How Social Media Changed Politics
Euphoria. Disbelief.
On Twitter (X), it was the former. On LinkedIn, it’s more of the latter.
One event. Two diametrically opposite interpretations. US Elections 2024.
Much has been said about how social media broke mainstream media’s monopoly on expressing and disseminating ideas. About how it enhanced the freedom of expression.
An overlooked aspect is how it incubated echo-chambers. It’s as if people now inhabit different worlds within the same space. Significantly, one’s worldview is incomprehensible to someone from a different camp.
I think Jonathan Haidt 's “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” is one of the most important articles tracing the increasing use of social media in American lives and how it impacted social cohesiveness and politics. I’ll use some of his ideas in this newsletter.
It’s in the Medium
Earlier, navigating your social circles involved encountering people holding diverse political views. Social media enables people to bypass this opinion-diversity and immerse themselves in radicalized spaces. The anonymity brings out people’s most moralistic selves, while relegating their diplomatic and socially-conscious selves to the background.
As Haidt notes, social media has long ceased to be about creating and maintaining social ties. It’s now a stage to enact a carefully-scripted performance, a site to build your personal brand.
On Twitter (X), which is more conducive to privacy, it results in hyper-emotional otherization of rival ideas and groups. While the cringey posts on LinkedIn (where your identity is known) are subject to memes and mockery.
In his book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, Neil Postman explains how “oral, literate, and televisual cultures radically differ in the processing and prioritization of information.”
In other words…The Medium is the Metaphor
Postman avers: “The book, by isolating the reader and his responses, tended to separate him from the powerful oral influences of his family, teacher, and priest. Print thus created a new conception of self as well as of self-interest.”
But as a new technology marches into civilization, it not just changes the way we do things, it changes how humans relate to each other.
Social media, with its emphasis on ‘virality’ (popularity), fuels behavior that aims to excite emotions. Detailed, reflective analysis may illuminate, but rarely trigger primal emotions. Memes, edited video bytes, and tersely worded snarks on Twitter rule the game.
The mainstream print and television, constrained by the mores of the trade, cannot achieve the same level of ideological impact (not ruling out their reporting bias, just highlighting how their presentation style is outdated).
Why is everything liberal?
Recommended by LinkedIn
A prominent feature of the pre-digital era, Haidt notes, was that of “a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society.”
It’s this mirror that social media shattered. It upended mainstream media’s stranglehold on media. The media’s (and many institutions’) left liberal slant is fairly evident and unmistakable.
This is largely true of most institutions. Why is this?
Richard Hanania probes this at length.
He writes: “While all votes count equally on Election Day, at all other times some citizens matter a lot more than others. For example, let’s say I vote Republican every two years, but otherwise go on with my life and rarely ever think about politics. You, on the other hand, not only vote Democrat, but give money to campaigns, write your Congressman when major legislation comes up, wear pink hats, and march in the streets or write emails to institutions when you’re outraged about something.”
He continues: “In an evenly divided country, if one side simply cares more, it’s going to exert a disproportionate influence on all institutions, and be more likely to see its preferences enacted in the time between elections when most people aren’t paying much attention.”
The mainstream media has since made huge inroads into the social media landscape. I see ‘fact checking’ as a backdoor entry of the media's vice-like grip on the news narrative. Only after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (X) did the liberals' choke-hold on the news narrative loosen a bit.
While it’s true that society is more polarized today, the past shouldn’t be idealized either. Much of it was ideological uniformity rather than conscious negotiation.
The Way Ahead
Decisions taken in the heat of ‘virality’ could prove harmful in the long run. While a topic could trend for a few days, in the long haul, it’s most often forgotten.
Haidt observes that the framers of the US constitution understood the problem of unruly passion that animates a populace once in a while.
“They knew that democracy had an Achilles’ heel because it depended on the collective judgment of the people, and democratic communities are subject to “the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions.” The key to designing a sustainable republic, therefore, was to build in mechanisms to slow things down, cool passions, require compromise, and give leaders some insulation from the mania of the moment while still holding them accountable to the people periodically, on Election Day.”
While it may be difficult for people to agree on ideological aspects, it’s both important and possible for them to collaborate on things that affect them at societal level. People may disagree on abortion issues, but will be open to working together for public goods (like a public road, shelter for the poor) that affects them all.
Haidt concludes with a reassuring note:
“When Tocqueville toured the United States in the 1830s, he was impressed by the American habit of forming voluntary associations to fix local problems, rather than waiting for kings or nobles to act, as Europeans would do. That habit is still with us today.”
The ideological battles on social media can carry on. But the same media can (and should) be leveraged towards accomplishment of common public goals.
PS: