IN AN AGE OF ‘SKIMMING’, PEOPLE RARELY READ BEYOND THE HEADLINE.


We are a ‘headline’ reading generation. As traditional news organisations find themselves competing for the attention of an audience, they too are tempted to post articles with inflammatory headlines in order to get individuals to view them. The tone is set by our media. In an age of ‘skimming’, people rarely read beyond the headline. Whilst some might read as much as 25-30% of any article, these are the minority. Not only that, but in the race to be first, people will ‘share’ that headline and story, without having questioned it, further fuelling any misinformation and potential antagonism. They will ‘comment’ on the story without having read the content, often losing context


in the process, and sparking angry interchanges. Immediacy is prioritised over comprehension and thoroughness.


So, we often have complicated subjects compressed into small soundbites, we are distracted by headlines, we fail to digest information, we do not search and check other sources of information and, as the volume of information expands seemingly exponentially, the audience begins to ‘tune out’. It becomes too easy for people to ‘shout’ and repeat headlines, even shouting ‘fake news’ repeatedly, until it overwhelms the audience and can start to appear as a fact in itself. This lack of conversation divides people. It makes them puff out their chest and scream the loudest in order to assert dominance in an argument. This achieves little and just destroys possible relationships. People enter ‘broadcast mode’ where the superficial appearance of conversation is actually two people simply stating and restating their views with ever-intensifying fury.


Where might we look to find some kind of reaction to this polarisation of argument and debate? Normally we might think that the schools and universities would be the places that the younger generations coming through might learn the civic skills of debate and reasoning, based on a mutual respect. Yet, at present, when we look towards the university campuses do we find a hotbed of political and social debate? No, instead we often find the abandonment of academic freedom in the name of the right not to be offended. This has been described in some corners as the intellectual betrayal of our time and a dangerous development. We cannot outsource our conscience and/or delegate moral responsibility away. There is a risk that we inflate the expectations of people as to what is achievable in terms of their social and personal rights and any failure to deliver against this raised bar leads to a society that becomes angry, disappointed and resentful.


The danger then, as we have seen through the lens of the UK/EU BREXIT discussions and reporting, and the daily machinations from the Trump administration and its opposition, is that individuals and groups take refuge in ideologies that are dressed up as solutions to their perceived problems. That might be the far right, which references an idyllic past that never existed, the far left, which promises a utopian future that is unattainable, religious extremism that preaches salvation through terror and aggressive secularism, which believes if we remove religion from society we can attain peace. All of these are mere fantasy, yet they draw people in and make them intolerant of any opposing view. There is no attempt to understand the position of the other party and each dogma comes with a convenient and handy suite of aggressive put downs, that can be repeated ad infinitum.


31 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | September/October 2018


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