That’s the title of a fairly recent lecture by Steven Berlin Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You, a techno-optimist book that argued that while the content of popular culture is debatably getting dumber, its delivery system is not (the technical and mental proficiency required to grasp the enjoyment of pop culture is becoming more demanding).
He critiques the idea that the information age is creating an endless array of political echo chambers, each sealed off from the other with little prospect for cross-ideological dialogue. He also tackles the idea that politicians are more polarized than ever before. Partisan, yes, but not polarized. Reminiscent of the arguments of some over at the “libertarian Marxist” Sp!ked, that citizens of western countries today face a “crisis of legitimacy,” Johnson believes that the range of political debate is actually quite slim. Instead, we see increasingly shrill disagreement over minor differences in policy. (Bryan Caplan makes a similar point here.) This is encouraged by ever more particularized forms of media, from Rachel Maddow to Bill O’Reilly.
As for the internet, the idea that it is uniquely threatening to cross-cutting political dialogue is bogus. Unlike the newspapers and magazines of yore – he uses the example of National Review in 1985 – internet text utilizes hyperlinks. And common resources such as Wikipedia, used by nearly everyone with an inquiring mind and a journalistic impulse, are flush with opportunities to stumble upon some new bit of information (much of it politically neutral on the surface but inadvertently political – think agricultural science in 1960s China). In the Q&A Johnson admits that this creates only the potential for discussion and dialogue among partisans where in did not exist before. He is not certain if this is actually taking place.
There is some inconclusive evidence on the topic of the balkanization of bloggers provided by Eszter Hargittai, Jason Gallo and Mathew Kane in their paper for the journal Public Choice, ”Cross Ideological Discussions Among Conservative and Liberal Bloggers.” They find, in the ten month period in which they analyzed the level of cross- communication among top bloggers, no decrease or increase in the rate of hyperlinking. It’s been present since day one, but has not waxed or waned in frequency. (Ten months is a short time frame, admittedly.) At minimum this shows that the mere option of using a hyperlink, something not available to National Review (or Dissent) in 1985, is actually being exploited, which means the authors are viewing the thought processes and empirical claims of their counterparts in a fashion unavailable previously. But a study wasn’t necessary to show this.
Even if the more substantive act of discussion is absent, at the very least there is exposure where it could not have existed before. This alone would seem to bolster Johnson’s argument about the uniquely non-echo chamber status of today’s political discourse as compared to times past .
My previous inclination, which I still hold, was to grant that people are more visibly politically and ideologically segmented than ever, but that this only reflects the diversity of perspectives that had always existed. But I had also assumed that little cross-cutting discussion was taking place and that it was going to get worse (but not terrible, because the world apart from politics is better at bridging social divides – or making them irrelevant). I’m not so sure now.
December 15, 2009 at 9:10 am
If I were to model it I would first define political polarization as the standard deviation in opinion on any particular subject or set of subjects. In my model the variation, or S.D., would itself be a random variable and a function of time.
My model would work as follows:
As a new “issue” emerges, or an old one is renewed, the variation would spike. This is caused in part from a paucity of information about new problems, but mostly because of signaling. In other words, new/renewed debates cause people to pick sides and jockey for social status. As time passes the debate becomes “old” and there is a regression towards the mean, i.e. the variation decreases.
This is a harmonic process with several degrees of freedom, or modes of vibration. Some of the modes would track medium frequency events like election cycles, and some would track lower frequency events like generational shifts, economic crises, war, and so on. And of course there would many more high frequency events.
All of these events cause polarization (S.D of political beliefs) to occur with a certain magnitude that correspond to their respective frequencies with a power law relationship.
When it comes to the effect of the new media on polarization, my guess or prediction, would be that it increases the frequency at which we get worked up, but the magnitude is still the same on average. In other words, the variation in political beliefs spikes more often, but regression towards the mean occurs at a higher rate.
So, in short, the new media has allowed us to fight for social status more often over “smaller issues” at the expense of some of the “larger issues”.
Sorry about the rambling post, I hope it was at least 90% coherent.
December 15, 2009 at 9:31 am
I should add (or maybe I shouldn’t!), with respect to the “echo chamber” analogy, the old model was one in which the echo chamber was much “louder” but got excited infrequently. The new model is one in which the chamber is “quietly” getting worked up about something all of the time, and then moving on.
December 15, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Sounds coherent to me. Though it reminds me to go brush up on my stats. Luckily my conceptual understanding of the field is still intact even if my mathematical chops have suffered.
I like the point about signalling and otherwise seeking reliable (well, not genuinely reliable) heuristics for figuring out what to profess one’s belief in. That’s how people actually operate. The problem of too little information is hashed out by elites.
One genuinely new issue that Johnson doesn’t mention is global warming. In this there isn’t really any comparable predecessor by which to show that the range of debate has slimmed or widened and that the magnitude of disagreement has increased or not.
December 15, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Your “crisis of legitimacy” link doesn’t work.
The “Big Sort” hypothesis would be that homogeneity is a consumption good whose quantity demanded increases when the price falls due to technological change.
December 20, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The echo chamber idea is only that people talk only to people with similar views — not necessarily that they’re going to farther extremes.
That’s obviously what’s happening. The search costs to find those with similar views is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.
Also people are more mobile in cyberspace because the start-up costs of creating a space for your echo chamber have plummeted — just start a new webpage, forum, blog, etc. at almost no cost, vs. having to find or build a new cafe, bar, bookstore, etc. to hang out at.
I also think the monitoring costs to make sure group members are adhering to the party line have gone way down in the digital age, which raises the costs of shirking. Members put a lot more of their views out in posts, comments, e-mails, etc., which are easier to receive and inspect than the thoughts in their heads or the sounds from their mouths. Plus, they’re there forever, so you’re less able to wiggle your way out of something contrary that you said.
December 20, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Theoretically the search costs of finding different views should also be lower. Politics has long been characterized by geographic cleavages (greater perhaps than internal ones). In a world where distance is no barrier to communication we might theoretically expect people to be exposed to more diverse opinions than a world where distance is a high barrier.
December 22, 2009 at 8:08 am
The echo chamber idea is only that people talk only to people with similar views — not necessarily that they’re going to farther extremes.
I would say its both, the first causing the latter. Thats the concern anyway.
July 19, 2011 at 5:28 pm
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