Cultural Pessimism Flashcards
Who are cultural pessimists?…
These are individuals who point out the key negatives in the media that are often ignored by other perspectives, such as fake news, increasing commercialisation and the rise of echo chambers.
Is it best to have a large amount of information?…
There may be more information but some of this is churnalism.
Some of the information online may just be ‘fake news’ – deliberately misleading to serve political or corporate ends. The Vote Leave campaign is a good example of this.
More information…
More information sources make it more difficult to verify the sources of information, and this is not always possible (in which case you should not use the information!).
Information overload may be a problem – having too much data too deal with.
Constant news feeds can lead to us just being ‘distracted by the new’ rather than taking the time to look at one thing in depth. We end up with a shallower understanding of the world as a result.
Domination by media conglomerates…
Pessimists argue that rather than the internet being a free space which allows for the free development of individual expression, it has come to be controlled by a handful of big tech companies – namely Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook.
These companies have invested hugely in New Media in the last decade and they now control not only access to social media sites but also search engines and the web servers which store our information.
Examples…
There are examples of people being de-platformed without warning or reason on YouTube and TikTok– typically those who hold radical views, suggesting these companies determine who can express what on social media.
So marginalised groups might be able to blog and have a say, but you’ll only be able to find them if these companies allow you to.
Echo chambers…
Social networks are increasingly isolated from each other into ‘bubbles’ or ‘echo chambers’.
It is the isolation and polarisation we have previously considered. Where you become surrounded by people similar to yourself and this leads to see challenges to your own views. This isn’t great in cases like Brexit but more so in crime syndicates, such as Glenny’s McMafia.
Increasing consumption and commercialisation…
Sphere of consumption, where most of what we see is aimed at selling us something. It is hard to read some news sites, such as The Independent, because of the sheer amount of space devoted to advertising.
Companies such as Amazon use the data we collect to find out our preferences and sell it to advertising companies, so they can target ads at users more effectively, thus manipulating them to buy products they wouldn’t normally buy – it’s estimated that 1/3rd of all Amazon purchase are a result of ‘recommendations’, for example.
Cultural pessimists on power…
Mainstream political parties now run sophisticated advertising campaigns using big data to manipulate the public into voting for them: Trump’s campaign and the Brexit campaign are two examples of this.
Larger political parties and corporations have more money to spend on advertising to keep their biased information at the top of internet search engines such as Google.
The most radical views are censored – while individuals may be free to express any opinion online, some of the most radical have de-platformed.
Politics is much less visible than entertainment on the internet – suggesting critical political thought is ‘drowned out’ more than ever.
Surveillance – the ex-CIA analyst claimed in 2015 that the British security services had the technology to access the information stored on people’s smartphones.
