The Retribalization of Man

According to McLuhan, the electronic media – in particular, radio and television – are bringing about the retribalization of man. Prior to the medium of print, man was tribal in the sense that the identity of the group, or village was paramount. It was paramount to meaning, and it was paramount to survival. But man also lived in an “acoustic” environment, as McLuhan would say. Man’s engagement and interaction, as a way to find meaning and understanding, was through the telling of stories and the oral traditions in the context of their impact on the village. His survival was also linked to his environment, and with that environment, a heightened acuity in all his senses.

The invention of the printing press initiated the shift in man's identity as a tribal being to one of singular identity - an explorer, a frontiersman, a thought-leader - an individual. The printing press brought literacy, and literacy brought the dissolution of the group, as the medium of print engendered a new-found sense of individualism. However, in becoming literate, we also lose this sense of the 360 environment – a surround sound view of life, where all the senses are equally engaged.  The notion of reading and understanding through print is both serial and personal. Through literacy, the search for meaning was found in the lonely process of reading and thinking, and establishing identity as an individual with a personal interpretation of the words and concepts delivered one at a time through sense the of sight. 

In this new literate world, in McLuhan’s terms, we traded an ear for an eye. What was once a community storytelling experience, became a private and image-rich experience of reading a book. While literacy for the common person took decades to accomplish, the printing press nevertheless set in place the medium through which individual literacy would come to modern, pre-industrial man. Orated stories may be subject to change and embellishment over the generations, but with books, the story stays fixed. The concepts and interpretations understood in the context of the time in which they were read.

McLuhan makes the point that the concept for the words “to read” means “to guess”.  He further explains that reading, then, is a process of rapid guessing. Picking the right meaning of words – especially words with multiple meanings – in the context of the other words around them, requires rapid guessing.  As a result, he says, “that is why a good reader tends to be a quick decision-maker; and a good reader…..tends to make a good executive”.  Carrying this concept further, good executives are needed in organizations and bureaucracies, for their ability to make decisions and for their leadership. This is a very individualized function – as is reading. Groups don’t lead, individuals do. Our organizational constructs of legal entities such as governments and companies are built around the decisiveness of leaders maximizing the productivity of individuals in collections. But this is not the same as the group. Sure, there are elements of group – people may be proud of where they work or feel a sense of camaraderie with their fellow workers. But to be sure, promotions, recognition, pay and rewards are all at the individual level. And when the workday is done, people retreat to their individual homes, each “worlds” apart from the workplace. Clearly, the work of Edward Demming has had a mitigating effect on the role of the individual in organizations over the last half-century, as his teaching elevated the goals of the “village output” over the individual’s goals by way of his “Quality” measurements. Interestingly, Demming’s work was first accepted in the East, as the management teams of the industrialized West saw no need for his concepts of quality. The West had cornered the market of consumerism, and saw no need for change from the rugged individualism which had gotten it to that point.

Individualism is still the cornerstone of modern, western, industrial and post-industrial society. Those who work hardest get ahead. Those who are appealing to voters get voted into office and control bureaucracies. Correspondingly, the role of government in western society has had a long, slow, shift from being the protector of the group – with certain inalienable individual rights – to the elevation of protection of individual’s rights over that of the group. To wit, 76 of the 85 cases before the Supreme Court this year concern the rights of the individual.

With the advent of electronic media, the literate man began to re-engage with his other senses again – more than just his sense of sight.  The purely visual media, such as print and the visual arts, can be viewed with a sense of detachment, but the aural media and acoustic media – and McLuhan counted television among the acoustic media – are engaging, and enveloping media. In McLuhan’s words, “they work us over”, “they bump us up”, they interrupt us and get our attention; they engage us. We become immersed in this new media, and through this immersion, there is a loss of individual identity, and a new search for meaning in the group; in the “village” which is attached to that particular medium. While the content may shape one’s path for that search, it is the medium, itself, which is the message – that we are a product of our village, first and foremost, and our identity is part of the larger identity of our group.

In that sense, we have come full circle from being tribal in our relationships and search for meaning to being individual in our pursuits, to once again becoming tribal in our search for meaning and context. The new media and social media, however, take this concept of retribalization to whole new levels. Our village cuts across geographies, political boundaries, and cultures, instantaneously; and it can grow to a population of over 50 million in less than a year, as it did for the video-sharing site, ViVo.  But there’s another dimension of retribalization. We are now engaged, not just aurally, but tactilely – and this is the essence of what McLuhan calls “acoustic”. Our senses are engulfed as we participate in and create our own media. Where radio and television are one (or few) to many, social media are anyone to any; and messages we create can be delivered on many media at one time. Television may or may not retribalize us. But the medium of TV was an important stepping stone to bring the immersive senses back into play with new media and social media – away from the singularity of the sense of sight. 

This move to retribalization, however, does not mean we become illiterate, in the sense that we return to the tribal man of pre-printing press. Rather we adopt a new literacy – one which is poorly understood in the context of our current individual structures. The futurist, Alvin Toffler said “the illiterate person of the twenty-first century is not someone who cannot read and write, but the person who cannot learn, un-learn, and relearn”.

Now, here is the rub. We live in a world where political, industrial, and even post-industrial organizational and bureaucratic structures are stuck in the literate world of individualism. Eddie Obeng, in his June, 2012 talk at TEDGlobal, in Edinburgh, Scotland said, “We spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists”.  Perhaps our most important work as media psychologists comes in helping public and private organizations and institutions understand the dramatic shift in society from individualism back to tribalism and its implications on our systems of education, enterprise, and governance.  These are all structures we respond to rationally, because we understand them and recognize them; they are so familiar to us that they are part of the “ground” of our western society – but they were built for a world which no longer exists. However, as Ohler sees it, these individual structures are giving way to older structures as man becomes more tribal and less a being of solitude. It’s as if we’re returning to the pre-industrial family dinner-table discussion; bringing the “front porch” back to the position of figure in our culture. The car, the freeway system, the airplane, the telephone, and the computer allowed us all to maintain our extended family while the individual and frontiersman in all of us caused us to move physically further and further apart. The new media work not because they somehow bridge the gulf that we’ve created by our distance, but because they return us to something very familiar – something old and comfortable. Bringing meaningful understanding to society is to bring these old structures to the position of “figure” in our culture, where the issues and options are debated, researched, discussed and analyzed. In helping create this tribal discussion, we help create a platform for safe change as we replace old structures with new ones –or older ones, as the case may be.  The implications for education, enterprise, and governance are enormous with this facilitated shift in identity.

The Arab Spring gave us all a glimpse of what happens when the individualism of totalitarianism - with no prospect for change and no willingness to understand - runs afoul of the tribal man of social media. Malcolm Muggeridge observed that both capitalism and totalitarianism have the same end in mind; just different means of achieving it. We have a worthy task in helping society understand through learning, un-learning and relearning the message of the media, else capitalism and democracy, as we know them today, will become unwitting victims of the impatience of tribal man, as well. 

 

References:

Covey, Stephen M. R. (2006). The speed of trust. (p.177). New York, N.Y. Free Press.

Hunter, Ian (1980). Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life. New York, N.Y. HarperCollins.

McLuhan, Marshall (1979). The medium is the message.  ABC Radio National Network, Australia. Retrieved on 10/15/12 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaH51F4HBw&feature=related

McLuhan, Marshall; Fiore, Quentin (1967). The medium is the massage. Berkeley, CA. Gingko Press.

Obeng, Eddie (June 2012). TEDGlobal. Edinburgh, Scotland. Retrieved on 10/16/12 from http://www.ted.com/talks/eddie_obeng_smart_failure_for_a_fast_changing_world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TEDTalks_video+%28TEDTalks+Main+%28SD%29+-+Site%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

U.S Supreme Court, 2011-2012 cases. Retrieved on 10/17/12 from http://www.reuters.com/supreme-court/2011-2012

Wolfe, Tom (1968). The pump house gang.  What if he is right? (pp. 119-154). New York, N.Y. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

A Technology I Would Create....

This week, we were asked to come up with a new technology that we would create. Key concepts which have influenced our collective thinking over the last 3 weeks are: Mobility, technology landscape, augmented reality, meta-data, transmedia, digital community, digital citizen, narrative, story arc, and connectedness. With these concepts in mind, a new technology I would create is a transmedia, multi-instance, holographic (TMMIH) avatar – aka “Timmi”.  Here's how it would work:

To set up my Timmi, I use my smartphone camera to take a picture of my face, straight-on, and a picture of each side of my face. The software in my phone renders a 3-D holographic image of my head. Next, I record a few sentences of carefully-picked words to capture most of my phonemes, and intonations. Like Apple’s SIRI, my phone is “listening” to my voice as I speak and develops a library of sounds so that my body-less avatar, over a very short time-span, sounds just like me. Alternatively, I could pick from a catalog of pre-created cartoon characters or movie characters to be my avatar in their own voices (a great licensing opportunity for movie producers and owners of cartoon character trademarks such as Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Buzz Lightyear, and…..oh yeah, Felix the Cat!). One of my colleagues suggested this week that we often have a voice in our heads that talks to us, and we're consequently surprised when we hear our actual voices because it doesn't sound like the voice in our heads! 

Once Timmi is set up, it's deployable to act as my "assistant" as well as my representative. As my assistant, when I get an e-mail, a text, or other message (e.g., Facebook message, Twitter feed), or want to search for something, Timmi comes alive on the retina display of my device (cell phone, tablet, PC, or windshield heads-up display) and speaks the information to me in my own voice (or the cartoon character’s voice). This is not a big technological leap from where we are today. For instance, I can speak into my iPhone and ask SIRI (or some other information services proxy) for almost any kind of information, and after a short search, SIRI will speak the information back to me, in the proxy’s voice. When I initiate a search for a retail location, a product, or a service, Timmi can come alive read aloud to me any meta-data associated with my search or location, as well. An instance of Timmi is always available on my cell phone’s retina display,  so when I get into my car, the Bluetooth registration process "pulls" my avatar into the heads-up display in my windshield. Without taking my eyes off the road, I can command Timmi to speak information to me – messages, search results, and meta-data.

As my representative, I can “push” an instance of Timmi to a friend’s smartphone - just like is done with a "v-card", today. When my friend gets a message from me, such as text, e-mail, Facebook message or Twitter feed, an instance of my Timmi appears on the retina display of his/her phone, reads my message, in the appropriate voice - mine or my chosen character's. Further, if my friend calls me and I can’t answer my phone, my Timmi pops up on their phone to tell them I’m unavailable and asks them to leave a message. Additionally, Timmi will ask my friend to pick a medium of choice for a response. My Timmi can appear on whatever device my friend is using, whether a cellphone,tablet, PC or heads-up display on their windshield. My Timmi is only in their display long enough to deliver the message, and then disappears. Their own personal Timmi is available as their assistant, waiting for the next command or prompt. I can have as many instances of my personal Timmi as I have friends with smart devices! Likewise, as many of my friends’ Timmis as I want, can reside on my electronic apparatuses of choice. Many of the asynchronous capabilities we have today are enhanced by a more personal (or comedic) representation of "us".

The reason this new technology (or rather this new adaptation of several combined technologies) is compelling to me is that it gives us the capability to do many of the messaging and retrieval functions we do with social media today with just our voices and our eyes, and the extension of those two senses through multiple agents in the digital domain. Activities like texting-while-driving become a thing of the past. The extension of our capabilities through the ether represents us the way we want to be represented, and we have the potential to gain back some of the amputations brought on by the current explosion of social media, such as expression, intonation, and many of the nuances of meta-data that can’t be adequately conveyed through letters, numbers, and emoticons on a 2-dimensional screen. That said, one of the amputations we get is a further separation of the personal self from relationships that deal with the “agent” self. We may have stored most of our intonations and expressions in Timmi, but Timmi can never really convey that reaction of surprise, of wonder, of deep sorrow, or empathy.

In my estimation, the chances of getting this innovaton to market are good, since most of the constituent piece parts already exist. For instance, the technology to push and pull information to and from devices exists with our ability to "bump" mobile phones and exchange contact information. We can also push information to our list of “friends” via a Twitter or Facebook posting. Likewise, the technology exists today to render a 3D hologram from a series of multi-view 2-dimensional pictures or diagrams. Agent software is in use today where a software proxy for the user is available to retrieve or display information without the active, synchronous participation of the user. As well, text-to-speech and speech-to-text software algorithms are in use today in a variety of applications. Heads-up displays have been used in military applications for a number of years and are just beginning to be seen in commercial applications – not the least of which are automobile windshields displaying dashboard metrics for the driver. What is required? The computational capabilities at the device level (cell phone, touch pad, laptop, etc.) – and according to Moore’s Law*, that problem is very soon solved.

As a media psychologist, there is a plethora of opportunities available in the space of convergent media technologies. Basic questions of affectation need to be answered in areas such as: education, productivity and the workplace, marketing and advertising, social behavior,  relationships, cognitive skills, and the story and story-teller in each of us. Beyond these basic questions there lies a whole array of 2^nd- and 3^rd-order cause-and-effect questions. Perhaps the unintended consequence of Moore’s Law is that with the price-performance of computing quadrupling every 18 months, the psycho-social implications of computational capabilities do, as well.

 

*For those unfamiliar with Moore’s Law, in 1965, Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel, postulated that the capabilities of computation (processing speed, memory capacity, pixel density, etc.) would double every 18 months and that the cost of any given technology would halve every 18 months (due to manufacturing capabilities and scale, and integrated circuit efficiencies). Doing the math, “two divided by one half”, the notion of a quadrupling of the price-performance of computation every 18 months was described by Moore in his 1965 paper, Cramming more components onto integrated circuits.

 

References:

Isbout, Jean-Pierre; Ohler, Jason (2011).  From Aristotle to augmented reality. The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, (Karen Dill, Ed.).

Moore's Law, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

Ohler, Jason (2010). Digital community, digital citizen. California, US. Corwin.

Citizenship in Digital Communities

According to Ohler (2010), “citizenship arises when people gather in groups and inevitably ask the question, “what does it mean to belong here?””  This concept implies an active participation in the group or community. It applies to the physical domain (legal and geographic), to the cultural/social domain (ethnic, belief, common interest), and the electronic (digital) domain. Although not universally true, the social, cultural, and electronic domains are more alike in that people generally choose to be part of a group, either to help define the “what does it mean?”, or because the group appears to have an interesting and compelling journey in answering the “what does it mean?”. The use of the metaphor of citizenship is interesting in the context of these different domains and raises an important question: Is citizenship a function of origin (birth), residence, or behavior (participation)? Further, the follow-on question is: Is it possible for me to be a resident of a community and not a citizen?

For example, we may choose to move into a community for reasons of proximity to schools, church, work, or other communities where friends or family live, and as such, we may not always stop to ask ourselves “what does it mean to belong here?”  Having lived in three different neighborhoods (each for more than a year), without ever knowing my next-door neighbors or those who lived across the street from me, I realize that just being resident in the neighborhood did not necessarily make me a citizen of that neighborhood. What I cared more about was my citizenship in the other communities that I cared about - schools, churches, work, etc. One could argue that I was a citizen, just not a good one. I think it’s possible to be a “resident” without really being a citizen. In this sense, part of the definition of “citizen” must be linked to behavior:  the notion of being actively involved and engaged in answering the question, “what does it mean to belong here?”

Being a resident without being a citizen in any community denotes a sense of isolation. This isolation is lamented by writers such as Naomi Stephan and Patrick Overton.  After the great migration from the farms to the cities in the early days of industrialization, the front porch was where community was built. It was there where stories were shared, values were taught, and citizenship was modeled. But the proliferation of the automobile brought the disappearance of the front porch from the American landscape. Communities were no longer confined to the immediate geography. Mobility brought to us the wonderful opportunity to redefine our community to include those to whom we could drive (and exclude that pesky neighbor whose politics we never agreed with in the first place). 

As the front porch disappeared, our sense of isolation within our own neighborhoods began to rise. Wilkerson, et al (2011) ask an important question about the correlation of “neighborliness” – citizenship – and a “positive physical environment”, including front porches. Ohler (2010) writes about citizenship requiring virtuous behavior, and that our educational processes ought to teach that behavior to digital citizens. There is a very real need to educate both digital immigrants and digital citizens on the need for participation and virtuous behavior in these new digital communities. In essence, we need to take the “front porch” to the digital domain. There needs to be a place (virtual or otherwise) where the transfer of values can take place. In a society where isolation (i.e. being a resident without really being a citizen) has become a growing problem, there is a very interesting question to be answered relative to our digital communities. The question, however, is this: If people have never learned the meaning of citizenship (i.e., participation and virtue) in the physical domain, will they be able to learn and adapt those principles to the digital world? Certainly, the value of face-to-face encounter in the physical domain must be in the teaching (and learning) of responsible, respectful encounter and virtuous participation. Without a paradigm to transfer into the digital world, are these concepts too easily left behind by the unprincipled?

The shift into digital domain changed the nature of our communities in at least nine ways (six "gains" and three "losses"). First, we can be even more selective about our communities. It’s no longer necessary to put up with Aunt Edna at the family reunions just to see our favorite uncle. Now we select our “family friends” on Facebook. Alternatively, we can exclude Aunt Edna from our e-mail distribution list. We only belong to the circles that have the people we want to be “around” in the virtual sense. And if our circle gets too many people who get under our skin, we can just go start a new circle and “forget” to invite them to come along.

Second, by choosing to become a citizen of any community – including our digital communities – we gain the collective embrace and support of the citizens of that community. In addition, we explicitly or implicitly pledge our support of the greater good and adherence to the unspoken rule of order, whatever that may be. Conflicts always arise, however, that test our commitment to the community. The conflict comes when the resolution to a problem has two potential paths forward – one that benefits ourselves but not our community, or one that benefits the greater good of the community in which we live, but not ourselves. So in a sense, we may be forced to become “less of an individual” or “less of a citizen”. It’s a tough choice, and the ramifications to answering this question may not always be obvious.

The third change in nature is the loss of synchronicity. It’s no longer necessary to be there in real time. It only matters that you get around to communicating and responding in a time frame that doesn’t scream “I don’t want to hear from you again!” Loss of synchronicity doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In a world where people are managing multiple digital communities (generally while sitting through a lecture or dinner with the family!), precious little time is given to the art of critical thinking.  The world of “asynchronicity” (not a word, I know) brings the ability to actually think before responding to something or someone – of course, whether we use that ability is something entirely different. But we can be thoughtful, measured, and rational in our approach to communicating. No more “Ready! Fire! Aim!” like so often happens in our speech (at least I’ll speak for myself).

Fourth, we gain the opportunity to transform the way we think of ourselves and therefore the way people perceive us. If we want to be someone slightly different (or even radically different, for that matter!), than who we really are, we have the opportunity to do that. This however, has a disadvantage, because we can lose our ability to have physical encounter with folks, afraid that our physical self won’t match the expectation we’ve set with our digital self.

Fifth, by shifting into the digital domain, we gain by the ability to weave our social and community interaction into our day. Instead of having “dead spots” in our day – unredeemed time waiting in lines, or for the bus, train, or doctor – we’re on-line communicating. This asynchronous communication allows us to manage several communities at one time. In traditional, physical communities, we had to choose between being present at our cousin's birthday party or our best friend's bar mitzvah.

Sixth, we gain access to communities that we could never access before. If Fielding Graduate University didn’t employ the digital domain in its distributed learning model, many of us would never be able to participate in its graduate programs. We couldn’t all move to Santa Barbara, and the cost to commute is too high. Additionally, FGU probably wouldn't have the faculty they have if there was a requirement for everyone to be a citizen of Santa Barbara. But access has a broader, cultural context, as well. We can even reach outside of our culture and invoke cross-cultural experience without having to travel to exotic places and eat things we’re really not interested in eating.

In return for all those gains, or in McLuhan’s terms, “extensions”, we get “amputations” or losses. In the “always-on” digital world, we stay so busy that we lose valuable reflection time. This isn’t necessarily the same as a thoughtful response to someone. This is a crucial part of our critical thinking processes where we question, apply concepts, check our biases, and play things out to their logical conclusions. The result of this behavior (always-on) could very well be a generation of kids who cannot think critically.

The second loss what Ohler (2010) refers to as the loss of meta-information.  Voice inflections, expressions, and perhaps even context. With this loss of meta-information, too much is left to the interpretation of the reader. If the reader is dealing with a personal emotional injury in their life, odds are pretty good that they will interpret messages in that context. What the writer could have meant as a funny note or response could easily be taken as an insult by the reader without that meta-information.

Third, in the digital world, we can lose touch with the physical world. This may not be tantamount to losing touch with reality, but it’s only one step away.  If we lose connectivity with the physical world, we lose face-to-face encounter. Many of our cognitive processes are initiated by our sight. We see faces, body language, beauty, destruction, and a host of other things that aren’t always available in the digital world. But perhaps the amputation that will affect us the most is the loss of touch. Sometimes, there is nothing more communicative, more calming, more comforting, or more affirming, than the touch of another human being. Of all the senses we’re blessed to have, I believe the sense of touch has its greatest impact on our cognitive processes.

As we shift into our digital communities, we need to be mindful of these gains and losses, so that we can maximize the good and minimize the bad of taking up citizenship in the virtual world of the ether. I believe our work as media psychologists may be twofold. First we have a unique position as advisors and counselors to educational institutions and in educational processes.  The need to educate on what it really means to be a responsible citizen is probably never higher than right now – at the very front end of the explosion in digital communities.  Plato said “if you ask what is the good of education, the answer is easy: that education makes good men and that good men act nobly”.  We need to raise a generation of digital citizens who will act nobly. Second is to help citizens understand the implications and the 2nd and 3rd order effects of the tough choices between community promotion and individual promotion.  The ramifications could very well determine how long the digital domain remains a collection of civilized communities.

References:

Cook, Scott (n.d.). The evolution of the Ameerican front porch. Retrieved on 10/4/12 from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am483_97/projects/cook/first.htm

Ohler, Jason (2010). Digital community, digital citizen. Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin

Overton, Patrick (1997). Rebuilding the front porch of America: Essays on the art of community making. PrairieSea.

Stephan, Naomi. Reflections on reflection: or whatever happened to the front porch?  Retrieved on 10/4/12 from www.omplace.com/articles/reflectionsonreflection.html

Wilkerson, A., Carlson, N., Yen, I., Michael, Y., (2011). Relationships with neighbors; Does positive physical environment increase neighborliness? Environment and Behavior, 44 (5). DOI: 10.1177/0013916511402058 

McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Critical Edition, Terence Gordon (Ed.). Berkeley, CA. Gingko Press, Inc.

Martin, Judith (2012). Miss Manners on sentiments in the digital age. Retrieved on 10/7/12 from: http://news.yahoo.com/miss-manners-sentiments-digital-age-140920569.html

 

A Trend in Media Development

A major trend in media development that I see is the changing and perhaps redefinition of the classic narrative arc as discussed by Drs. Isbouts and Ohler (2011). In classic literature, the story arc had an easy-to-identify arc of tension or dilemma to transformation to resolution, all held together through the story.  The medium was constant and the story-teller was constant throughout the story.  Two things, in my estimation, are driving this new trend. First, in the world of new media, and social media, in particular, the lines between “story-teller” and “story-listener” or “story-viewer” are becoming increasingly blurred.  Second, the medium can switch forms and technologies in the middle of the narrative.

Let’s explore the blurring lines between story-teller and story-viewer. What starts as a tension with one person, can be picked up by a second or third who either extend the tension or create their own narrative arc. The first person with the dilemma switches from being story-teller to story-viewer as he or she sees the dilemma now being “owned” by another. The dilemma may give way to a transformation, but then again, it may not until it has developed its tension further by others.  Such would be the case when someone has a critical comment about a product or service. What was a single person’s complaint suddenly branches into 10 or even 100 dilemmas, all searching for some transformative process or event. The complaint can even grow in scope, starting out as a complaint about a server at a restaurant, for instance, and growing to a complaint about the server, the food, the location, the manager’s response, and so on. The very same process can take place when a scorned person has a gripe about their now ex-friend.    The dilemma may never have a transformation but just floats from one storyline to another, and from one story-teller to the next. The more concurrent storylines, the more difficult resolution becomes for all of them. It’s like trying to put all of the feathers back in the pillow on a windy day!

Next, let’s look at the switching of media in the course of the story. Dr. Ohler in his book Digital Community, Digital Citizen (2010) writes of new media “coalescing into a collage”. This is especially true in social media. So think of the message of the complaint about the server. It may start on Twitter, but then automatically get posted to Facebook. Someone else picks it up and posts it on their LinkedIn site. Someone else wants to own the story and so they blog about. Someone important picks up on it and wants to make a point in a speech that is getting video-taped and posted to YouTube. You get the point. What started out as one person’s complaint is now the embellished and enhanced story of one hundred people, all looking for some sort of transformation and resolution.  Before long, the story line that the restaurant was using in its ad campaign has been co-opted by a hundred voices with a counter-story.  It doesn’t have to be a complaint. It could be a story of pain. Perhaps someone is finally brave enough to tell a story that no one wanted to hear, yet everyone else with the same pain was looking for someone brave enough to step forward.  All of a sudden what started as one person’s story of pain, transformation and deliverance becomes a hundred story arcs of others now brave enough to share their story. And it’s told in different forms on different social media sites: some with bit-by-bit Facebook postings; some with blogs; some with a collage of clip-art and a voice-over creating a video clip on YouTube. And then there will be some with all of the above. The narrative can be contained in an individual collage and a collective collage. 

Throughout the evolution of narrative media, as discussed by Ohler and Isbouts, the needs of the human condition are met from two perspectives: from the perspective of the story-teller, and; from the perspective of the story-listener (viewer).  The basic human need for the story-teller is to “tell my story” – to be known.  All of us desire for someone to know something about us.  The story-listener has a different need:  to get lost in the story. One of two conditions could exist here. The listener might be looking for something to identify with that makes his/her condition “alright”.  Or, the listener may have a need to disengage from reality and “live in a different world” – be someone else.  Even though narrative has evolved with technology and media changes to engage the different senses, these basic human needs have persisted.  Now, with readily available tools, the story-teller is no longer dependent on someone else to tell the story – they can develop their own story and even design their own audience.

I think the trend here is the converse of “back to the future”.  Call it “forward to the past”. Before print and the printing press, narrative and story were the main form of passing on current and historical events.  The collection of personal narratives was the information “feed”.  Since the invention of the printing press there has been a long, slow history of a relatively few “publishers” of information, whether a radio program, a television show, a video, or even a homepage. Additionally there has also been a long, slow trend to centralize the control of information and narrative about current events. Now, six media conglomerates, worldwide, control the news we see. With the meteoric rise in the use of social media, and the availability of easy-to-use tools, the tide is shifting. Control of the narrative is moving back among the masses and news from anywhere in the world can travel around the world ahead of the mainstream news sources.

Today, social media is viewed as a way for consumers to co-own the “brand” with a company. But in a world where story-owner and story-sharer can rapidly and subtly change places, how does a company ultimately maintain and protect its greatest asset – its brand? First, any company with a strategy for social media, should look to guide (as opposed to control) the "story arc". This takes a very pro-active effort. Social media has become the great "dumping ground" for every disgruntled customer. These story arcs, left to themselves, have a high potential for unhappy conclusions for companies. In fact, they can quickly become brand-killers. A sound social media strategy should include an investment in a "media control center" of sorts (it doesn't have to be sophisticated), where social "praise" can be pushed to and promoted by influencers - extending the narrative arc - and social "gripes" can be quickly detected and funneled to a "resolution desk" (one that is answered by a real person with no voice-response required) in order to guide the resolution of the narrative arc, and keep it from promulgating itself through the social media network.

 Second, even if a company does not employ social media (and I can’t imagine a company not having a social media strategy these days), they should understand that their customer base uses social media increasingly to convey their feelings about products and services. Knowing who your consumers are that have big circles of social influence is helpful, and then managing their perception or quickly reacting to negative perceptions can go a long way to getting good "net promoter scores" from your customer base. There are tools available to monitor social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and others, as well as measure who is “listening to whom”. This monitoring can feed analysis tools to give a general sense on the relative sentiment of your customer base in general, and of the big influencers, specifically. Part of a good marketing strategy is to have good news stories more often than bad news shows up. These days of sitting back with a quarterly advertising strategy are over.

Successful companies in the use of social media will hire digital citizens, as opposed to digital immigrants. Marc Prensky (2001) makes the case for the generation of kids who are born with digital media all around them. They are fluent in the language, the lexicon, and even think “digitally” – like someone born into an English-speaking family who thinks thoughts in English. Those of us born before the digital age are immigrants. Some of us grasp the language fairly easily and “speak with very little accent”. However, we still think in old media terms and translate to digital – just like the English citizen transplanted to Germany, speaking German but thinking original thoughts in English. As Ohler suggests, new media demand new literacies.  Perhaps the next narrative arc in need of transformation is that of the American educational system.

 

References:

Isbouts, J. and Ohler, J.(2011). From Aristotle to augmented reality. The Oxford handbook of Media (Dill, Ed.)

Ohler, Jason (2010). Digital community, digital citizen. Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin

Prensky, Marc. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, Vol.9, No. 5. University Press

Media Literacy - PSY 724e

For the next eight weeks, take the trip with me as I explore media literacy and the social impacts of technology. I'll have some interetsing insights as we study how technologies have shaped our culture and society and then look at media and its persuasive nature and uses in our culture.....and yes, we'll be studying Marshall McLuhan! What course in media technologies would be complete without that!

Capstone for PSY 700

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices”

– William James

The mere possession of critical [thinking] skills is insufficient to make one a critical thinker (Hare, 1999). In my contemplations during this critical thinking course, I see two major obstacles to critical thinking, fair-minded assessment, and well-reasoned conclusions.  They are: unexamined and unchallenged bias, and; undisciplined and unpracticed use of readily available tools for anyone desiring to have an impact in their world. 

Let me first explore the obstacle of unexamined and unchallenged bias.  Webster defines bias as a “tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents an unprejudiced consideration”. While it is important to note that being human means that we can’t be free of bias, it is also important to understand whether our bias affects the outcome of our assessment, and how.  Conversely, because we’re all human, even the things we read, watch, and listen to have a bias to them, whether old media or new.  It’s neither good nor bad, it just is.  The problem comes when, in the process of trying to arrive at a well-considered and well-reasoned decision, we’ve either been unwitting victims of someone else’s bias or we have not considered one or more divergent perspectives because of our own bias. There are several good methodologies for discovering bias in the media, whether on the web or elsewhere.  Such methodologies can be found, for instance, at Michael Shermer’s Baloney Detection Kit  (http://www.committedsardine.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=181), Scott Wrobel’s Evaluating Sources and Arguments: Credibility and Bias (http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/wrobel/1121/Course%20Materials/Web%20Lectures/evaluating_sources_for_credibili.htm), Alan November’s  Who Owns the Websites Your Kids Access? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLS_rlwnwI, and Rhetorica’s media bias detection site (http://rhetorica.net/bias.htm).  While this is not an exhaustive list, there also happens to be differences in approach by each of these.  For instance, Michael Shermer’s focus is more centered on analyzing the content, the data, and the sources behind the data, as seen in the following video:

Michael Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit

Alan November’s approach gives one the tools analyze the writer, the owner and the publisher of the content and to understand their bias and their purpose in producing the content. The following video shows November teaching parents of school-age children how to examine people and organizations around the content.

Alan November: Who Owns the Websites Your Kids Access?

Once the bias of the content is discerned, we have to examine our own bias. Questions like, “have I considered enough viewpoints?”, or “do viewpoints that don’t agree with mine have enough of a voice?”, need to be answered before arriving at a conclusion. These are important questions, because they will keep us from inadvertently leaving important perspectives out of the iterative process of discovery, analysis, application, assessment, and solution generation.  This avoids having a one-sided view of the problem and/or an uncritical or naive solution.

Next, is the obstacle of undisciplined and unpracticed use of critical thinking skills. Bertrand Russell, the great thinker and philosopher of the last century, believed that critical thinking was a habit of the mind – a process formed of practice (Hare, 1999). Russell maintained that relevant skills should be exercised regularly until they become part of our behavior. During our course we were introduced to Richard Paul’s Foundation for Critical Thinking. His website (www.foundationforcriticalthinking.com) is rich with material explaining both the tools and the application of the tools one can use to be a serious and maturing critical thinker. The following graphic from the foundation for Critical Thinking shows the elements of thought.

Elements of Thought (Paul & Elder, 2009)

It's important to note that there isn’t a “starting point” here, nor a prescribed order in applying these skills, but rather the critical thinker must know when and how to apply each skill as they move through the process from inquiry to solution. To Hare’s point, however, just possessing these skills, either singularly or collectively, does not make one a critical thinker.

The maturing critical thinker demonstrates the ability to apply intellectual standards (Paul & Elder, 2009) such as clarity, accuracy, breadth, precision, fairness and depth (and there are others) to the elements of thought in a disciplined manner. The maturing critical thinker also uses daily opportunities to practice and apply these intellectual standards to the elements of thought to solve problems, assess approaches and find solutions.  Paul and Elder (2009), have given us a roadmap to maturing as a critical thinker with their article Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies, which can be found at: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-in-everyday-life-9-strategies/512.  

Maturation takes discipline and a commitment to the process plus time and practice. These tools, strategies, and methodologies are available to anyone who is interested in improving their critical thinking abilities. With the discipline of practice comes habit. With habit comes behavioral change. The behavioral change yields character traits which are fundamental to a critical thinker.  Breanne Harris (2010) enumerates six characteristics of great critical thinkers:

1. Curiosity. Great critical thinkers tune into their desire to continue learning and understanding how things work.
2. Humility. Great critical thinkers understand that their ideas may not be the best and that they do not know everything.
3. Ability to research. The ability to research things and bring in multiple resources will unveil a lot.
4. Active Listening. Don’t just hear what others have to say, engage in conversation.
5. Objectivity. Great critical thinkers have the ability to remain objective. They don’t let their emotions (or others’) cloud their judgment.
6. Creativity. Brainstorming without judgment can spark amazing ideas. Thinking outside the box may create a solution.

Relating these concepts to clear and critical use of media, with the tools from Michael Shermer, Alan November, Scott Wrobel, and others, I now understand how to detect bias in the media. With the added tools from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Emerald Insight and others I have discovered how to challenge my own bias. Together, these tool sets can help me be thorough in my approach to determining bias – mine and others’ - and assessing its impact on my conclusions or solutions.

I have found that in my own professional setting, these skills are beginning to change the way I approach problem-solving.  One of the hazards of being promoted in a large organization is the tendency to make decisions based on intuition from experience. After all, with each succeeding promotion, there is a push to make faster decisions on fewer of the facts.  Time is of the essence, especially in the fast-moving field of technology.  This becomes the critical thinking killer. When time is of the essence, our very nature as human beings will gravitate toward what we know or are familiar or comfortable with, versus what we don’t know or with which we’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable. Very subtly our bias creeps into the assessment and solution, without any critical assessment. It can be helpful for speed, but potentially dangerous in that the best path forward may very well lie (and often does) in areas of a divergent perspective or unfamiliar or even uncomfortable concept. Instead of allowing the time necessary to consider other perspectives and concepts, we might find ourselves trying to get to a practical solution as quickly as possible. But as the old adage goes: “there’s never enough time to do it right the first time, but always enough time to do it over!” These concepts have really challenged the speed with which I make decisions, and have made me far more deliberate in making sure to find the right question and use all of the elements of thought in arriving at the best path forward.

The newly learned tools and methodologies gained in this critical thinking class will inform my scholarly development and ongoing research during this doctoral program by making me more aware of the need for discipline and intellectual honesty for every area of inquiry.  As applied, these methodologies will help me be diligent in examining and challenging bias and develop good thinking habits. Further, with the multiplicity of tools available on-line and in print, there are ample opportunities for me to practice, mature as a critical thinker and develop character – not just for the sake of this program, but for my on-going work as a practitioner in media psychology.  

 References:

Dawkins, R. (n.d.) Foundation for Reason and Science. Retreived from: http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/.

Emerald Insight.  Retrieved on September 20, 2012 from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/learning/study_skills/skills/critical_thinking.htm.

Hare, W. (1999). Bertrand Russell on Critical Thinking. The Critical Thinking Community.  Retrieved from: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/bertrand-russell-on-critical-thinking/477

Harris, B. (2010). 6 Powerful Characteristics of Great Critical Thinkers. Retrieved Septmber 2, 2012 from http://critical-thinkers.com/2010/09/6-powerful-characteristics-of-great-critical-thinkers/

November, A. (2007). Who owns the websites your kids access? Retrieved September 2, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLS_rlwnwI.

Paul, R. (1995). Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms.  The Critical Thinking Community. Retrieved from: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/glossary-of-critical-thinking-terms/496

Paul, R. and Elder, L. 2009. Critical Thinking: Concepts and tools. Foundation for critical thinking press.

Shermer, M. (2009). The Baloney Detection Kit. Retreived from: http://www.committedsardine.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=181

Valuable Intellectual Virtues (June 1996). Foundation For Critical Thinking. The Critical Thinking Community.  Retrieved from: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528

Wrobel, S. (n.d.).  Evaluating sources and arguments: Credibility and bias. Anoka Ramsey Community College. Retrieved on 8/28/12 from: http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/wrobel/1121/Course%20Materials/Web%20Lectures/evaluating_sources_for_credibili.htm

 

 

Critical Thinking and Detecting Bias

Webster defines bias as a particular tendency or inclination. Richard Paul (1995), in his Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms, supports this definition by describing it as a “mental leaning or inclination”. However, Paul goes on to talk about the differences between “thinking within a point of view” and “being blind to or having an irrational resistance to a weakness” within that point of view. It is my very blindness or irrational resistance to a weakness that makes it important I employ critical thinking and “sleuthing” skills (Shermer, 2009) for everything I read on the web – no matter if I am reading or watching to just be informed or if I want to apply material as evidence for corroborating or dissenting viewpoints for a well-rounded argument. For my observations, conclusions and solutions to have any credibility, I need to verify the veracity, accuracy, and bias of the underlying information I am using to support my thesis.

When I view or listen to something that seems rational, or even innocuous, what tools can I deploy to detect bias and further, to verify truthfulness and authenticity of the material I am reading, watching, or listening to? This quote from the Freeman Institute (www.freemaninstitute.com/quotes.htm) is an exaggeration, to be sure, but pokes fun at the credibility which we often give the web for the information we find there.
 

"The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that it's difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine."

-- Abraham Lincoln
Quote From the Freeman Institute

Since I can’t remove bias from the equation (minimally, a point of view), the very first critical thinking skill I need to apply as I scan web materials is a question: “Do I keep watching or reading or listening because the bias of the material comports with my own bias? (Further, how do I know?) Conversely, do I stop watching, reading or listening because the bias of the material disagrees with my bias? (Further, do I discount everything that agitates me?). In either case, how can I know which of the two materials is really biased? (In the sense that it plays into my own irrational resistance).

Michael Shermer’s video, below gives a quick way to make an assessment on bias by asking 10 questions that are particularly helpful when reading or watching material that is ostensibly evidence-based and purporting to bring the reader to a rational conclusion.

 Michael Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit

Alan November’s work (http://novemberlearning.com) goes beyond the purported “facts” of any material on the web, to get to the underlying bias or agenda of the producer or owner of the information presented. Here he is in a seminar, teaching parents on how to do the “search behind the search” for information.

 Alan November - The Search Behind the Search

In a rather quick search, I found several other sources, among them, professor Scott Wrobel's syllabus for bias detection (http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/wrobel/1121/Course%20Materials/Web%20Lectures/evaluating_sources_for_credibili.htm), and Rhetorica (http://rhetorica.net/bias.htm), for material in applying critical thinking skills to ask a few questions which get to bias, veracity, and accuracy. Additionally, my colleagues in our critical thinking class found six to eight other sites useful for objective scrutiny of web-based material. All of these sites vary in their respective approaches, but all of them provide quick ways to assess bias when viewing web material. The methodologies include ways (and this is by no means an exhaustive list) to:

            Evaluate the author, publisher and owner of the information (Do they have a history of supporting only a particular point of view? Or do they just report the facts with no value-oriented adjectives or adverbs?);
            Interpret the format, emphasis, and words used in the text and the titles (Are value statements implied by the clever use of words, or the arrangement of words and claims?);
            Discover the owner of the website (does the owner have and agenda or a history of supporting a particular point of view?);
            Corroborate the information, supporting data, and concepts from other sources (Is this the only place where a particular argument or data set is used? Can it be found in other locations in a similar argument?);
            Verify the original sources for the data or quotes (Use of second sources is dangerous – can the original source be found?), and;
            Apply scientific or philosophic logic in evaluating the claims (claims and conclusions which run counter to logic should be carefully evaluated).

So I applied the very principles that Shermer, November, and Wrobel espouse on the materials that we were asked to read. I looked up background information on the authors of the material I read, and on the publishers and the organizations represented by the publishers. A closer look at Michael Shermer’s video on Baloney Detection reveals that it was produced by the Richard Dawkins Foundation. In going to the web site for the Richard Dawkins Foundation (http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/), its mission statement reads as follows: “The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.” A noble statement on behalf of reason and science in overcoming superstitions and intolerance, but does the very fact that “religious fundamentalism” is listed with superstition, intolerance, and suffering reflect a bias toward anything of formal faith? (Further, isn’t tolerance advanced by those who can acknowledge the validity of other world views even in disagreement?) Shermer’s use of examples only for an evolution point is one of the very “filters” listed in Scott Wrobel’s material on detecting bias: there are no examples from an opposing world view with a different interpretation of the same facts to support his points. In fact, by inference, any such belief would run counter to most of the points he makes.

Now comes the question about bias – does the bias of the Richard Dawkins Foundation affect the credibility or usefulness of Michael Shermer’s 10 points on detecting baloney? It would be easy to just dismiss the points that Michael Shermer made because of the bias of the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Since we discovered in earlier work that we all have bias - it’s a part of being human and growing up in any culture, society and family. The question behind the question is this: “Will my own bias keep me from an honest evaluation of material, given its bias?” This is where my critical thinking skills get to be applied again. I happen to think that Michael Shermer’s points have validity and are very useful, even though I don’t embrace the world-view of the Richard Dawkins Foundation. While the approaches used by November, Wrobel, Rhetorica, and others, vary, the core concepts in searching for bias are corroborated (cross-referenced and validated ) by these other sources. Alan November and Scott Wrobel may or may not share the same world view, but their personal biases are never revealed in the way they (or their respective organizations) present information about themselves or the subject at-hand. So I think the larger point is this: there are critical thinking (and sleuth) skills to be applied to detect bias on the web AND there are critical thinking skills to be applied to determine if the bias effects the validity, neutrality, or usefulness of the material presented. It is the totality of our critical thinking skills that help us find bias, and once found, evaluate its effect on the material at hand, in light of its intended purpose.



Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins Foundation. Retrieved on 8/27/2012 from: http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/

The Freeman Institute. Retrieved on 8/27.2012 from: http://www.freemaninstitute.com/quotes.htm

Paul, R. and Elder, L. (n.d.). Distinguishing between inferences and assumptions. The Critical Thinking Community. Retrieved from: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/distinguishing-between-inferences-and-assumptions/484

Paul, R. (1995). Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms. The Critical Thinking Community. Retrieved from: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/glossary-of-critical-thinking-terms/496

Rhetorica. Retrieved on 8/30/201 from: http://rhetorica.net/bias.htm

Alan November. November Learning. Retrieved on 8/27/2012 from: http://novemberlearning.com/resources/information-literacy-resources/v-find-the-publisher-of-a-website/

Wrobel, S. (n.d.). Anoka Ramsey Community College. Retrieved on 8/28/12 from: http://webs.anokaramsey.edu/wrobel/1121/Course%20Materials/Web%20Lectures/evaluating_sources_for_credibili.htm