Because information today is a more complicated experience than it used to be, the way we think about it must reflect greater sophistication in understanding its forms, purposes, effects, and even its reasons for existence. This article contains a number of observations about the information environment around us, with the intent that by understanding the way information works you will be better able to locate the truth hidden within the data smog.
1. Media space must eat.
The information industry is built on a certain quantity of information flow. The daily newspaper has dozens of pages which must be filled each day--both to please the expectant subscriber and to fill in the area around the advertisements. The TV news must fill its allotted time each day. The book publishers have budgeted costs and printing schedules for a certain number of books next year. But what if there is no important news tomorrow, no really good book manuscripts submitted? The space must still be filled--with whatever is available. With the explosion of the Internet and increasing competition with ever more magazines, the media content appetite continues to grow rapidly. "Give me content," cries the media space.
During periods of too much information, media must omit, select, or condense. In a scarcity, media must spread out, repeat, or include the unimportant information. News can be invented readily. For example, a reporter can travel to the grocery store, buy a handful of products, and create a story, "Do you know how much fat [or sodium or sugar] is in the food you eat every day?" The reporter then will read the labels for the story, perhaps adding a comment about federal guidelines being exceeded.
Information is shaped to fit the medium and the available or required size. A written piece of a certain length will be trimmed by the editor of a magazine, whereas a book publisher will ask that it be hammered out into a fuller length.
All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. --Ecclesiastes 1:8
2. Information must compete.
There is a need for information to stand out and be recognized in the increasing clutter, the data smog, that surrounds us. The flood of information such as advertising creates distortions in the presentation of information. Here are some ways competition is mounted in the information arena:
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man's inmost parts. --Proverbs 18:8
3. The early word gets the perm.
The first media outlet to cover an issue often defines its terms, context, and attitudes surrounding it. The first statement often becomes the permanent concept. How the issue will be viewed, what the alternatives are, etc. Are those people who are attacking some other people to be called freedom fighters, rebels, or terrorists, revolutionaries?
Journalists love repeating familiar epithets, so if one person is dubbed early on by a memorable phrase, it will often stick. "Tricky Dick," "The Teflon president," and "Slick Willie," for example.
The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him. --Proverbs 18:17
4. The frame makes the painting.
Those who frame the terms of discourse influence the choices and the outcomes. If an issue is framed as a battle between tolerance and bigotry, then whatever side is the tolerant one will be preferred. The fallacy of false dilemma is often used, where one side is presented as highly undesirable and the other as attractive. We are then asked to choose. "This is a conflict between justice and oppression." Sometimes only certain alternatives will be permitted. "Should we remodel, rebuild, or just fix as needed?" What about tear down or move? Political considerations often determine which alternatives will be silently excluded from the discussion.
Photographs do not speak for themselves. A photograph is instant in time, with zero context. What happened before and what happened after? What was really going on in the area not included in the photograph? Suppose you see a truckload of people looking through a grate. Are they prisoners? refugees? or ordinary people from a rural village going to vote? Often pictures are not worth a thousand words, the pictures are ambiguous until explained by words.
5. Selection is a viewpoint.
Selecting certain stories to report on while not selecting others, or selecting certain details of a story while omitting others reflects not just the interests but the agenda of the media outlet. Whatever is ignored is seen as not important and in effect non existent. You cannot consider an argument you never hear, nor can you think about an event you have never heard of. For media outlets to say they report on "What is important," helps little, because importance is a selective judgment. If you want to receive a more balanced view of reality, choose multiple sources for your information.
6. Newer is equated with truer.
There is an obsession with the new and different. Novelty, the unusual, will get our attention. We are a "been there, done that" society and always want something new. That's why we watch the "news," and why we fall for the "new, improved" claims on products and buy the "new" model cars which are often only marginally different from last year's models. The rapid changes in technology, where old "truth" is constantly supplanted by new "truth" makes us think the same supplantation must be true of values, virtues, philosophical ideas and the like. We have lost the sense that any fact or value can endure. The irony is that every age looks back on the previous one with scorn and laughs at how naïve, foolish, and egotistical the best thinkers of that age were. Why can we not see a few years ahead to those who will have the same attitude toward us, and gain a little humility?
But to return to novelty. There is a paradox of novelty. Too much real novelty is disorienting; too much novelty threatens to bring us to a confused standstill. So there is a need to present the appearance of novelty: formulaic or predictable novelty, to create a feeling both of newness and yet a comfort in a recognizable and predictable universe. Thus, the tabloids keep running stories about Elvis, Princess Diana, Oprah, the prophecies of Nostradamus, what the UFO aliens are up to, etc.
All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. --Acts 17:21
7. The media sell what the culture buys.
Because information is a commodity item, it must cater to the tastes of its consumers. In other words, information is shaped by cultural priorities. The priorities of contemporary America include selfishness and entertainment. Therefore, information should be about me and be fun. The "entertainment economy" affects every kind of information, from news to advertising, to sermons, to college textbooks. American culture is also increasingly visual. Therefore, information should be visual or at least contain lots of color pictures. Publishers may hold their noses when they publish some books, but if those books sell, those books are published. Self help books take up many feet of shelf space in the average bookstore because those books move through the cash register and out the door.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. --2 Timothy 4:3-4
8. You are what you eat and so is your brain.
We think by using the information given to us by others. When you make generalizations, you must do so based on the information you have received from the information inputs you make use of. If the information is biased, distorted, limited, selected, or even false, then both our thoughts and conclusions will be bad. If one side's viewpoint is presented as inhumane, foolish, old fashioned, unworkable, or unjust, then we will naturally think the other side is better. If certain ideas are never presented to us, we cannot draw adequate conclusions. Compare evolutionists resistance to opposition. We all want to be on the side of the educated professionals and not on the side of the ignorant bigots.
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! --Matthew 6:22-23
9. All ideas are seen as controversial.
There is a saying, "Nothing so bad that some don't like; Nothing so good that some won't strike." It is probably impossible to make any assertion that will not find some supporters and some detractors. The problem often is that there is no indication of the quality or quantity of argument in support or opposition. Thus, every idea seems in equipoise, undeterminable because of an apparent balance of opinion--because the media, especially broadcast media, have time to present only one spokesman for each side. Information sleeps with lawyers. In a world where there is no longer any truth, all presentations are adversarial. "Find someone with the opposite opinion." This creates crises in values where values and ideals developed over thousands of years are counterbalanced by the opinion of one kook or rebel, with the implication that both positions are pretty much equal. "You've heard both sides; now you decide."
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. --Isaiah 5:20
10. Anything in great demand will be counterfeited.
Old master paintings are in demand, hence art fraud. Designer luggage is in demand, hence product counterfeiting. Similarly, certain kinds of information are always in great demand and are therefore often counterfeited. The demand for amazing knowledge, secrets, and scandals is ever present, and hence many events are fabricated by the tabloids, publicists, or other agents of information fraud. Imagine the greedy opportunist when someone says, "I will pay for information that makes candidate X look bad." Why, then, candidate X is a drug dealing, child stealing, binge drinking axe murderer. Where's my check?
Some people have ideologies which are much more powerful than a mere concern for truth or even reality, and they are quite willing to bend or fabricate information to support their beliefs.
The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end? --Jeremiah 5:31
11. Undead information walks ever on.
Wrong information (lies, hoaxes, misinformation, rumors, disinformation, garbled truth) never really passes away. It comes back and continues to circulate. Sometimes, as with the peppered moth tales, wrong information is simply copied unthinkingly from book to book; other times, rumors that have long been disproven continue to be spread by the gullible or the unthinking (or perhaps by those interested in perpetuating them). Some information workers are quite lazy and are content simply to copy stories, ideas, "facts," quotations, and other information from other sources. Thus ridiculous information gets perpetuated. If you were hoping that all those urban legends would eventually die out, you will be disappointed.
When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day. --Matthew 28:12-15
12. To accuse is to convict; possibility is proof.
Many people believe that no accusation would be made without any basis, so that if an accusation is made, it must be true, at least in part. Many people are too busy to check anything out, so they just assume that accusations are valid. But imagine the following scenario:
Journalist: "Senator Crump, is it true that you torture animals for
fun?"
Crump: "Of course not."
Journalist: "In spite of accusations, Senator Crump denies that he
tortures animals for fun."
Journalist: "Do you believe that Senator Crump tortures animals for
fun?"
Ordinary Bloke: "Well, no, but why? Is there some evidence? Maybe he
is bad."
Journalist: "What about you, sir?"
Another Type: "Yeah I believe it. Senator Crump is a jerk."
Journalist: "There you have it. Opinion is divided about whether or
not Senator Crump tortures animals for fun."
13. The medium selects the message.
Television is mostly pictorial, partly aural, and very little textual. Therefore, the visual stories are the ones emphasized: fires, chases, disasters. In-depth discussions that would take too many minutes or that could not easily be translated to pictures, will have to appear in a large newspaper or magazine (or perhaps a book). Until the advent of the Internet and some new publishing ventures, there was no medium for 50-page works (too long for magazines, too short for books). Such works had to be trimmed, expanded, or left unpublished. Many books would have been excellent articles rather than the over-inflated books they are, but books get more respect.
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. --Hebrews 8:10
14. The Experimenter Effect of Media: the presence of the media creates the story.
"The experimenter effect is the tendency for the expectations, actions, or biases of the researchers to affect or influence the responses which participants produce, and therefore at least partially produce the observed differences." --Lynne Henry
When the media are present, especially film news or television media, people behave much differently from the way they would if not being filmed. If you have ever been to an event where protesters were being filmed, you may have noted that they all stood around lazily until the cameras got ready to roll and then became suddently animated and shouted angrily. When the cameras stopped, so did the protesters.
If the media don't report it, it did not happen.
If the media report it, it did happen.
It did happen because the media reported it.
The very fact of media coverage implies that an event is important or "newsworthy," and similarly, absence of media coverage implies lack of importance.
15. Yours is not to reason why; yours is to buy and buy.
The motives for the creation and dissemination of information are the same as before and also different now. Long ago, many people wrote books only when they had something to say. They wanted to inform or persuade. However, Samuel Johnson, an 18th century writer, said that "no one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Today, some still write to inform, while there seems to be more emphasis on persuasion and spin. And more people than ever write to gratify their egos, keep their jobs, or make money. Since market and entertainment values are more important than truth now--if such a thing as truth even exists in a postmodern world--the reliability of a book is less important than its entertainment value or its political ideology or its market value. As some people said when I, Rigoberta was shown to be largely fabricated, "It doesn't matter." The same was true when Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa was exposed in The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: "It doesn't matter."
As a commercial product, information is subject to the same treatment as other consumer goods--packaging, marketing, competition, positioning, hyping.
They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. --2 Thessalonians 2:10b-12
16. The whole truth is a pursuit.
The information we receive comes to us filtered, selected, slanted, verbally charged, and sometimes fabricated. What is left out is often even more important than what is included. Bias and perspective are a large part of this, together with worldview or ideology (some things must be true while others are not permitted to be true), but so too is the idea that information or "truth" is now just a story, with every teller feeling the right to add or alter details. And of course, as the proverb says, "The central work of life is interpretation." What facts mean is a major issue. What assumptions underlie interpretations?
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. --Mark 5:25-33
On a huge hill,
Cragg'd and steep, Truth stands,
and he that will
Reach her, about must, and about
must go;
And what the hill's suddenness resists,
win so.
--John Donne, Satire III.79-82