Andrew Marantz[1] reminds his readers of a
JFK quote. Kennedy pointed out that
people are always disposed to accept simple messages that address their
concerns, but that Americans’ good sense seems to sober them up when it comes to
how they proceed. What Kennedy did not
foresee is an accelerant. It happens
that today that accelerant exists and, sure enough, it is overrunning what good
sense many people have.
That disrupter is social media. As the result of the wizardry back in
2004-2005, a technical magic developed that allows ordinary people to
communicate with everyone else in the world without going through gatekeepers. Now, in full disclosure, this writer has both
a blog – dah – but also has a book published through the retailer, Amazon. In both cases he bypassed any
gatekeepers. But even he has to admit
that there are inherent problems with this free access to a world audience.
This writer sees this free access as an opportunity to
extend of his career – one that pays a lot less, but one that allows him to
continue with that aspect of his former employment that he enjoyed most. That is “teaching” someone something he,
first, feels is important and, second, that he can do with people who want to
learn what it is he is sharing. Surely,
there is a vast array of reasons why anyone would expose him/herself by communicating
to a world audience. This writer, for one,
finds it as an enjoyable activity and important in a limited way.
Unfortunately, too many who have engaged in this media has
apparently done so to be, as Marantz found out in his research, disruptive. And the motivation seems not to provide a
public service, but as a means to make a buck.
Nothing wrong with that as long as what they do does not offend or go
contrary to the common good. But when
disrupters go about their business with no ascertainable aim or goal other than
to be disruptive, then the common good is being, at best, ignored.
The first victims of these disrupters were/are the
gatekeepers in an array of industries. They
include advertising, journalism, publishing, and political consulting. And they were successful in this endeavor
beyond what anyone could have predicted.
The effects have not only ignored the common good, but they have also
attacked it in ways that few could have predicted back in the early years of
this new endeavor. And their success, of
course, is not the sole result of their skills but of the social/political
environment in which they initiated their efforts.
The directly, affected segment of the population that was targeted
was what was known as the silent majority.
That is the mostly conservative, frustrated people of middle class,
religious oriented groups (usually evangelical groups) and the numbers of dispossessed
workers – victims of the global economy – that have stewed over the vast
social, economic, and political shifts the nation has experienced since the 1980s.
What came about has been media that on a continuous basis –
often through entertaining messaging such as with the use of humor – issued information
that people did not need to see and hear, but what they wanted to see and hear. As such, they became victimized in ways
Marantz captures as in the following:
Then, swiftly, came the unthinkable: smart, well-meaning people unable to
distinguish simple truth from viral misinformation; a pop-culture punch line
ascending to the presidency; neo-Nazis marching, unmasked, through several
American cities. This wasn’t the kind of
disruption anyone had envisioned. There
had been a serious miscalculation.[2]
And to heighten the
effect, due to something new called algorithms, their “published” material targeted
their messages toward those who wanted to see it, but not to those who did
not. The computer imaging had a way to
draw the attention of those who would be open to such content and away from
those who weren’t.
Marantz goes on a bizarre adventure in which he got to know
the producers of this messaging, attended their functions, and extensively interviewed
them. He tells an interesting story that
gives his readers insights as to what skills these producers have, their personal
motivations, and their politics. This is
not only in terms of how they react to the national political stage, but how
they behave politically within the community of fellow social media activists
and how they can exploit those environments.
But to set the stage for the current state of affairs
within that community, one can note that by 2014, their community was
established. One early practitioner was
Ron Paul who initiated a blog named The Right Stuff. An early descriptive term for the resulting,
early sites was “post-libertarians.” These
more strident sites were attempting to push messaging with a far-right flavor. Marantz characterizes their political content
as creating a “libertarian-to-far-right” pipeline. The direction of such efforts was toward a
“full radicalization.”
The techniques used can be described as being propaganda
efforts, and they include to this day photoshopping images, the use of parodied
songs, and what is called “countersignal memes.” This last technique is characterized with depressingly
mocking or unsavory, self-serving images or messages. When these efforts are well executed and many
of these practitioners have proven to be skillful in this realm, they become
“must see” material among those disposed to appreciate and believe its messaging.
Future postings will share some of Marantz experiences as
he observed firsthand what these social media communicators have done and what
seems to assist them in their efforts. Anecdotally,
this writer has heard that for many, these social media outlets have become what
right-wing voters depend on to get their “news” despite their proven misinformation
and inaccurate predictions that they have made over the last decade or so.
Of
course, the most recent example is the message that Trump’s victory in the last
election was stolen from him. Gee, what
can go wrong with this kind of unfettered, free speech? Which by the way, this blogger would find it
totally acceptable if his blog would be reviewed for its content being responsible. That would be the case as long as the criteria
used in such reviews were subject to public acceptance and limited to concerns
over influencing violent or otherwise illegal behavior.
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