New Hope for the Digital Future

I may be changing my opinion. How open-minded and scholarly of me, no? I credit Chapter 4 of John Hartley's "Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies" entitled "The distribution of public thought." You'd have thought that Chapter 3, "Journalism and popular culture," would have spoken to this recovering newspaper person, but it was Chapter 4's discussion of public thought, what it means, and why having more of it isn't akin to a societal regression that made perk up and say "well... yeah."

Another thing that happened this week that immediately came to mind when reading this book was this whole Kony 2012 business. The video, which began circulating widely on social media outlets early last week, prompted a response in me. And when it was over, I began to think about that response. I reacted exactly how that video wanted me to react, which led me to be suspicious.

Hartley contends that more public thought will likely lead to "better" times ahead (p. 96.):

"In terms of history, more of anything worthwhile has never meant worse -- more education, healthcare, affluence, freedom, comfort, intellectual, or entrepreneurial activity, or whatever, has consistently resulted in, well, more. . . . Extending once priestly or royal privileges to everyone benefits . . . everyone."

So extending this idea to public thought, of course means that yes, we'll have more people thinking publicly (in Internet forums, blogs, online news content, etc...) to wade through, but with that comes more quality thought to stumble upon.

So, enter the viral Kony video. Twitter and Facebook exploded, as was the intent, with sympathetic shares and retweets. But what was most refreshing -- or even comforting -- to me was that just as quickly as the word spread about the video, so too did the fact-checking and other-side-of-the-story shares.

Hartley mentions that we may be at the next "Gutenberg" era in communication -- a change so big that it only happens once every 500 years or so -- and I'm inclined to believe him. And as Hartley says, it took a while for the full effect of the printing press to be seen; it will also take a while for the implications of social and digital media to be felt. Right now, the populace is learning how to best deal with it. With a lot of noise will come a smaller number of clear and focused voices that will rise above the rest. I think we caught a glimpse of this over the past week with the Kony story being wildly shared, then the "other side" being just as wildly broadcast.

So, as much as I still bristle at the phrase "citizen Journalism," I've softened to the idea of any idiot being able to publish anything on the Web. I now think it'll take a while for us to learn how to best navigate this new world and all of its opinions, but I'll hang up hope on the "practice makes perfect" hook and reserve my cynicism.

If more than a fleeting awareness of the myriad complicated issues in Africa come from the viral spread of #Kony2012 --  wonderful. But I hold on to enough cynicism to think that fleeting might be just the term that applies. I think at the very least Cultural Studies scholars will have a new term to discuss: