Saturday, 30 March 2024
The exact idea of things
Hussonnet was not amusing. By dint of writing every day on all sorts of subjects, reading many newspapers, listening to a great number of discussions, and uttering paradoxes for the purpose of dazzling people, he had in the end lost the exact idea of things, blinding himself with his own feeble fireworks.
Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education (1869)
This is pretty much what goes on now if people aren’t selective enough when they look to the media for information. Feeble fireworks rather than adequate information is what they get. Millions still watching the BBC on a regular basis suggests those millions aren’t selective enough and have probably lost the exact idea of things. Not that there are good reasons to assume they have a powerful desire for the exact idea of anything.
Complexity and big media don’t mix. Big media outfits don’t put in the work and money required to untangle complexity, they don’t want to pay for the expertise and effort. It is unsurprising that what we so often see is lying by omission. Beyond the headline, stories often peter out into minimal effort, padded out with conjecture, gossip a few quotes and some stock images.
A good example occurred in the early days of the US presidential election where Donald Trump claimed that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent. I recall an online BBC response which claimed that Trump’s allegation was false without explaining that this was an editorial opinion, not something the BBC knew.
The BBC response was too quick, it was too early to know one way or the other and probably still is. The issue was too incomplete and complex for definitive analysis to have been done, but big media and complexity don’t mix.
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5 comments:
"This is pretty much what goes on now if people aren’t selective enough when they look to the media for information."
Due diligence.
James - yes, many don't do it but still don't expect to be deceived.
Yes, I remember the BBC news headlines, where it announced that 'Donald Trump had said with no evidence that the election was fraudulent.' How do they know he has no evidence? I thought. He can't present evidence, hours after the result, but he may (actually he did), have lots of evidence.
Actually I've long thought the media don't do analysis at all well, for the very reasons you explain AK.
Indeed. People (all of us) like to reduce the complexities of life into simple concepts, rules of thumb, and habits. Otherwise we would spend all day working how to get out of bed, breakfast, and off to work.
There are two consequences. One, the confirmation bias, is that 'facts' which confirm our simple concepts, rules of thumb, and habits are nodded through without much thought. Two, 'facts' which don't confirm simply receive no attention.
And the kicker is that most people don't look to the media for information but for gossip that feeds their confirmation bias.
Unfortunately gossip sells and information does not. Which might explain the poor state of many publications and broadcasts today.
Tammly - analysis seems to have become too expensive, while studio-based copy and paste is deemed good enough most of the time and presumably much cheaper.
DJ - it's interesting to use 'gossip' as a kind of technical term for much mainstream media output. The problem with it is the obvious one, it is not what people generally mean by 'gossip'. Yet it does highlight an essential feature of mass media rather well.
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