but as a profession and a trade they have an obligation to their audience as well as to their objects. By tuning in and listening to their audience and the victims, they might learn a few things beyond hard facts. Resonance and impact are a matter of soft facts.
