Divided we Fall
The ideological divide between Left and Right thoughts in this country is very wide and there doesn’t seem any hope for closing it. Our news commentary and social media shows us how deeply divided we are on many issues. How did we get to this place, and how do we move on from here? Even Jon Stewart, who seems to have a joke or an answer for everything, was despondent in his reply to the senseless South Carolina tragedy and its aftermath: “We won’t do jack shit,” he said. But we need to do something.
Learning through TV
Studies have shown that Sesame Street can give preschool-aged children a more positive outlook on diversity. Articles published on the Atlantic website and the Huffington Post, discuss this in greater detail. The quality of Sesame Street programing is proven to have a positive effect on cognitive and academic development of children. This is built through the trust that is created between the characters and the viewers.
Fast forward to adulthood. How we get our news ranges from TV, mobile, web, audio (radio/podcast) and print, but we have lost faith in our news media.
- 48% of the survey participants did not trust any news source. (Source: Adage)
- Only 40% of Americans have confidence that the news they were receiving was accurate and fair. (Source: Gallup)
Where Sesame Street programming is designed to connect to children’s needs, the current media economics changes the priorities for adult viewers. Digital media and its monetization are driving our news these days. The role of curation and editorial oversight has been replaced by sensationalism, easily digestible information and inaccuracies. This pushes us into traps created by biases, quick judgments and assumptions—and ultimately into Groupthink. Groupthink is a phrase that was originally termed in 1972 by psychologist, Irving Janis. Janis described Groupthink as how groups are able to come to a compromise or consensus through conformity.
The Pew Research State of the News Media 2015 reports, “Americans’ changing news habits have a tremendous impact on how and to what extent our country functions within an informed society.” An informed society is critical: it allows us to have the kinds of thoughtful conversations that can help bridge our ideological divide and unite us again. We need to reconstruct the design of our news to rebuild the trust in it.
Focusing on Groupthink
One of the most poignant and thought-provoking articles I read in 2014 was a Harvard Business Reviewarticle called “Making Dumb Groups Smarter.” The piece, by Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie, appeared in the HBR November 2014 issue. The article points out the kinds of errors that are made by groups. “It is no exaggeration to say that herding is a fundamental behavior of human groups. When it comes to group decisions and information flow, the favored term among social scientists is ‘cascade’—a small trickle in one direction that soon becomes a flood.” This human condition is a common pattern within groups of like-minded people and can create polarization between groups.
Pew Research data shows us that the partisan divides in this country has grown over the past 20 years. This corresponds with the rise of social media. Our social media habits also align with Sunstein and Hastie’s research. Groups will focus on what people know. Even with the correct data or information, groups will gravitate towards and connect to information that is more commonly shared. A New York Times article discusses that a peer-reviewed study of 10.1 million American Facebook users showed that their network and news feed is slanted towards their ideological views. Although Facebook is not the extreme echo chamber that people worry about, the partisan divide does exist and users are more inclined to click on stories that aligned with their opinions. This becomes more important as Facebook rolls out its Instant Articles news experiment. Similarly, studies have also reported that Twitter usage shows opinions that align with the user.
Research has shown that trust for millennials is created through peers and not from professional organizations. Additionally, we use our smartphones to connect us closer to the peers whom we trust. (University of California, Berkeley)
Our technology and media usage exacerbates the dynamics of Groupthink and pushes us further and further apart. The key to fixing the issues lies in our understanding of Groupthink. A system to address our partisan divide will need to be designed so that we can have informed conversations with each other.
Understanding the Big Picture
Consequence Thinking presents a framework for people to understand the top level of an idea. Understanding the big picture and how decisions and information can affect the goals and consequences is the key point in this discussion. The diagram below provided by The Harris Kern Enterprise Computing Institute shows how the knowledge of a situation leads through the decision. Every decision is evaluated on how it impacts the consequences or the goals. Once the situation and decisions are understood, it opens up a broader view of the consequences and thus the big picture.
Designing a New Communication System
Sunstein and Hastie identified six ways to help make groups wiser. The goal is “to ensure that groups aggregate the information their members actually have and don’t let faulty informational signals and reputational pressures get in the way.” Media can present a broader landscape of ideas and thoughts in order to push against Groupthink failure by designing content that works within this new framework. A content system combining Sunstein and Hastie’s six ideas and Consequence Thinking could look like this:
1. Silence the leader: News media is the information leader. The current coverage needs to be changed or silenced. Media needs to take responsibility and present more balanced information. It needs new ways to engage the reader/viewer to build trust.
2. Prime critical thinking: Engage viewers with information that involves either ‘getting along’ or ‘critical thinking’. This information has the ability to change the way people communicate.
3. Reward group success: Present the benefits of understanding the big picture. Create a reward system for this understanding. This can help build trust.
4. Assign roles: Create a communication ecosystem by assigning a strategic role to each media channel. For example, studies about reading on paper prove to create more empathy and understanding than digital mediums. Mobile devices receive more visits than desktop (Pew Research). A strategic media ecosystem can provide revenue opportunities.
5. Appoint a devil’s advocate: Create more balanced reporting by presenting multiple sides of a story.
6. Establish contrarian teams: Create editorial or feedback teams to present different sides and angles. The New York Times, for example, does this in their Room for Debate section.
Connecting Consequence Thinking to Sunstein and Hastie’s six ideas can change the way news media presents information and ideas across their channels. If media plays a role in dividing our society, then media must take on some of the work needed to rebuild trust and to bring us together. Focusing on revenue creates oversimplification and sensationalism that ultimately play into our group biases. Designing programming that can engage us with the proper information and data is a step in the right direction. We need the proper information in order to seek out the right answers for our rapidly changing society and culture.
This post was updated on July 6, 2015.