DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSE

The purpose of discussion – the back and forth of assertion and argument – in a democracy is to discover the common good.

Public good is better defined that common good. However it does not follow that access enabled by the internet for two way communication increases rationality or common purpose. Critics suggest the opposite.

Cass Sunstein observes in relation to representative democracy in the United States, via Kirk Nielsen at Alternet, and it has application here as well, that:

“Representatives would be accountable to the public at large. But there was also supposed to be a large degree of reflection and debate, both within the citizenry and within government itself.”

Blogs and other internet forms do not in general it is alleged provide such an democratic environment but enhance polarization by self selection. Cass Sunstein, via Karl Nielsen, suggests:

. . . the Internet’s potential for impeding deliberation between groups with opposing viewpoints, eventually increasing ideological rigidity and polarization to a point of no return. It’s vastly easier to join like-minded Internet “enclaves” across the world than to drive across town for a meeting in which someone might challenge one’s pre-established beliefs and positions. Sunstein walks readers through behavioral studies finding that when groups of like-minded individuals are isolated from different viewpoints, they tend toward consensus on the most extreme position held within the group.

At worst, Sunstein says, Internet-induced polarization could lead to social instability. “The danger is that through the mechanisms of persuasive arguments, social comparisons, and corroboration, members will move to positions that lack merit,” he writes. “It is impossible to say, in the abstract, that those who sort themselves into enclaves will generally move in a direction that is desirable for society at large or even for its own members. It is easy to think of examples to the contrary, as, for example, Nazism, hate groups, terrorists, and cults of various sorts.”

Clearly, the Internet has potential to create political good. Citizens have access to vast amounts of information and commentary. Even like-minded enclave proliferation can be good: The more there are, the greater the potential for inter-enclave discussion.

But a study of 1,400 liberal and conservative blogs found the vast majority of bloggers link only to like-minded blogs. Worse, another study showed that when “liberal” bloggers comment on “conservative” blog posts, and vice-versa, a plurality of comments simply cast contempt on opposing views. “Only a quarter of cross-ideological posts involve genuine substantive discussion. In this way, real deliberation is often occurring within established points of view, but only infrequently across them,” Sunstein reports.

One cure for Internet-driven polarization lies with “general interest intermediaries.” By that terminology, Sunstein means media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, current affairs magazines, PBS, NPR and old-fashioned network news broadcasts: “People who rely on such intermediaries have a range of chance encounters, involving shared experiences with diverse others, and also exposure to materials and topics that they did not seek out in advance.”

The problem with this analysis, which I suppose is not without considerable truth, is that it fails to identify the problems, not all new and created by the new media, of the mainstream media framing of issues, sometimes described as the malleability of truth, and its economic and social agenda as a platform for commercial propaganda. In a democracy the responsibility for accountability, in the first instance, lies with each citizen who by that definition accepts the common good as the purpose for public words and actions.