Why The Facts No Longer Matter

As Chris Hedge states, “A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion.”

What is truth? Truth is defined as a fact that has been verified. Truth is defined as conformity to reality or actuality. Truth is defined as accuracy. So, what is illusion? Illusion is defined as an erroneous mental representation. An illusion is defined as something many people believe that is false. An illusion is defined as a fantasy.

Today’s society has fallen victim to fantasy; to illusions, but why is our world veering further and further away from the real? What happens if this continues? First, we have to figure out why individuals are beginning to become unmoored from reality. Is it because of corporations and businesses? Is new media to blame? Or are we moving farther away from the truth because we, as a society, have started this ‘fantasy movement’? It seems that all three of these ‘ideas’ are a contributing factor to the issue of illusion in today’s world.

One of the five points Wong makes in his article, “5 Reasons the Future Will Be Ruled by BS” is that in order to stay afloat, businesses have to pretend unlimited goods are limited. Wong defines this as FARTS; forced ARTificial scarcity. In summary, the businesses just make stuff up. They tell us that there is only a certain number of the newest phone in current circulation, or that the latest iPod will only be available to an exclusive number of individuals. Is what the businesses tell us true? No. How does that affect our society? It makes us believe the illusions that businesses have conspired, which in the end, results in our society moving farther away from the truth. Use of illusion by businesses is very effective, but it is also very dangerous. In the end, the illusions that businesses have made will impact of society’s ability to trust everyone and everything.

New media is interactive digital media. New media is the internet, cell phones, laptops and other new technologies. These new technologies have contributed to the movement from truth to illusion. How often have you been searching the web and found something you thought was untrue? It has probably happened at least once to every individual on the planet. How does this false information end up on the internet? Someone or something put it there. “The search for truth becomes irrelevant,” states Chris Hedges. How did the search become irrelevant? It is becoming irrelevant because it is impossible to find the truth. Is new media partially to blame for this movement to the unreal? I believe it is, because now there are various ways to seek out information and with anonymous individuals leaving their mark on the internet, our society has a difficult time discovering the truth. This results in our society simply not caring; we do not want to go through the hassle of finding the truth. In the end, we result to just making stuff up. If this continues to happen, we can say goodbye to truth. Truth will just be a long forgotten word that you can find in the dictionary.

Majoo asks, “How can so many people who live in the same place see the world so differently?” One answer to his question is that individuals believe what they want to, even if the facts are right before their eyes. Simply put, people are stubborn. But, another reason could because we all receive different information. “…pollsters and political researchers have begun to document a fundamental shift in the way Americans are thinking about news. No longer are we merely holding opinions different from one another; we’re also holding different facts.” It is difficult to prove whose facts are actually the truth. Another factor in the spread of illusions is that people openly spread these false impressions. Some people simply do not want to believe that what is true is real, so they spread lies. Once these lies reach another person, and another person and these people believe the illusion, it makes it difficult to tell them the truth. The dilemma is that this cannot be stopped; lies will always be spread, and someone will always believe them.

What will happen if we become unmoored from the real? That is a difficult question to answer. But, I can say that if this development continues our society could be a part of an era full of chaos. A world without truth would be a difficult world to live in. “The culture of illusion, one of happy thoughts, manipulated emotions, and trust in the beneficence of power, means we sing along with the chorus or are instantly disappeared from view like those on a reality show.”

Brian M. Lowe, a sociology professor, discussed with us the idea of the spectacle. Manjoo believes that the spectacle contributes to heightened polarization. While Hedges contributes the spectacle to the decline of literacy, narcissist, celebrity culture, and pseudo-events. In general spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates.

Spectacle is a significant tool that has been used by animal advocates. Animal adversaries use imagery to make the public more aware of animal cruelty. For example, they used images of ducks in horrendous conditions to promote the ban of foie gras. They also successfully used imagery to help primates in a scientific lab that researched head injuries.

The animal adversaries essentially created a spectacle; they used visuals to help spread their cause. They individualized the primates, they used narratives, they brought celebrities to their cause, and they left an impact on the public.

Spectacle is not going away. There is an ease of access to information, because social media is readily accessible. There is an agenda-setting; media does not tell us what to think, but what to think about. It is way for the media to tell us what is important.

Maybe, one day we will be able to see what the media is doing to us; how it is influencing us. But, this can only happen when we can look past the spectacle. When we can see past the images that awe us and make up our own minds, then we will have beaten the media's influence. We will then be able to think for ourselves.

"Our World Digitized", Henry Jenkins, and Danah Boyd

“Our World Digitized: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly” began with the moderator Henry Jenkins, a well-known professor of Comparative Media Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology asking a question. Jenkins asks, “How do we measure the success or failure of digital democracy?” That is a good question. Another good question to ask is, can digital democracy be measured at all? “Our World Digitized” seeks out an answer to that question, and many others, in the Internet Age. Jenkins asks questions about free expression, fragmentation, and the importance of Wikipedia. What are the potentials of democracy as we continue moving towards a deeper dependence on the digital world, and will we be happy with the outcome?

Jenkins quotes passages from both speakers’ books. Jenkins first quotes from Cass Sunstein’s novel. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Sunstein states in his novel,

“Any well functioning society depends on relationships of trust and reciprocity, in which people see their fellow citizens as potential allies, willing to help, and deserving of help when help is needed…a well functioning society of free expression must have two distinct requirements: first, people should be exposed to materials they would not have chosen in advance and second, many or most citizens should have a range of common experiences.”

Jenkins goes on to quote the other speaker Yochai Benkler. Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Benkler states in his novel,

“The new freedom holds great practical promise: as a dimension of individual freedom; as a platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture; and in an increasingly information-dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere.”

How do these quotes reflect what Sunstein and Benkler think about free expression? Sunstein seems more skeptical of free expression, while Benkler seems more open and convinced that the internet is allowing for more personal freedom. Benkler believes that the digital democracy allows people to participate; they can pursue information. Sunstein believes that many people just take in information and do not participate. In today’s society the internet is flooded with information. Our society does not just sit back and soak in the information that is thrown at us. We instead search the internet for facts; and while we are seeking out information we are leaving our personal mark in the digital world.

In the article “Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media,” Danah Boyd states,

“The opportunities for media creation have been rising for decades, but the Internet provided new mechanisms through which people could make their own content available. From blogging to social network sites to media sharing sites to sites that provide social streams, we are seeing countless ways in which a motivated individual can make their personal content available.”

Our society does participate on the internet, because our society, as Boyd said, is motivated.

“In a networked world, people connect to people like themselves. What flows across the network flows through edges of similarity. The ability to connect to others like us allows us to flow information across space and time in impressively new ways…”

Boyd describes what Bekler calls clusters of communities of interests; Bekler’s research shows that there is not a ‘daily me’ on the internet. Instead the internet is creating a ‘daily us’. “…points within a network become linked to other networks, resulting in shard communities of interest. This implies not fragmentation but a balance between free choices and shard concerns,” stated Bekler. Sunstein referenced a study on blogging that found that conservatives link only with other conservatives, which was the same result for liberals. Sunstein stated, “this is not an example of a well-functioning online public sphere.” Bekler has a brighter outlook on the potential fragmentation of the internet, while Sunstein has doubts on a balanced digital world. It seems the question of fragmentation is too difficult to answer. How are we to know if individuals will continue to ‘cluster’? How are we to know if our society will open up to new ideas and branch out on the internet? We cannot and will not know the answer, but I believe that a healthy democracy does mean looking at the information from various angles. If the internet continues to create these ‘clusters of communities’ then we will begin to potentially only see two-sides of the story. How is that a healthy democracy?

“Walking along some street, you see a person, interaction, building that stuns you. If you really look, the fertility and surprise of that will alter what you’re interested in, what you care about, your aesthetic and even political sense.” Sunstein imagines a digital world designed for interaction; a digital world of interaction that would promote collaboration and prevent lies and cruelty. Benkler wants the world to see the internet as an opportunity for involvement and participation. “It’s not just sitting in front of the TV, cursing.” Benkler wants people to practice. He wants our society to have an attitude of seeking, finding and using. It is hard to disagree with either of these men’s visions of the future of our society and the internet. In the end, they both desire the same thing; for our society to be involved in the digital world. More and more people are becoming involved in the digital world; the amount of individuals who use or have access to the internet grows every day. One day our whole world could be connected to the internet, and maybe everyone will practice and participate as Benkler stated. Sunstein’s image of an interactive digital world may also come true, but it is hard to imagine a world without lies and cruelty. While his image is desirable, it seems highly implausible.

As Jenkins states in his video, “Old media is dying.” Jenkins knows that the world of old media is ending and the new media world is just beginning. What does that mean for us? It means we must learn these new social skills. Why does new media literacy matter? It matters because it is a big part of today’s culture. Our society has Facebook to stay connected with ‘friends’. We have Twitter to follow celebrities and to “speak in public with a targeted audience explicitly stated.” The internet has given us the power to look into other people’s lives. “The public and networked nature of the Internet creates the potential for visibility.” We have these abilities but we must learn how to use them; we must become literate in new media in order to better understand the future of the digital world.