Cass Sunstein on Media Fragmentation
Is fragmentation of audiences on the Web an opportunity to report deeply on a topic to a narrow audience? Does it spell the decline of general interest publications? Other thoughts on the article?
Note: This is one of two articles assigned for week three of New Media Storytelling. Please add your comments by 12 p.m. Tuesday, January 22.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I agree with the author’s view that the internet has facilitated, and will continue to facilitate social and political “Balkanization,” but he loses me at the very end.
Sunstein invokes then-radical ideas of anti-slavery, civil rights and gender equality to show the internet’s potential as a catalyst for positively radical change, but I don’t think this is a legitimate comparison. Abolitionists published anti-slavery newspapers and magazines (The Nation magazine was among them), but they were in no way socially or politically isolated from other points of view. The point of a free and unfettered media is to provide a diversity of thought to the public. When people navigate contrasting sources of news and commentary, they are forced to continually confront and reappraise their own views. Abolitionists, civil rights workers and feminists spread their words in hostile social climates to mostly unsympathetic audiences. In their most potent demonstrations they challenged opponents eye to eye, and in doing so their message was made so much more powerful. In short, they took ownership of their unpopular opinions. They took risks.
This also goes back to my fear of anonymity. Our tendency to filter much of what we see on the internet is troubling enough, but the ability to say things without the risk of social reproach is perhaps even more troubling. Historically, being a member of a fringe organization or community required you to take ownership for your thoughts and actions. This is difficult to do in public, but possible if one is firm in their convictions. The fact that Klan members wear hoods over their heads is a reflection of cowardice and insecurity. It’s a shame internet communities are becoming havens of affirmation.
Lastly, as a liberal I’m baffled to hear congressional democrats calling for a return of the Fairness Doctrine. Durbin, Kerry, and even Kucinich??? I agree talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative, but does that give the government the right to regulate what political ideas are broadcast?Someone help me understand this, because I feel a little betrayed.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I agree to a certain extent that the Internet has facilitated fragmentation. People can now band together with other like-minded people from around the world, and thereby tie themselves even more tightly to ideas. But, I think Sunstein is missing the positives of the Internet.
Consider his Neo Nazi example. Sure, Neo Nazis can spread the message of hate via Web sites, but they are also exposed to a wider range of ideas on the Internet. Imagine there’s a Neo Nazi living in a community of racists. He or she grew up with a family of racists in a small town. All this person knows is hate, hate for Jews, blacks, etc. Furthermore, he or she has never been exposed to Jews, blacks, etc. At least on the Internet information about the alternative is available. Yes, the Neo Nazi fan site may not be directly linked to the Survivors of the Shoah, but at least the other side is there. That’s more than I can about technology free communities where hate is left to go completely unchecked.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I think the author gives general-interest publications too much credit for being “diverse.”
Sunstein claims that general-interest media can introduce people to different people’s experiences, and I think that’s true, but not as complete as it should be. Growing up in a mostly white suburb of a mostly black city, I got most of my impressions of African-Americans from the local newspaper and TV news, and they largely were not positive (crime, drugs, etc.). At some point, the news media risks perpetuating stereotypes as it tries to cover all the people it represents.
The Internet may not be much better insofar as it “balkanizes” us further. I was fascinated by the descriptions of how group polarization works and realized that it’s been true in my own experiences with online communities. At one message board I used to frequent, I got so frustrated with some discussion topics and posters that I started ignoring them, which was good for my sanity but not for the free flow of ideas. But there were other times when I felt grateful for the community because I trusted many of the people there and could tell them things I wouldn’t even tell my family.
I hope that people can use the Internet for information, not just communication, and can genuinely learn from and be edified by it. Group polarization may not be bad insofar as it protects worthy ideas that otherwise would disappear in the “spiral of silence.” But as far as democracy goes, we’ll still need truly diverse general publications.
One update: Sunstein writes that white and black Americans don’t watch the same TV shows. That was true in 2001, but today, there’s actually more overlap, as the Baltimore Sun reported in 2007. Once the WB and UPN merged into one network and multicultural reality shows such as “American Idol” took over, viewers started to come together more. (Who says there’s no redeeming value to reality TV?)
January 20th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I agree that fragmentation of audiences on the Web does afford people an opportunity to report in depth on topics to eager and receptive listeners. As Sunstein mentioned people use “new technologies to reduce the friction of ordinary life.” It is comforting to know you can easily find a group of people on the Internet who share your beliefs and ideas when you want to discuss them or expand your knowledge about a subject.
Unlike Sunstein, I do not think group polarization on the Internet is as great of a danger as he assumes. People naturally filter information, focusing on information and discussions they agree with while ignoring everything else. The Internet merely allows people to focus more efficiently. It does not necessarily encourage extremism. Racist individuals could seek out information to support their ideology without the Internet. After all, the KKK gathered a strong following without the use of current technology.
As Brenna said, there are a lot of other sites a person can be exposed to on the Internet, just as someone has hundreds of channels to choose on television or thousands of newspapers to read. A conservative person could easily ignore every other news network except Fox News and become more polarized. The same person could also choose to listen to news programs with opposing views. So is the Internet that much worse?
The risk of balkanization is latent in technologies that assist communication. Whether we choose to listen to dissenting opinions will depend on how accepting we are. The Internet does not stunt or encourage an open mind drastically more than other methods of communication.
When we progress from the Internet to a new information disseminator 30 years from now, I am sure someone else will be fretting about how the “Internetor 3000” will be the downfall of our society. But no technology can regulate our natural inclination to cluster with like-minded people.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:00 am
I don’t think fragmentation will result in less of an interest in general interest publications.
Although there have been examples, as Sunstein points out, of ill-meaning individuals forming communities online, I think the author overstates this threat and really misses the ball on a lot of positive results of such fragmentation.
The more knowledgeable the people who can contribute to a site on, say, organic food, the more meaningful the information will be not only to the members of this group, but also to visitors who want to know more about organic food.
Even if I’m not a big fan of organic food, I can do some research and quickly find communities that are very knowledgeable.
Nevertheless, I don’t think people will give up on general interest publications. People still want to know what’s going on in different parts of the newspaper, even if it’s just skimming headlines.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am
I think group fragmentation is something to be celebrated, not feared. I think the author of this chapter looks only at the extreme examples to show how fragmentation could be dangerous.
Group fragmentation online is a reflection of society. People like to go where they are comfortable and converse with likeminded individuals. And while I feel people should not just be content in the comfortable and instead challenge their perspectives and norms, the desire to be with likeminded individuals is human nature.
The people who watch Fox News don’t mind that it leans right because they lean right. They like that they are getting news reflective of their own views and opinions. And while I am not sure this is right, it is reality.
Instead of fearing group fragmentation news organizations could embrace it as a way to target unique audiences with highly specialized, niche publications. These publications would allow experts to delve deeply into a topic and have receptive readers familiar with the background. These publications would not replace general interest publications, but instead offer a place for people with specialized interests to go to read about the things that matter to them most.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Though I agree that the internet allows people to isolate themselves from opinions that differ from their own, I think that the value of having all of those opinions available outweighs that risk.
People are going to be inclined to consume media that reinforces their already established opinions no matter what you do. If a radio station produces a liberal show and a conservative show back-to-back, liberal-minded listeners are going to tune in to the liberal show and turn the radio off once the conservative one starts and vice versa.
I worry that forcing a medium to ensure equal time for both sides of every issue can not only chill free speech by discouraging reporters from tackling divisive issues, but that it also can have the consequence of giving an idea undue credit. If a newspaper publishes an article in favor of civil rights for minorities, does it then have the responsibility to present a racist point of view as well?
I found the description in this reading of the impact of interacting with homogenous extremist groups interesting, but I’d like to point out that not everyone will stay with an extremist group in which they feel they must change their views to be accepted.
While an undergraduate, I attended seminars focused on various women’s issues during an event called “Women’s Week” at my university. I agreed with the messages of many of the presentations and subsequently joined the campus feminist students’ group.
At first I enjoyed working with the group, discussing topics about which I felt passionate. But as time went by, I realized that the leadership of the group looked down on me whenever I expressed an opinion more moderate than theirs.
Rather than becoming more extreme to fit in, I eventually decided the group was not a good fit for me and joined the organization that planned “Women’s Week” every year instead. They were less extreme, more accepting of differing opinions, and were interested in giving students access to a number of viewpoints on a variety of topics. These were generally left-leaning opinions, but there was no minimum level of radicalism required. We invited people with different opinions to speak on a panel and interact with the audience. And we accomplished practical things, like raising money for women’s health organizations.
The internet offers users a much wider variety of communities than a campus does. And it is much easier to break ties with a group of anonymous people than it is to disassociate from a group you continue to see in your day-to-day life. I agree that isolated internet communities spur some to extremism, but that is not necessarily the effect they will have on everyone.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Yes, the web provides the opportunity to report deeply on a topic that might be of interest only to a narrow audience. And it that sense, it is an easy and wonderful tool for learning more about a topic you are interested in – for example, folk music. People can easily find obscure information or personal accounts and communicate with other people who may have a shared interest in the subject and who can direct you to things that may be a shared interest. I don’t think it spells the decline of general interest publications, because people have to interact outside of the internet and people want to know what other people are talking about or what other people know. I may be speaking for myself, but although I may really like learning about Salvador Dali, or whatever, and talking with experts about his work, that does not negate my interest in being able to communicate with people on issues that are relevant to society.
I also think this article is sensationalizing the issues to make them seem more dramatic. By talking about bombs and racism, the author is playing on readers fears to make what they are writing seem more important. There may be an insulating effect by only linking to other groups with the same viewpoints, but similar things were happening before the internet. The world wide web makes it easier to be introduced to new ideas and provides opportunities for people to easily find other viewpoints.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:03 pm
The fragmentation of Web audiences makes much easier to justify reporting on specific topics for small audiences. Online interest groups and Web sites prove that there are audiences for just about anything. The existence of these niche audiences online lets journalists skip the step of pondering whether or not there is an audience for the topic to be reported on. If a journalist is wondering if anyone would read a piece about how pet birds can impact your lifestyle, he or she would see that there is a forum for bird lovers at http://birdloversonline.com/forum/. There is an interested audience out there.
While people’s interests and hobbies vary widely, there are some things that just about anyone is interested in: the news. Human curiosity has guaranteed that there will always be a market for news. People want to know what is going on in the world around them, whether it is breaking news or an in-depth piece about changes in health care policy. Therefore, there will always be a market for general interest publications.
While online niche audiences do encourage group insulation, I think Sunstein overexaggerated the amount of insulation. Personally, when I am particularly interested in a viewpoint, I want to know what the opposition says as well. Knowing what the opposition says and studying its arguments will enable me to better defend my own viewpoints. I would rather give the opposition’s Web site a hit and read up on what it thinks than not know anything about its views.
A conversation my uncle and brother had over the holidays illustrates a situation I’d never want to be in. My uncle was convinced a certain doctrine does not teach hate. My brother negated his argument and provided a couple of examples to substantiate his claim. All my uncle could do was say that my brother was wrong. He had not read about the opposing viewpoint because he was convinced his view was right on. If he would have looked into the other side’s argument, maybe he could have gained some new perspective on his own views. Looking at the opposition’s view would also have prevented him from leaving the dinner table red-faced with embarrassment.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I agree with Katie that the importance of having many different opinions available to the public outweighs the concern over people only looking for opinions that match their own. Even without the Internet, it is fairly easy for a person to surround himself solely with like-minded individuals.
People will always filter their information. When all of the information is laid out in front of them, people naturally will choose to look at only the information that interests them. In that regard, I don’t believe that the automatic, personalized filters for the Internet should be viewed as a danger. No one should have the right to censor the information available – even if the information is disagreeable to a majority of people – and a filter that selects only biased information cannot be considered wrong. As Sunstein says, “People of certain interests and political convictions tend to choose sites and discussion groups that support their convictions.” A person will almost always identify with a group and will inevitably select agreeable information; a filter merely helps locate and it.
I did find the idea of the PICS filters intriguing because I had never heard of that before. Is this something that people already use? I don’t think it’s harmful to have these potentially biased filters available as an option, but I do wonder what types of organizations and people would be allowed to create their own rating/filter system, as well as whose job it would be to decide who could create a system. Could a random person create one, and then strangers would subscribe to it?
I think Sunstein makes an important point when he says the reason for filtering is “that people often know, or think they know, what they like and dislike.” This is a strong argument against personalized filtering; often people may not know what interests them until they see it. That is why I don’t personalize Web browsers such as Google News. Yes, I may be more interested in arts new than who won the Cubs game, but I want to see what the editors of Google News is the most important information for everyone to know. For this reason, I don’t believe that general interest coverage is going to disappear.
People – or at least some people – will always be interested in the broad spectrum of available information.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I found the article’s discussion about audience fragmentation on the internet very interesting. Although it does allow people to much more easily find support for their own opinions, I agree with what some of my other classmates say about having the availability of these opinions outweighs the risks. I believe strongly that every body is entitled to their own opinions. That is not to say that I don’t think many of those opinions are ludicrous and disagree with them strongly, but I still respect that not everyone was raised nor grew up to be as intelligent as me (I do mean that in jesting manor, for I guarantee most people disagree with many of my opinions and are just as smart if not smarter than I am. But I still think I am right. So there.)
The benefit of having so many sides of one story on the web, however, allows for interesting discussions to take place. And while the entry may have been created with one audience and set of beliefs in mind, it is often people with the opposite set of beliefs that are most interested in the entry! I know that I visit many sites that discuss things I whole heartily disagree with out of pure curiosity. I’ve look up different religions on the Web as well as stances on abortion, gay marriage and mental illness that conflict with my own just to see what the other side is saying. Now, one might say that as a reporter it is my job to know both sides of any argument and therefore not surprising that I do this, but I know I am not the only one! I often see other people responding to posts or websites that they disagree with, therefore suggesting that people do want to see all side of the issue! That is why I think it is important to have such fragmentation in the media.
A wise person once said “You can please everyone some of the time, and some people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.” Audience fragmentation goes hand and hand with this idea. Instead of try to be a people pleaser and cover all sides and all angles, a journalist should dive deeply into one area and let other journalists dive into other areas (or take it on at another time).
There is fear that because the internet provides so many different view points and information on one subject, people no longer need broad interest publications. I believe that journalists should look at this as a challenge rather than a draw back. How can they compete for these fragmented audiences? How many more smaller more focused publications can they create?
I still believe that broad interest publications have a use, however, because they make people aware of general issues that they can then dive more deeply into on the Web. This is the great benefit of the Web! Journalists should use it to its full advantage by taking elements of articles they’ve written for a magazine or talked about on a news show and expand on them on the publication’s Web site. It creates a flow through from one form of journalism to the next. Instead of fighting audience fragmentation, we need to embrace it!
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 am
Maybe it’s because the article was written seven years ago, but I don’t get what’s so interesting about it. As Felicia and Heather pointed out, people cluster with like-minded people. Also, the effects of Group Polarization Sunstein describes seems a lot like Groupthink, a term coined by psychologist Irving Janus in 1972. And he was talking about Vietnam and why the Bay of Pigs invasion seemed like such a good idea at the time.
This article seems to me like a primer in mob psychology applied to the Internet. It was written in 2001, so I’ll cut it some slack, but I don’t really think people’s choices matching their demographic characteristics or pre-existing political beliefs is the sea change Sunstein portrays. I could be wrong; the Internet has been part of my life since high school. But, it seems to me that groups have always come together to make bad decisions. The Internet era has neo-Nazis; the pre-Internet era had the Nazis.
I think one major change is that geography has less to do with the isolation of ideas. And I like that. Okay, so a kid who hates Jews will do an online search for other people who hate Jews, even if they don’t live near him. But a gay kid in a conservative community will search out other people like him and realize he’s not a freak or a sinner.
Yeah, it would be nice if we lived in a world where all people came to the public forum to listen to all sides of an issue. But it seems to me that Sunstein is minimizing the notion that we never lived in that world.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 am
While reading this article, I remembered that just this month in SELF I read an article about a woman who discovered she was married to a gay man; After the divorce, she found a support group online for people in similar situations. I feel like I’m always reading magazine articles in that vein: I thought I was so crazy for pulling out my hair, then I went online and found others like me. I was in so much grief after my daughter committed suicide, and then I went online and found others like me. I couldn’t tell anyone about my intense phobia of jewelry, then I went online and found others like me (I’m not making that one up!) The internet has tremendous power to pull together like-minded people, or people who in some way have something in common - as pdailing points out, that can be a huge comfort to otherwise isolated people (e.g., the gay kid in the conservative community.)
I took “Social Psychology” as an undergrad a few years back, and we talked about a study in which a group of people were given a bunch of little fact cards containing information about made-up “candidates.” They were to pool their info and choose a “winner” for some position. Some fact cards went out to more than one person; others were unique. They found that individuals failed to share the unique fact cards, and instead focused entirely on the common cards. This was an ostensibly stupid thing to do, since the group would we best off with all the information at hand. But people want to feel that others share their opinions, that they’re not alone. Of course people seek out online niches, and of course they want to hear the news that leans the same way they do!
One last thing: czdanowicz (I’m sorry, I don’t know everyone’s last name yet!) commented that it’s empowering to be able to read the opposition’s argument. When I took Law and Ethics of Journalism, we briefly discussed some of the logic behind the right to assemble. One student made a point I hadn’t thought of: when a radical group is making speeches and carrying banners in a public place, we (or the government or whoever) know exactly where they are, and what they’re up to! It’s much safer to know any group’s true agenda than to be cut off from its viewpoints entirely. I believe knowledge is always power, and the choice to be engrossed in all sorts of differing viewpoints is as valid as the choice to engage in group isolation.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Something I find fascinating about the media is readers’/viewers’ relationships with it — in other words, the reason they consume it. As we talked about in class re: the History of Journalism article, internet (and internet precursor) users really want exactly what they want: sports scores of their favorite teams, methods of communicating with their friends, information sources about their particular interests, the balance of their own personal bank account, etc. The Web is all about fragmentation, and it has been since there was first enough information out there for someone to want to spend time on it.
But that still leaves other media sources, which people turn to for much different reasons. This might sound a little silly, but I think people read newspapers because they want a smart-older-brother-esque source they can trust to not only explain to them the news of the day, but also to select which news stories are important. They seek out magazines because they have a personal relationship with the magazines they read. Finally, they watch television because they want to connect with others (i.e. “Did you see the _____ last night?”)
So yes, maybe the Web causes fragmentation, but really only just on the Web. People still need to be connected, and not just to the random woman in Poland who suffers from the same rare skin condition that they do.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 am
Apparently the Internet, too long a hotbed of intolerable radical speech, will bring about the next wave of Nazism or some other type of violent government overthrow if it allows dangerous coversation to continue unchecked. Sunstein, who apparently sees media fragmentation as some sort of enabler of “threatening” viewpoints, would prefer that these dangerous thinkers be thrust out into the open where they will no longer be able to operate behind closed doors, which should thus teach them to think like good Americans ought to.
The author looks at the web as a network of dank crawlspaces, each of them a hiding place for some radical group that hates America. No, the Internet is not a free exchange of ideas! It is a sneaky way to hide fascism in plain sight!
Sunstein’s notion that websites are somehow un-democratic if they don’t link to the “opposition” is simplistic and just plain naïve. We can’t all be on the debate team; we can’t all be journalism students accountable for presenting an objective picture of whatever we discuss. Neutrality is not a prerequisite for public speech.
But Sunstein suggests that because these dangerous fringe sites are going off on their crackpot tangents without paying homage to the other side’s perspective, they are dismantling the virtues of civic discourse. “Play nice or go to your room,” he seems to say. “And, uh, no talking in there, either.”
How are these sites more credible than the unhinged bearded man yelling at you on the subway? Beyond the fact that you can’t see the beard or the subway, there’s not much of one. Anyone ignorant enough to take everything they read on the Internet at face value without questioning it as they would in any other venue deserves exactly what they get. How’s that for civic responsibility?