Winter Break WK #2: “Internet intensifies campaign frenzies”
Jonathan Tilove
Newhouse News Service
December 27, 2007
Come the New Year, America plunges headlong into a whirlwind presidential primary and caucus calendar with wide-open races in both parties.
It may be the most exciting and volatile presidential election season in generations, all the more so given a new media landscape in which scandalous rumor can strike like lightning out of cyberspace, even skewing outcomes before charges are vetted or rebutted.
“It’s ‘Feeding Frenzy’ to the tenth power,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, referring to his influential 1991 book, which was subtitled “How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics.”
When it comes to scandal-mongering, Sabato said, the Internet is viral in every sense of the word. “It’s just taken what was a serious problem and turned it into the bubonic plague,” he said.
Salacious e-mails accusing candidates of every manner of misdeed arrive every day, Sabato said. The blogosphere is a perpetual wellspring of innuendo, and the mainstream press, desperate not to be left behind, finds itself ready to rationalize reporting on rumor.
“If it’s ‘out there,’ that’s enough excuse,” he said. ” ‘It’s affecting people’s votes,’ they say, and so it’s OK to go with it.”
Dhavan Shah, a professor of journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin, sees the makings of a “perfect storm” that could play havoc with the nominating process. “It’s happening at such a pace that some of this information doesn’t have the normal filters of political journalism,” he said.
And Matthew Hindman, professor of information technology and politics at Arizona State University, said he “would bet large sums of money that there is going to be a scandal emerging in this election that would be discovered or disseminated first on a blog.” Hindman has written a book, tentatively titled “The Myth of Digital Democracy,” due out next fall.
In the long run, said Brown University political scientist Darrell West, the truth will out.
But the Iowa caucuses are Jan. 3; the New Hampshire primary is five days later. By Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, more than half the states will have voted.
“The trouble is in the short run, and we now have a very compressed nomination schedule where the short run is everything,” said West, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment.”
In 2003, West, playing off Sabato’s coinage, wrote about “responsibility frenzies in news coverage” — occasions when the mainstream press refrained from covering the “salacious and tawdry.” But he thinks that kind of restraint is less likely now.
“Over the last decade we have seen the flourishing of the Internet and the rise of bloggers and nobody’s policing discourse anymore,” West said. “You can basically say anything you want.”
To many, of course, this freedom is not a problem but a great virtue.
“I think this kind of uh-oh-what-bad-could-happen story has been done a thousand times … and the world has not collapsed,” said Jeff Jarvis, who blogs about the media at Buzzmachine.com and is director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.
“We’re not a nation of idiots. There are lot of gatekeepers and filters, among them the minds of the voters (if you don’t trust that, then hang up the Constitution).”
What’s more, Jarvis said, “You could talk about the rumors that get debunked quickly — more quickly than some media outlets print corrections.”
Indeed, Mickey Kaus, whose blog, Kausfiles, is on Slate.com, views the wild ride ahead as the surest path to the truth.
“Good investigative journalism depends on a little bit of mania,” Kaus said. “Sources have to be panicked to come forward.”
Kaus has been criticized for mentioning the specifics of scandal rumors on his site, but, as he said in a December exchange on Bloggingheads.TV with Robert Wright, only by posting one rumor did he learn to his satisfaction that it was unfounded. “You get feedback from your readers. The truth is found faster that way.”
And in a Nov. 1 post, Kaus relished rumors that a “potentially devastating sex scandal involving a leading presidential candidate” was in the offing, rumors he hoped would serve as a kind of “depth charge,” blowing every latent scandal public.
“Let all the scandals that lurk in the mud hatch out,” he continued. “I assume depth-charging will become a permanent feature of electoral politics.
“They tell me the Internet has changed things! Is there a problem? The true rumors will be confirmed and the phony rumors won’t be confirmed. But it will be harder to suppress the former. Isn’t the purpose of the primary campaigns to find out everything about the candidates before they are nominated?”
But political scientist Michael Cornfield believes the campaign schedule is the enemy of truth.
“In the short run, the rapid-response teams and journalistic fact-check operations can push back and be heard by the electorate,” Cornfield, author of “Politics Moves Online: Campaigning and the Internet,” wrote in an e-mail. “But I think the `short-run’ requires a week at least.”
Who knows? Everything is new. The campaign timetable. The fluid field, which includes groundbreaking candidates certain to engender fierce passions and resistance.
“We have a woman, a black, a Mormon and a Christian fundamentalist who are leading candidates,” said West. “There’s something to upset nearly everyone in America.”
This entire article is about the power of the media, specifically the internet and this blog frenzy sweeping the nation. I like that this article explained both sides of the arguement. Some people think that the blogs are terrible, full of lies and unfounded rumors. Others think they’re the fastest way to get to the truth. I think they’re some where in between. I don’t think bloggers will make up any new, never-heard-before rumors, they just may post them in a higher number, so more people will see them. Blogs are a place for people to sound off, like an editorial. For someone to go to the blogs and sit there and type a rant about a potiential candidate, they have to be feeling pretty intense. I don’t think blogs are an accurate portrayal of what the masses thinks.
But I do see how some candidates might be worried about it. I know I get a lot of my information from the internet, so it makes sense that they worry some people will take what fiction may be on the blog as truth. It just goes back to the power the media has, it can influence the way people think.
“When it comes to scandal-mongering, Sabato said, the Internet is viral in every sense of the word.” As true as that is, the situation with the internet is not as bad as Sabato makes it out to be. People have the ability to choose what they read, take in, and believe. If some crazy, controversial story comes out and millions of Americans read it (very unlikely anyway) then they can decide for themselves how much of an impact it will have on their voting. I see the internet as a useful source for political updates and news. I don’t ever have time to sit down and watch T.V., let alone purposefully look for political news, so using the internet is just way easier. More people use the internet simply because it is so convenient. It is kid of interesting how only the internet gets targeted for the exploitation of scandals. Newspapers and political magazines do the exact same thing. Even the nightly news takes pride in bringing out the worst in candidates. Anything pertaining to the media goes back to phrase “if it bleeds it leads”; the effects of this however depends on the person and how seriously they take what they are reading.
Well I have to say I agree with both Caitlin and McKena in some ways. I don’t think blogs are an accurate portrayal of the American people, but I do believe that they put into the outer skirts of the spotlight many different rumors. There is a conspiracy rumor everything and they have a website. I would say that it is in fact the credibility of these internet sites is minimal since I’m sure if you looked hard enough you could find sites that claim to have evidence Hillary is a man, or that Obama is not really black, or a number of false information.
Even true information (possibly true information) is looked over is the screening out process of the blogs such as when Sen. Larry Craig was mention on a famous gay outers blog, it was virtually passed over, missed, and America moved on claiming that blog credibility is nowhere near newspaper headline credibility. Then as discovered later, he was found trying to solicit sex in a public restroom, and the blog got a little more credibility.
I also agree with Caitlin on the fact that people have to be selective about what to read, and what to believe. The answer is not, however, censorship, as Darrell West seems to suggest in this section of the article, “‘Over the last decade we have seen the flourishing of the Internet and the rise of bloggers and nobody’s policing discourse anymore,’ West said. ‘You can basically say anything you want.’” That is the first amendment, freedom of expression right there, you can say anything you want… and on the internet any one can post anything, whereas newspapers and magazines only get written by people who can’t write about whether they think Tupac is alive living in Cali., or think that U.F.O.s should be on the presidential agenda, because they get paid… not all sources of information online are from people who get paid.
People need to think about what they read and then do research. It seems that too many people are naive to the media and read-in to whatever is sitting in front of them. I sure hope that they never are given the opportunity to have a glance at the magazine saying that aliens are here or something (Sorry Kucinich!).There are definitely some people who question what is put into blogs and on the internet, but not enough. Not everything the media puts out is true, but even if there is a slight chance that perhaps it holds water it will make it out. I do agree with Caitlin that people do “have the ability to choose what they read, take in, and believe”, but I disagree when she says, “the situation with the internet is not as bad as Sabato makes it out to be.” The internet is never-ending and can reach so many people. I just think that too many people read what they find and stick to it without finding out anything about it. People look to the internet for fast news and entertainment, etc. Often people do not take the time to read many articles from various sources and just grasp a hold of what they find. What they do read can then influence the way they vote. Articles can influence a person the same way that Huckabee can by saying that Mormons believe the devil and Jesus are brothers. Even though people probably know that they do not, there is always that reasonable doubt. The media can definitely affect how successful the candidates are.
Wow in response to McKenna, I didn’t see this article showing both sides of the argument at all actually. I found this article rather one sided. I mean where did it say that the Internet is beneficial to candidates? If it is in there please show me because I must have missed it (none of this is sarcastic). It continued about how it shows scandal whether it is true or not is undecided. Personally, I find it hilarious that all the candidates hate the spin media puts on things, yet when it is in their favor, they love it. See it is a bittersweet relationship. I believe that instead of complaining about how the Internet is such a bad source of information is to provide valid ways of checking your sources, or perhaps use it to your advantage. Sure, the Internet shouldn’t be your only resource, but because it is so easy to access, you can’t expect people to not use it. For instance we use bloging and these articles for our information in AP Gov. Mr. Kautzman could post whatever he wanted on this and have us believe that whatever he said or posted was right, which we do. We have become so skeptical on what we read on the Internet that we cant tell what is real from fake. How can we fix it? We probably cant, but oh well that’s media.
-Caitlin Barschig
I heard that yesterday an in-game rally was held by Ron Paul supporters in the game “World of Warcraft”, where players actually logged in, spent well over four hours in a single file march around the computer generated world, and then had a huge dance. Mr. Kautzman, your idea of a nerd prom doesn’t hold a candle to this.
When did this happen anyway? We talk about how the internet has begun to affect politics, but what about the effect politics have had on the internet? Bill Clinton once remarked, in 1996, no-one knew much about the internet; “now [2001] even my cat has a website.” If the media complains that the internet has too much of an effect on the things in Washington, then do the politicians get to make the same complaint about the media? The internet is the perfect linkage institution because it is completely and entirely composed of communication, which seems odd because for many it causes nothing but confusion.
I remember some time ago I came across a thesis (not on purpose) called “The Impact of Anonymity on Disinhibitive Behavior Through Computer-Mediated Communication” by Michael Tresca. Unfortunately I can’t link the original thesis, first because I couldn’t find it, and second because it was really long and, let’s face it, only I have that much time on my hands. Basically, the formula goes like this:
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Complete Jerk
That’s some fun algebra right there. In fact, this forum is merely a manipulation of that formula; because no one is anonymous, and because the students are likely to see each other as soon as school starts again, we are less likely to say anything inflammatory directly towards one another, the very activity Mr. Kautzman encourages us towards. Take away the anonymity from a person, you’re likely to get neutral and ineffective information (not to mention hella-boring posts).
I pretty much agree with the general consensus. The internet is where the masses get a good amount of their information on news and political events. However, it is not always true and/or believable.
When a person writes a blog it may have some informational depth but its most likely going to be bias towards their own opinions on the event. If a person were to read it they would be gathering the “bloggers” opinion on the matter with some factual information to back it up, some blogs may be more true than others. All the same you can’t always believe what you read on the internet but a person will believe what they hear or read about repeatedly from different sources, whether its msmbc or some blog.
Also I agree with Caitlin when saying that the internet isn’t nearly as bad as Sabato is making it out to be. In some ways the internet is super fake and serves no purpose whatsoever, but I believe there are way more places you can find on the internet that will have some factual information and may keep you informed on the news. I also agree with Caitlin pointing out the fact that the internet is way more convenient than a newspaper making more informed people “blogging” on the internet; making the internet in general more informational and have fewer rumors.
~Ryan Brannan