Twitter is to political thought what advertising slogans are to consumer goods or soundbites are to news stories. "It's the real thing" tells us nothing meaningful about Coca Cola. "Just do it" tells us nothing meaningful about Nike sneakers. Slogans, tweets, and soundbites are designed to influence our thinking with catchy thoughts INSTEAD OF informed thought. The ability to create concise content is different than the ability to analyze and understand on a deep level; not mutually exclusive of course, but it doesn't really matter: the masses will be overwhelmingly influenced by the former rather than the latter.
Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
91–100 of 100 posts
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more like the veneer of unbiased trustworthy journalism was a by-product of the mass media ad business. Journalism has reverted back to the journalism mean which was always biased, propagandizing, shoddy, and appealed to the confirmation biases of the target audiences since the 18th century. That's not to say there are not excellently written and researched articles produced today, but hey, today anyone can be a…
I wonder if there might have only been the appearance of unbiased trustworthy journalism, as the "thought bubble" of a society was so much smaller just 20 years ago, and journalists could get away with much less knowledge on a topic since readers couldn't really fact check them.
Thought Bubbles, Echo Chambers, Circular Sources, Communal Reinforcement, Epistemic Closure, Errors Of Omission, False Consensus Effect, Groupthink, Opinion Corridors, Sleight Of Mouth, Talking Points... all sophistry ("the art of making the lesser argument appear the greater"), call it by whatever name you will, fake news, propaganda, "speaking with a forked tongue" -- or just plain disingenuity...
Media is dead!
Long live the media!
(In case you forgot that old saying, "The King Is Dead... Long Live The King!"... oh forget it! )
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#93Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.
Twitter is just a portion of the information warfare going on in the media:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TS_SCI_MAJIC12/status/11820084279...
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#94Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.
Journalism is over. It doesn't matter what journalists do now. It was a by-product of mass media massive ad business which is being quickly taken over by tech companies.
Even I'm not that cynical.
I would agree that ad-founded (engagement-driven) journalism is a dead-end.
Aspiring journalists will need to find other ways to pay the rent.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#95The real number is that 10% of Twitter users [1] produce 97% of political Tweets. (I.e. this is "just" one social media site, used by a minority of Americans.) [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-...
This fits fairly closely to the 1-9-90 rule of social networks [0]. If Twitter wasn't close to that rule, I'd be more surprised, if anything.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've done this by following a small amount of people and being extremely judicious in adding new ones (and quick to remove them: there are a couple writers I enjoy that do nothing but shitpost about politics on Twitter). I will say that my approach has the downside of being very low-volume though
Up until 2015 I had a wonderfully curated comedy Twitter created in this manner. It was selected from the set of my favorite comedians, actors, writers, and internet people with particular focus towards those who posted humorous or insightful things on a regular basis. Then 2016 happened and the greater half decided they were really closet political pundits all along. Now I don't read Twitter at all.
Mine is actually fairly political (lots of economists). I can see how my comment was misleading, but it's the shitposting I mind, not the politics. People like Noah Smith write decent columns but consistently embarrass themselves on Twitter with low-effort dishonest nonsense.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#97People generally, especially in younger generations need to accept that the internet != the real world. I’ve had a number of friends on both sides of the isle fall into the internet trap of politics, existential dread and dilution. A few to the extent of developing serious mental health problems, even college educated people. It’s scary to watch this happen to people you know and love. Some might label me, but I enjo…
On a much larger scale, nothing equals the real world because the real world is endlessly complicated. To take in the breadth and depth of human perspectives and experiences is simply impossible. This is only a problem when people fail to realize they are only seeing as tiny, unrepresentative sliver so they can adjust their reactions accordingly.
I think if more people had an elementary understanding of statistics the values you mentioned would be better understood and considered in common discourse. It’s really kind of sad.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is a poor analogy at best. Everyone is intuitive on the amount of friction it takes to get content onto broadcast or cable TV. No one is delusional. There is relatively zero amount of friction for a twitter user to post political content to twitter. The fact that people are not posting political content, is not due to insurmountable friction.
I thought that went without saying. My point is, why would anyone be surprised that not everyone speaks up? The fact that everyone can tweet doesn’t mean that they do. Friction of calling radio talk back is low, but I’ve never done it. Letters to the editor also.
friction of calling a radio talk show is orders of magnitudes more than retweeting some political tweet.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't journalism a pillar of democracy? The well educated professionals who deep, lengthy dives into corruption, raw data, etc. How will democracy survive if no is being paid to spends weeks, years, to go deep on a subject and citizens can't be fully informed?
> Isn't journalism a pillar of democracy? No. Journalism isn't a pillar of democracy. The ancient greeks who invented democracy didn't have journalism. When the US was founded, we didn't have journalism. Also, dictatorships have journalism. Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Communist China all had journalism. > The well educated professionals who deep, lengthy dives into corruption, raw data, etc. Do you think really think…
The US definitely had journalism before it was founded.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't journalism a pillar of democracy? The well educated professionals who deep, lengthy dives into corruption, raw data, etc. How will democracy survive if no is being paid to spends weeks, years, to go deep on a subject and citizens can't be fully informed?
"Democracy dies in darkness."
The WaPo's slogan should be "Democracy dies behind paywalls"