Spreading Awareness
Oct. 21st, 2021 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anorthiteIn "Entertaining Ourselves to Death," a surprisingly good Media take, Neil Postman categorizes the bulk of 24 hr television news programming as consisting of pseudoevents or context-free information. Where the purpose of news is entertainment and not information, news gets molded to fit the medium, instead of vice versa, and it becomes full of modules that consist of time but not necessarily substance.
Pseudoevents are events that have no actual real meaning, but are staged for the sole purpose of a media feeding frenzy; context-free information is the content of news channels that is shared with the viewer lacking a clear call-to-action. This content serves to dramatically raise the information-action ratio--you personally can do nothing about inflation, the pandemic, unrest in the Middle East, and yet you will be bombarded from every corner with information about things you cannot change. The kind of action this information *should* provoke is curiosity, investigation into the historical, political, or cultural context that is never provided in the news cycle--the announcer has moved on to the next extraordinary occurrence in a day guaranteed to be full of them. In Postman's view, too often the viewer moves right along with them.
Caveat that I don't think the book is to be read at all as an indictment of being informed, but rather saying that what television/the 24 hr news cycle is doing is not informing at all, but entertaining. To be informed from this type of news media requires additional legwork on the part of the viewer, who may not care/have time/even realize that what they are being served is not the whole meal.
Postman wrote this in the 1980s, of course, far before the unholy advent of social media. But to me the most striking comparison between his ideas and, lets say, twitter, is seem in the practice of "spreading awareness." Caveat the second: what I'm talking about here is not people trying to boost recognition/gain funds for a specific issue or situation, or provide resources for further study of a specific issue. I'm talking about the regurgitation of current events without a specific purpose or intent/goal. Spreading awareness, and its devil spawn, the informational carrd, is pretty easy to identify in most cases as context-free information. While the intent definitely isn't to entertain, it's hard to question why these kinds of posts are made and shared by thousands of people without getting into a circular argument --> why are they shared? to spread awareness. What good does spreading awareness do? It spreads awareness. Often, although not always, these posts are graphic or shocking in some way, and the information they include is often watered down, lacking in context, completely not true, or even insidious. There's a kind of moral imperative attached to the circulation of these posts--they are a way to show that you personally care about these issues. When calls to action are made, they are usually to "pseudoactions" such as signing a useless petition or emailing a non-corporate entity. Having read Postman, I wonder if this very prevalent type of behavior is in some ways a misguided reaction to the feeling of impotence that being bombarded with so much context-free information on the daily produces. If you can't actually do anything about world issues, maybe you can spread awareness or sign a petition--somehow show that you care. I'm guilty of this too; I don't want people to think that I don't know right from wrong, that I'm oblivious to the world around me. But I'm also trying to get better at thinking about the ways in which my reactions to these events can be useful--to myself, to those around me, and to the people to which the events occur--in ways that require more than just tapping a finger or whatever.
The problem with these posts is not that they're meant badly, but that they are a sensationalized, often partially fabricated or oversimplified representation of a real event, but serve only to soothe the frustrations of the people who create and share them. It encourages a sense of "being informed"/"being aware" based on tens of seconds-long ego validating brushes with the news rather than a deeper approach that includes context and nuance. And it also serves as a placebo to our systemic frustrations--the illusion of action when it might be more beneficial for us to sit with our discomfort over our perceived lack of individual ability to have an impact on the world around us.
Pseudoevents are events that have no actual real meaning, but are staged for the sole purpose of a media feeding frenzy; context-free information is the content of news channels that is shared with the viewer lacking a clear call-to-action. This content serves to dramatically raise the information-action ratio--you personally can do nothing about inflation, the pandemic, unrest in the Middle East, and yet you will be bombarded from every corner with information about things you cannot change. The kind of action this information *should* provoke is curiosity, investigation into the historical, political, or cultural context that is never provided in the news cycle--the announcer has moved on to the next extraordinary occurrence in a day guaranteed to be full of them. In Postman's view, too often the viewer moves right along with them.
Caveat that I don't think the book is to be read at all as an indictment of being informed, but rather saying that what television/the 24 hr news cycle is doing is not informing at all, but entertaining. To be informed from this type of news media requires additional legwork on the part of the viewer, who may not care/have time/even realize that what they are being served is not the whole meal.
Postman wrote this in the 1980s, of course, far before the unholy advent of social media. But to me the most striking comparison between his ideas and, lets say, twitter, is seem in the practice of "spreading awareness." Caveat the second: what I'm talking about here is not people trying to boost recognition/gain funds for a specific issue or situation, or provide resources for further study of a specific issue. I'm talking about the regurgitation of current events without a specific purpose or intent/goal. Spreading awareness, and its devil spawn, the informational carrd, is pretty easy to identify in most cases as context-free information. While the intent definitely isn't to entertain, it's hard to question why these kinds of posts are made and shared by thousands of people without getting into a circular argument --> why are they shared? to spread awareness. What good does spreading awareness do? It spreads awareness. Often, although not always, these posts are graphic or shocking in some way, and the information they include is often watered down, lacking in context, completely not true, or even insidious. There's a kind of moral imperative attached to the circulation of these posts--they are a way to show that you personally care about these issues. When calls to action are made, they are usually to "pseudoactions" such as signing a useless petition or emailing a non-corporate entity. Having read Postman, I wonder if this very prevalent type of behavior is in some ways a misguided reaction to the feeling of impotence that being bombarded with so much context-free information on the daily produces. If you can't actually do anything about world issues, maybe you can spread awareness or sign a petition--somehow show that you care. I'm guilty of this too; I don't want people to think that I don't know right from wrong, that I'm oblivious to the world around me. But I'm also trying to get better at thinking about the ways in which my reactions to these events can be useful--to myself, to those around me, and to the people to which the events occur--in ways that require more than just tapping a finger or whatever.
The problem with these posts is not that they're meant badly, but that they are a sensationalized, often partially fabricated or oversimplified representation of a real event, but serve only to soothe the frustrations of the people who create and share them. It encourages a sense of "being informed"/"being aware" based on tens of seconds-long ego validating brushes with the news rather than a deeper approach that includes context and nuance. And it also serves as a placebo to our systemic frustrations--the illusion of action when it might be more beneficial for us to sit with our discomfort over our perceived lack of individual ability to have an impact on the world around us.
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