Back before the world changed, on February 26, 2020, I went to the Harvard Kennedy School to hear Yochai Benkler talk about “Don't Panic, It's Just The Collapse Of Neoliberalism.” You can see the full talk at
https://youtu.be/9tvD2vxAKac
Benkler is a legal scholar and a media researcher who, I believe, is really really smart, does his homework and just may be wise too. In this talk, he described some of his findings and examined social media and politics. Below are my telegraphic notes:
His team analyzed 4 million stories before and after the 2016 election to explore disinformation [Editorial Comment: see
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation and Radicalization in American Politics by Benkler,
Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts for more]
Media ecosystem is split in two - right and all the rest, not right versus left
Through Limbaugh and Fox, the right has 20 years of experience beyond the left in the outrage industry and there is now no market on the right for straight news (since the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1988) [Editorial comment: and the Fairness Doctrine is not going to come back. Additionally, a 20 year headstart on stoking outrage means perhaps the alternative shouldn’t compete on the basis of outrage. I’d go for practical mutual assistance through voluntary association but that’s just me.]
Comey's announcement of a new Clinton investigation overwhelms all other news just before the election. Benkler finds that Russian efforts happen after the initial news from domestic sources
Conservatives trust Fox, Hannity and Limbaugh on radio more than anyone else. They are the targets and the propagators of false "news" (by Russians and others) [Editorial Comment: there are many different others — countries, corporations, individuals, groups….]
Neo-liberalism removes power from the state to give to the market and there has been a consequent erosion of trust in institutions since the 1960s, especially in the 1970s. Wages have stagnated since 1973 in the USA
The problems in the media landscape and public discourse are not due to the technology alone. The information threat is designed to produce over-reaction. [Editorial Comment: another indication that competing on the basis of outrage may not be the way to go.]
A study of the Gilets Juanes, the Yellow Vests from France, shows that the main indicator of participation is someone coming from a mid-sized town that lost its bakery/butcher within the last 5 years
"Nothing we can do is both practical and Constitutional... I've given up on the 20% in the Conservative bubble... Neutrality in the face of active propaganda is complicity."
Social science 1 - effort to look at what's happening in social media