Ch. 6 Reed

In chapter six of Reed’s book Digitized Lives, he asks the question of whether the ease of information sharing and increased amount of political information available via the Internet is resulting in a deeper understanding across political differences and producing more broad-minded and smarter citizens, or if the Internet is just a place where people can amplify their pre-existing rigid political biases. In Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody, he discusses the change in political activism as a result of this mass information sharing on the Internet. He says that opportunity costs of finding fellow activists and communicating on a large scale have been decreased almost to the point of nonexistence. I agree with Shirky that because of the Internet, it is much easier to hop on the bandwagon and support a cause. An example I have personally witnessed was the KONY 2012 campaign. Because of the viral video, tons of people from my high school changed their profile pictures to the KONY graphic and bought the t-shirts to support the child soldiers. However, as we discussed in class, we are no longer in the Information Age, we are in the Attention Age. So much is being shared and self-published that what gets read is what catches a reader’s eye. I think the cool red t-shirts were half the reason so many people I knew supported KONY, especially because the Invisible Children charity turned out to be a shady organization that spent a majority of their donations on overpaid management. Nobody bothered to do any research on whether the money they were spending really benefitted child soldiers.

So in a way I can affirm that information sharing on the Internet does not necessarily create a more politically educated and active citizen. However, I do think that social media provides us with a platform to change this. By posting about controversies in the media and having intelligent and fact-based conversations, people can educate their friends whose biases come from having been misinformed. Also, people that may be too afraid to speak out can learn something and build confidence in their own opinions just by reading these conversations, even if they don’t participate. A lot of the time, people that do have an opinion they want to share need someone to go first. Social media provides a way of offering ‘cover’ for others and encourages participation in political discussions. I have witnessed some pretty tasteless Facebook fights where someone posts about a controversial topic like gay marriage or race and people who oppose the opinion say nasty things about how stupid the other is and it goes back and forth. However, I have also witnessed some very heated, but intellectual and respectful conversations. One of my African American Facebook friends posted about the Ferguson riots and a Caucasian girl he knew commented on it saying she didn’t think it was a racial issue. He politely replied that he respected her opinion and her contributions to the discussion and then went on to say “the people at the bottom are just trying to tell you guys we’re struggling down here and all you guys have to say is you’re not working hard enough.” I think his respectful sharing of his perspective could have a huge impact on his Facebook friends that just don’t understand the complexities of racial issues. His perspective really impacted me because I had no idea how much he struggled with race. He provided a space where his white friends who may have wanted to discuss Ferguson but felt it was not their place could comment and support him. I think social media provides a platform where people can speak out and educate each other. Not everyone’s views will change, but providing legitimate facts rather than senseless arguing pushes political understanding and sharing in a better direction.