“This thing called the internet makes it very difficult to govern.” –John Kerry

 

            It’s hard to overstate the importance of reliable information in every life decision we make – whether it’s where to go for lunch or where to send our children to school. Simply knowing the various options is usually not enough, as educated decisions require us to be able to discern which is more advantageous and which sources of information on the topic are trustworthy. Most of the scientific and technological progress in the last century can be attributed to an extent to humanity gradually becoming educated consumers of information in terms of hard sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology. For example, we all know now that medical interventions based on empirical research trump wonder tonic and blood-letting; but 120 years ago a person in a white coat promoting either method would have been called a “doctor” and people would not necessarily know to trust one over the other. The change in public understanding did not occur solely because empirical medicine was more effective, but because advances in information distribution technology such as mechanized printing presses and railroads allowed the documentation of its successes to spread quickly, and rising literacy rates let people consume said documentation for themselves rather than relying on so-called professionals.

 

            An equally reliable level of empiricism is available in social sciences such as psychology, sociology, and political science and has been for decades; and I welcome readers to contact me for illustration if they think that is a bold or overzealous statement. The problem is that public understanding to trust empiricism over folk wisdom and popular misconceptions in social sciences has continued to lag in a 19th century swamp and the disturbing state of our information distribution system has been to blame. Last week I illustrated that drug prohibition has 0 empirical grounds as public policy yet remains on the books because of emotionally charged popular misconceptions. I can name a dozen other such domains – from the hysteria surrounding gun laws to effective interventions with problem behaviors in children to the widespread public confusion on even the most basic principles of economics. To progressive readers muttering “public education” at this point, I say it will not accomplish squat. The content of public education is, within itself, a policy decision made by voters, professionals, and consumers through combined means of influence. If the grand majority of those stakeholders do not understand the basic advantages of teaching social sciences empirically, empiricism will not dominate the policy. The real question is why the same information distribution technology that so soundly handed the victory to empiricism in hard sciences has failed to do so for social sciences for decades, and the answer is simple chronology.

 

A Brief History of Media

 

            Private, free media entities are complicated organizations driven by a multitude of factors. For one, most of these are for-profit corporations or at least self-sustaining non-profits, and hence rely on the patronage of their audience to produce advertising revenue. Secondly, many media tycoons have not only ulterior motives but also personal values that are not necessarily based on any balanced or educated opinion, and this plays a heavy role in influencing what and how they report. Finally, the biases of politicians, bureaucrats and advertisement buyers are felt through their respective influences, as content that damages those relationships can be very detrimental to the media’s success. What all these factors all have in common is the creation of ulterior motives for media conglomerates to not report in an honest and unbiased fashion, and the natural check on this is competition between multitudes of them so the market naturally selects the most quality product.

 

            As the golden age of empiricism in hard science coincided with the advent of nationwide media in the early 20th century, the sources in its time numbered in the hundreds and competed with conflicting and contradictory reporting. Tony Stiles mentioned in the previous edition of our show that media tycoons with ulterior motives such as William Randolph Hearst discovered early on that this information control power could be used to intentionally disseminate falsehoods for their own personal gain, but nevertheless spreading lies in terms of basic biology, chemistry, and physics could be easily fact-checked by consumers and distributors that did so habitually mostly succumbed to market forces. By the time the golden age of empiricism in social science rolled around in the middle of the 20th century, however, the market had largely been divided between a smaller number of larger producers, and stakeholders in positions of power had become thoroughly adept at manipulating it. While the United States did not fall victim to the extremes of centralized media control used to disseminate uniform lies the way Stalin’s USSR and Hitler’s Germany did; various special interests such as industrial producers, megaunions, religious coalitions, and the first Federal bureaucracies such the FBI had mastered the use of this system to get politicians elected that favored their success in regulatory decisions. It is not safe to say these interests collectively understood the threat that empiricism in social science presented to their success. But the politicians of the time regularly fell back on popularly accepted values of tradition and morality to back their policies, and it is reasonable to see how such interests and their pet politicians would exert influence over media conglomerates to slow down or block the dissemination of information that was not conducive to their success; a classification social science empiricism invariably falls under.

 

            The conglomerates were by this point few enough to make this strategy more potent than competition as a check on it, and as this pattern took hold it became cyclical. Fewer media corporations had the nerve to defy special interest influences, less social science empiricism came to the public eye, and more non-empirical policies empowering said special interests were passed allowing them disapprove of empiricism even more easily. The eventual adding to the mix by the same process of regulatory bodies like the Federal Communications Commission that could easily be abused to bring anyone in line under the guise of consumer protection contributed further to direct influence, and the additional regulation byproduct were rising operating costs, which served as incentives for volume-based mergers and even fewer media organizations.

 

            Over 5 or 6 decades, this process eroded the natural check of competition almost completely, and also made the risk of upsetting an influential factor ever-costlier due to larger organizational size. The result was an assortment of five or six very large conglomerates closely affiliated with specific influences economically, socially and politically; reporting the news based on a balance of keeping the attention of large, demographically homogeneous audiences and not upsetting any oligarchic influences. The height of this centralized media condition came, in my opinion, in the months immediately following 9/11, when every major conglomerate reported the same sensationalized, unverified, emotion-baiting bullshit in fear that any deviation from it would upset both their target audiences and their top-down influences. Before we examine the public backlash to the disastrous policies pushed through in that era to thunderous applause elicited by this mass-hypnosis, it is important to recognize that these conglomerates reporting the news in a lowest common denominator targeted fashion was not any sort of conspiracy. They merely served their rational self-interest in the regulatory and economic environment in which they existed.

 

The Rise of Alternative Media and Today’s Tug-Of-War

 

            The game changer in the last decade or so has again largely depended on simple social chronology. As I’ve mentioned on many different occasions in my own blogging and podcasting, demand for empiricism among young adults in the modern age is at an all-time high. We are the first generation to have been predominantly raised in households with two working parents, and also experienced the emerging world of the internet as adolescents that we invariably understood better than the adults at the time. The resulting independence and knack for understanding the world by testing rather than listening to the emotional, value-based prescriptions of older generations created in us an unprecedented demand for social science empiricism. Add to the mix the arrogant belligerence of politicians like George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld sending us to die in pointless, unwinnable wars and chipping away at our personal freedoms at home with absolutely no foundation other than emotions and value-based fear-mongering – and we were all simply starving for new sources of information that actually told us what was going on backed with observable reality rather than the President using the word “evil”.

 

            Besides the obvious internet, the new information technologies in the modern age also include satellite television and radio, smart phones, and new forms of communication using these technologies such as Facebook and Twitter. The technological advancement principle isn’t much different than the advances of the late 19th century – information can be reproduced cheaper and distributed faster than in the previous era. The low costs and lack of a pre-existing, divided market hence allow new sources to spring up and effectively compete with existing ones as well as with each other, and the resurgence of that check of competition in an age where demand for empiricism in social science is at an all-time high is finally allowing the market to select for it.

 

            Perhaps the most evident example of this effect in the United States is one of this week’s guests, Ben Swann. A child prodigy who had attained his Master’s by the age of 16, this brilliant journalist has a very simple style. He neutrally presents an observable fact or condition, and then asks the obvious question “why is this happening?” If he does follow it with an explanation, he does so using direct citations and a format that allows his audience to understand the source material at least to some extent. If this is the way you expect the average journalist to behave, you have not observed the mainstream media very closely, and Swann spent his early career in a love-hate relationship with several major source employers who could not deny his brilliance but paradoxically told him to simplify his reporting and deliver the news rather than explain it. The reality is that Swann’s explanations are extremely inconvenient for the funders and politicians who are in bed with mainstream media conglomerates. He encourages independent, rational thought rather than manipulating compliance. Now in his 30s, Swann’s virality through new information sources has delivered his work to millions of hungry consumers and allowed him to succeed as a source independent from these mainstream conglomerates, and a colossal competitive influence on them which I will explore shortly.

 

            The new wave of information competition has also breathed new life into activist journalism; a very important niche that has largely lain dormant since the 1970s. While not the versatile fog-clearers in all political domains that Ben Swann is, activist journalists like Gary Franchi and Adam Kokesh serve crucial purposes in the modern battle for audience reach. Both men in their 30s are direct backlashes against the political incompetence of the previous decade; Franchi the antibody to the disease of public acceptance for mind-numbing government rhetoric in the wake of 9/11, and Kokesh the very embodiment of my generation’s rage about being used as fodder for ridiculous wars and then returning to an unrecognizable police state at home. Needless to say, both owe their success largely to the availability and affordability of competing information technology in the modern age.

 

            The criticisms of these men are that they are extreme both in their messages and their methods, but that is exactly what activist journalism is supposed to be. The mainstream media that they are trying to balance out is no less extreme but its bullshit is popularly accepted as truth without any verification – extreme methods in the other direction are an effective means of helping people find the truth that lies somewhere in between. Franchi, for example, holds founding and leadership positions in many organizations that promote conspiracy theories associated with 9/11 and the government agencies created or expanded in its aftermath, such as the infamous talk of FEMA camps being built to hold 10,000s of undesirable Americans in an Orwellian scenario. I will go on record as saying that I don’t subscribe to many of Franchi’s theories; but I still highly appreciate his work. The official government story on 9/11 is so full of holes that I was unable to take it seriously on 9/12; and FEMA and the DHS in general are belligerent and abusive bureaucracies with way too much authority and a disturbing lack of accountability. If you’re applauding what I just said, then I have Gary Franchi to thank for you not thinking I’m a raving lunatic. His activist journalism presenting alternative explanations for years has encouraged doubt in the official propaganda and people to reach various conclusions based on their own research, creating an acceptance for questioning and a variety of takes on the subject. Kokesh’s primary targets (no pun intended) have been gun control and the marginalization of military veterans, particularly those turned activist against war and government like himself and Bradley Manning. His extreme methods – including one act for which he is currently incarcerated – have brought much needed attention to the hysteria surrounding firearms whose flames the mainstream media fans at every opportunity. The “think of the children” weeps in response to mass shootings that never even bother trying to explain how gun control would address the issue have a very difficult time competing with Adam Kokesh’s simple “I’m a Marine Corps veteran, I fought and was injured in combat on behalf of this country, how do you not trust me with a firearm?” While often extreme in his own right, Kokesh provides a voice to balance out the emphatic non-sequiteur of Dianne Feinstein and Piers Morgan for whom the burnt out and risk-averse pro-gun activists of times past like the NRA have become too convenient of an effigy. Like Franchi’s his activism promotes independent questioning and research to form a spectrum of opinions.

 

            I’m not saying every alternative media source is social science empirical in its own right. My point is that the decentralization reduces the risk of distributing contentious information and re-creates competition by virtue of which public opinion will eventually select for empiricism. Already, the alternative media damaging popular faith in the mainstream media has caused the latter to move back toward more responsible, accurate reporting as part of their self-interest. One example is the rise of Glenn Greenwald, the young British journalist employed by the quite mainstream Guardian who published the information leaked by Edward Snowden – delivering a blow to popular trust in government from which it is unlikely to ever recover. The Guardian’s support for Greenwald and its insistence on standing up to harassment from authorities in the aftermath of the publication is testament to its understanding that demand for responsible journalism now trumps the need to get along with the government, and watching politicians dance around this as if they’re on hot skillets has been quite satisfying. Another example was CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent Candy Crowley pointing out last week that mainstream Democrats’ blaming of Boehner for perpetuating the shutdown by refusing to bring a “clean CR” to a vote in the House was inaccurate. She quoted Nancy Pelosi as saying the “clean CR” has too many cuts and some Democrats oppose it, and also acknowledged that Republicans in opposition comprise a grand majority of the caucus and not just 40-50 “extremist” Tea Partiers – concluding the votes to pass one are likely not there even if Boehner brings it up. I was thoroughly shocked by this as for years I’ve watched Crowley avoid specific facts of civics and cheerlead the joint destruction of the country by mainstream politicians from both party establishments – but how to do that and maintain your ratings when Ben Swann provides free, easy-to-understand factual explanations for every Congressional standoff?

 

            The alternative media can afford to cater to smaller audiences and be issue specific, and this and its lack of answerability to larger players does sometimes cause it to promote extreme, less-than-empirical positions of its own. But its effect is to set new averages and move public opinion on its axis by balancing out the still existent, powerful, and dishonest mainstream media; creating an information market that selects for empiricism. We have all heard the criticism that alternative media will turn society into a patchwork of conspiracy-theorist kooks who fight over slight differences in our extreme opinions – but this criticism has 0 backing and is desperately peddled by the mainstream media. The observable outcome has been an unprecedented pattern of defeat of disastrous public policies pushed on emotion, including SOPA and PIPA, the Toomey-Manchin gun control “compromise”, the detached-from-reality immigration reform so feverishly lauded by the establishments of both parties, and the proposed military intervention in Syria which our President so gracefully withdrew upon realizing that Congress would throw it in the garbage where it belongs. Other detrimental legislation passed shortly before this era like the NDAA indefinite detention provision and the corporatist clusterfuck known as Obamacare continue to linger and meet aggressive opposition; in sharp contrast to the grudging acceptance of “already laws” such as the Patriot Act. The mainstream media parrots the term “do-nothing Congress”, but the renewed competitive state of public information is simply forcing politicians to consider more viewpoints and fail counter-productive legislation because alternative media WILL expose the outcomes as serving only special interests, and voters WILL send the politicians home. The long-term impact of alternative media is hence to force accountability on our political system, and as the mainstream media continues to accommodate special interests opposed to this it continues to pre-suppose this era will pass and a society run by unquestioned values as opposed to empiricism will return. Social science empiricist Neurotoxin brought to you by alternative media extraordinaire Tony Stiles says that society is dead and buried, and expecting it to return is a losing bet.

 

By: Neurotoxin

 

 

 

 

About the Editor:

Neurotoxin holds a dual BA in Psychology and Political Science and an MSW with a specialization in Community Organizing. Politically, he is a “structural anarchist”; a school of thought that believes in treating all power structures as facts of nature that should be accounted for but not preserved. This school of thought dictates that policy ought to be driven solely by its empirically calculated outcomes.

Neurotoxin is the co-owner of Edge of Chaos – a political podcast and blog that can be found @ www.edgeofchaospodcast.com and http://www.facebook.com/theedgeofchaos.