“Citizenship spins upon the axis of common information; its responsibilities require, at their base, the sense of security that comes from knowing that what I know is fundamentally similar to what you know.”
While this quote may sound as if it’s ripped directly from the pages E.D. Hirsch’s new book, The Making of Americans, it actually appears in a remarkable essay in the Columbia Journalism Review. “Common Knowledge,” by Megan Garber, examines the fragmentation of news and its potential impact on our democracy. News, writes Garber, is “democracy’s common denominator.”
Our political system demands not only that citizens receive a steady flow of information that will, in turn, allow them to be democratic decision-makers—but also that the information in question be, in a profound sense, shared. “A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it,” James Madison wrote, “is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.” Madison wasn’t one to mince words; and it’s telling, here, that popular information, shared information—rather than simply information itself—was his concern. Without “popular information,” we lose not only our baseline of knowledge about the political world, but also our bearings within it. We risk becoming subject, as it were, to subjectivity itself—and ending up with a society, as William James had it, in which “people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
The parallels between education and news are striking. As news consumption increasingly defines itself “according to cliques rather than commons,” Garber points out, “cognition itself becomes ever more customizable.”
An infrastructure of information consumption that fosters homophily—that allows us to cocoon ourselves in our own worldviews—compromises our ability to relate to each other, discursively, as citizens of a diverse nation. It fosters distance and dissonance, rather than resisting them. It compromises that nebulous yet necessary space in democratic discourse: the public sphere. And it highlights a paradox of the digital age—that the diversity of our news outlets threatens the broader diversity of public discourse. The democratization of information, it turns out, is in some ways at odds with democracy itself.
Garber’s concerns are ultimately identical to Hirsch’s. And her question–How do we determine which information will keep us broadly synchronized with everyone else?–is a question with equal potency for education and journalism.
Of what value is discourse, after all, when we’re unable able to talk about, and act upon, the same things? Imagine a book club in which everyone shows up having read different books—one person having read The Brothers Karamozov, another having read Pride and Prejudice, another having read Twilight. Or a town hall meeting in which one citizen comes prepared to talk about teacher tenure in the local schools, another to talk about improving a neighborhood park, another to talk about rewriting local zoning laws. There may be some discussion, sure—but that discussion will be crippled to the point of absurdity.
“Democratic discourse requires the core commonality of shared information,” Garber concludes. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”
I want to send this to my principal, who is already trying to dismantle my little Core Knowledge-flavored mini-world in my classroom.
Couldn’t Ms Garber’s point though also be used to argue for something like the Fairness Doctrine so that both sides are heard and there will therefore be a common discourse?
Hirsch and Garber may use similar language initially on why we need a shared body of information but they seem to raise the concern for different reasons. For Hirsch such information allows the individual to understand the world.
Garber’s focus does not seem to be on the needs of the individual. It is more on the needs of the group not to have a wide divergence of opinion and information.
Does anyone else read Garber’s point as potentially fostering censorship as a social good lest a few individuals seek out true, relevant, but mostly unknown and possibly troubling facts that might interfere with the common discourse?
I’m not sure I see that, SoH. Broadly speaking, both Hirsch and Garber are troubled by factionalism and the loss of common ground that fosters communication. Hirsch sees it in the lack of a common curriculum; Garber in the day-to-day loss of common reference points in the news. Having spent my entire career first in the news business, now in education, I do think the symmetry is remarkable.
And I’ll add a third: sports. When I went to the ballpark as a kid, I sat next to an incredible variety of humanity, all united by a love of baseball, and the common reference points our shared fandom gave us. Now, with tickets priced astronomically, and virtually no games on free broadcast TV, that’s another threatened piece of common ground.
Your sports analogy brings up another question, Robert: Can we achieve common ground as slavish adherents to free market ideology? School choice is critical, but what happens when we give ourselves over completely to the consumerist language that has become pretty common in education policy circles?
“the diversity of our news outlets threatens the broader diversity of public discourse. The democratization of information, it turns out, is in some ways at odds with democracy itself”
Most of us rejoice in students or adults who go to the trouble of seeking out information from news outlets. The multiplicity of opinions and info should aid the common discourse of ideas. That’s not what Garber is saying.
She seems to see the lack of common talking points as a bad thing for our country as a community. I am simply pointing out where her thoughts could lead.
It’s a compare and contrast discussion. You’re comparing them on the basis on the emphasis on the importance of common reference points. I’m pointing out that Hirsch’s primary emphasis seems to be on the needs of the individual and Garber’s on what best benefits the group. I suspect Mr Hirsch and Ms Garber would likely define democracy differently.
If I had a book club where people had read and felt passionate about the books she mentioned, we could have an outstanding discussion about literature. The diversity of books need not make the discussion absurd.
Perhaps I misread the piece, but I didn’t take from it that seeking out information from news outlets is a bad thing. Rather that it is all too easy and increasingly common to insulate ourselves (by accident or an act of volition) from viewpoints that are at odds with our own, which aids and abets factionalism, which is a threat to the common good. And that’s a key argument made by Hirsch in The Making of Americans. Like Garber, his concern is the common sphere AND the individual.
< The democratization of information, it turns out, is in some ways at odds with democracy itself.I’m with SoH on this one. This is the meme of the hour. When the information does not serve the interests of the meme-makers, the internet becomes an “unfiltered sewer of disinformation.” http://www.breitbart.tv/meet-the-press-focus-on-jones-aftermath-internet-open-sewer-of-disinformation/ This assertion of the author’s is another attempt to “preserve democracy” by destroying true democratic speech.
Robert-
I had a chance last night to read the entire essay and noticed Ms Garber repeatedly cited Cass Sunstein. Recognizing the name I checked to see if he had written anything about the First Amendment. He has written numerous books on the subject and anyone with an interest in where Ms Garber might be going should look at his concerns on freedom of expression on the Internet.
Since Mr Sunstein was confirmed yesterday as the new head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, we will likely get a chance to actually watch where this debate is headed.