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The article and the comments express the desire for news to be an effective tool to inform and educate the public. While appealing, this idea has never worked i

by _cs2017_ 8y ago

The article and the comments express the desire for news to be an effective tool to inform and educate the public. While appealing, this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future. The reason is not that the media or the journalists do something wrong. Rather, the vast majority of the public is simply not interested in being educated or informed. You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done. The public is quite capable to take any information they are offered, and convert it to an argument in favor of their political or social beliefs; it is also very capable, when given a choice, to select the lowest quality information. It's unclear to me how anything can be done to counteract those tendencies. And as long as these tendencies stay in place, it seems rather futile to discuss "better news".

matt4077 8y ago
This sort of cynic pessimism is getting out of hand... By most any measure, today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive: life expectancy, crime, food availability, mobility. This is also true of education and "being informed", although those are harder to measure. But literacy rates, high school and advanced degree proliferation, books being published, and of course internet access should be decent proxies. That's not even including the vast improvements people who aren't white, able-bodied men have seen. Just ask around among women over 70 and you will find plenty who wanted to go to medical school and were stymied for whatever reason. My mother was told that, yes, she can matriculate. "But as long as I am professor, no woman will pass [some required class]"
- jjulius 8y ago
  None of what you wrote addressed the point of the comment you were responding to, which is that it's hard get people to be informed about the news if they just don't care. I'm not arguing that what you said is inherently wrong, it just doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand. The OP wrote that, "You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done." Let's take that and combine it with the women going to medical school that you referenced. OP is suggesting that the women going to medical school might put all of their effort into the classes that directly pertain to their field. But if they need an elective class (let's say, some kind of art class, for instance), then they might go into that and put forth the lowest effort possible to achieve a passing grade if it doesn't interest them. OP's suggesting, and rightly so I believe, that the general populous does the same thing with politics. Those that care about it invest more time in reading about it, while those that don't care about it won't invest more time in reading about it and will typically choose the lowest-effort, easiest-to-digest sources of news. Going back to OP's original question, how to we counteract those tendencies?
  - matt4077 8y ago
    The best proxy for "interest in politics", specifically, would seem to be voter turnout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections#Turnout_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St... That data shows only modest changes since 1940, and no discernible decline in the last decade or so. If anything, turnout was lower in the 80s and 90s, slightly higher in the 60s.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjulius 8y ago
      I feel like I understand what you're getting at with that data as it pertains to "interest in politics" at a general level, but I'm not sure how you intend to use that data in this specific conversation. OP and I are wondering how we get the general populous to invest quality time in educating themselves about the news/politics, subjects many people don't care about. How does the data you provided correlate with that conversation?
      - matt4077 8y ago
        I don't know how much more data I should offer, while your and OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past". The New York Times has seen subscriptions quadruple from 1988 to today. (two charts needed for this timespan: https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png and https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT-Chart-1f.png https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT-Cha...)
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - _cs2017_ 8y ago
      I didn't say people had "no interest in politics". I said people had "no interest in being informed or educated". A large voter turnout indicates interest in politics. A large voter turnout does not indicate interest in being informed or educated. I think it's pretty obvious. But just in case, here's an example: - Voter turnout in the US Presidential Elections 1996-2016 : 53-64%. - Voter turnout in German Federal Elections 1933: 88.7% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec...). I am sure you would not consider the electorate that chose the Nazis (giving them by far the largest share, 44%) to be more informed / educated than the modern US electorate.
- _cs2017_ 8y ago
  > today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive > OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past" [that's from your other comment below] I think the past was horrible, and I'm glad I live in this century. Why did you conclude that I like the past? Was some of my wording ambiguous? I said: > this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future. In other words, I believe the majority of the public was not, is not, and will not be (in the foreseeable future) interested in being informed and educated about politics. Also, I personally never thought of myself as a cynic - I find the world to be quite enjoyable, and getting better (just not in this particular area).
xorand 8y ago
>It's unclear to me how anything can be done to counteract those tendencies Compulsory education. Started like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system#Drivers_and_hindrances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system#Driv...
SmirkingRevenge 8y ago
The problem might even be more fundamental than public interest. Even if we had the best possible news organizations, with the best possible journalists, only honest, upright politicians and interest groups, and the best possible news consumers that were interested in the right things, it still might be impossible for most people to be truly knowledgeable about anything but very, very narrow slices of the world, most of the time. We sort of assume that there's some possible combination of headlines, articles, books, tweets etc that can make us informed and wise about the current state of things in the world, that matter. But what if that isn't true? I think it probably isn't.
- _cs2017_ 7y ago
  I suspect that as long as humans remain the same species, we'll never get to the point where the majority of the population is informed. It's just not fun for most people; or it's too hard; or both. The trick is to find a system of government that still results in a stable, functional, and comfortable society, even though most of the people have basically no clue what's going on. I think the Federalist papers were a decent attempt to design such a system of government. In fact, I think it's worked quite well for the past 200+ years. Perhaps the world changed so much that a new approach might work better. Perhaps that same approach will continue working for a while longer, especially if it evolves a bit. It's a interesting topic but sadly I don't have any good insights to share.

matt4077 8y ago

This sort of cynic pessimism is getting out of hand... By most any measure, today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive: life expectancy, crime, food availability, mobility. This is also true of education and "being informed", although those are harder to measure. But literacy rates, high school and advanced degree proliferation, books being published, and of course internet access should be decent proxies. That's not even including the vast improvements people who aren't white, able-bodied men have seen. Just ask around among women over 70 and you will find plenty who wanted to go to medical school and were stymied for whatever reason. My mother was told that, yes, she can matriculate. "But as long as I am professor, no woman will pass [some required class]"

jjulius 8y ago
None of what you wrote addressed the point of the comment you were responding to, which is that it's hard get people to be informed about the news if they just don't care. I'm not arguing that what you said is inherently wrong, it just doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand. The OP wrote that, "You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done." Let's take that and combine it with the women going to medical school that you referenced. OP is suggesting that the women going to medical school might put all of their effort into the classes that directly pertain to their field. But if they need an elective class (let's say, some kind of art class, for instance), then they might go into that and put forth the lowest effort possible to achieve a passing grade if it doesn't interest them. OP's suggesting, and rightly so I believe, that the general populous does the same thing with politics. Those that care about it invest more time in reading about it, while those that don't care about it won't invest more time in reading about it and will typically choose the lowest-effort, easiest-to-digest sources of news. Going back to OP's original question, how to we counteract those tendencies?
- matt4077 8y ago
  The best proxy for "interest in politics", specifically, would seem to be voter turnout: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections#Turnout_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St... That data shows only modest changes since 1940, and no discernible decline in the last decade or so. If anything, turnout was lower in the 80s and 90s, slightly higher in the 60s.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjulius 8y ago
    I feel like I understand what you're getting at with that data as it pertains to "interest in politics" at a general level, but I'm not sure how you intend to use that data in this specific conversation. OP and I are wondering how we get the general populous to invest quality time in educating themselves about the news/politics, subjects many people don't care about. How does the data you provided correlate with that conversation?
    - matt4077 8y ago
      I don't know how much more data I should offer, while your and OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past". The New York Times has seen subscriptions quadruple from 1988 to today. (two charts needed for this timespan: https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/oimg.png and https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT-Chart-1f.png https://secondmeasure.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NYT-Cha...)
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - _cs2017_ 8y ago
    I didn't say people had "no interest in politics". I said people had "no interest in being informed or educated". A large voter turnout indicates interest in politics. A large voter turnout does not indicate interest in being informed or educated. I think it's pretty obvious. But just in case, here's an example: - Voter turnout in the US Presidential Elections 1996-2016 : 53-64%. - Voter turnout in German Federal Elections 1933: 88.7% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election#Results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec...). I am sure you would not consider the electorate that chose the Nazis (giving them by far the largest share, 44%) to be more informed / educated than the modern US electorate.
_cs2017_ 8y ago
> today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive > OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past" [that's from your other comment below] I think the past was horrible, and I'm glad I live in this century. Why did you conclude that I like the past? Was some of my wording ambiguous? I said: > this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future. In other words, I believe the majority of the public was not, is not, and will not be (in the foreseeable future) interested in being informed and educated about politics. Also, I personally never thought of myself as a cynic - I find the world to be quite enjoyable, and getting better (just not in this particular area).

xorand 8y ago

>It's unclear to me how anything can be done to counteract those tendencies Compulsory education. Started like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system#Drivers_and_hindrances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system#Driv...

SmirkingRevenge 8y ago

The problem might even be more fundamental than public interest. Even if we had the best possible news organizations, with the best possible journalists, only honest, upright politicians and interest groups, and the best possible news consumers that were interested in the right things, it still might be impossible for most people to be truly knowledgeable about anything but very, very narrow slices of the world, most of the time. We sort of assume that there's some possible combination of headlines, articles, books, tweets etc that can make us informed and wise about the current state of things in the world, that matter. But what if that isn't true? I think it probably isn't.

_cs2017_ 7y ago
I suspect that as long as humans remain the same species, we'll never get to the point where the majority of the population is informed. It's just not fun for most people; or it's too hard; or both. The trick is to find a system of government that still results in a stable, functional, and comfortable society, even though most of the people have basically no clue what's going on. I think the Federalist papers were a decent attempt to design such a system of government. In fact, I think it's worked quite well for the past 200+ years. Perhaps the world changed so much that a new approach might work better. Perhaps that same approach will continue working for a while longer, especially if it evolves a bit. It's a interesting topic but sadly I don't have any good insights to share.