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Reality Lost

Markets of Attention, Misinformation and Manipulation

Authors: Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Table of Contents

About this book

This open access book looks at how a democracy can devolve into a post-factual state.

The media is being flooded by populist narratives, fake news, conspiracy theories and make-believe. Misinformation is turning into a challenge for all of us, whether politicians, journalists, or citizens. In the age of information, attention is a prime asset and may be converted into money, power, and influence – sometimes at the cost of facts. The point is to obtain exposure on the air and in print media, and to generate traffic on social media platforms. With information in abundance and attention scarce, the competition is ever fiercer with truth all too often becoming the first victim.

Reality Lost: Markets of Attention, Misinformation and Manipulation is an analysis by philosophers Vincent F. Hendricks and Mads Vestergaard of the nuts and bolts of the information market, the attention economy and media eco-system which may pave way to postfactual democracy. Here misleading narratives become the basis for political opinion formation, debate, and legislation. To curb this development and the threat it poses to democratic deliberation, political self-determination and freedom, it is of necessary that we first grasp the mechanisms and structural conditions that causes it.

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Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Open Access

Chapter 1. The Attention Economy

Abstract

According to legend, Abraham Lincoln was willing to walk several miles in order to borrow a book while growing up in Indiana during the early nineteenth century. “My best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read,” young Lincoln is reported to have said. Literature was scarce, difficult to access, and precious. Not only literature but information in general was hard to come by. Whether news from afar, new knowledge and insight, or simple entertainment, it usually took effort and came at considerable expense to get hold of information.

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Chapter 2. The News Market

Abstract

At a conference in San Francisco in February 2016, CBS Chairman and CEO Leslie Moonves conveyed the following pertaining to the US Presidential Election and Donald Trump’s candidacy:

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Chapter 3. Attention Speculation and Political Bubbles

Abstract

We live in an increasingly mediatized world. Mediatization refers to the tendency of societal institutions to be more and more dependent on the media and adapt themselves to its conventions and to media logic (Hjarvad 2008). In a mediatized society, the media veritably establish the conditions for social interactions and relationships, commerce and marketing, science and debate, and activism and politics. When political activists protest or organize a demonstration in order to send a political message, it is essential to get media coverage. The message must be heard by people and parties other than the activists themselves. There is no point in “Occupying Wall Street” unless documented and disseminated. Mediatization provides social and political actors with a strong incentive to act according to the media’s precepts.

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Chapter 4. Alternative Facts, Misinformation, and Fake News

Abstract

Some very specific topics stole the show the day Trump was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2017. The limelight topics are related to simple questions about the facts of the day: Did the sun shine or not during the inauguration speech? How large was the crowd? Was this crowd larger or smaller than the one present at President Obama’s first inauguration? It seemed clear from available photos and video footage that the sun did not shine at any point during Trump’s speech. Nonetheless, Trump claimed otherwise later that same day during his speech at Langley Air Force Base:

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Chapter 5. Fact Resistance, Populism, and Conspiracy Theories

Abstract

In 2005, the concept truthiness was coined by Stephen Colbert, host of the popular satire show, The Colbert Report. Truthiness has been referred to as truth that comes from guts and not from facts and is defined as “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.” The concept took hold. In 2006 it was declared word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It was used particularly and critically in reference to the political scene of the conservative right in the USA at that time. Before Breitbart, the conservative right rallied around Fox News, whose biased news coverage was satirized by The Colbert Report. The show’s critical satire focused on how, especially in the conservative right wing and for then President Bush, it often was enough that something felt like it was true in order to be accepted as such. And not only in the conservative right wing may gut feeling replace truth; this is a universal human phenomenon. The phenomenon of truthiness may find support in cognitive psychology. Through experiments cognitive psychology has demonstrated just how much political bias matters when selecting information and accepting it as true or rejecting it as false.

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Chapter 6. The Post-factual Democracy

Abstract

In 2016 “post-truth” was the word of the year in Oxford Dictionaries. Post-truth is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.^” Oxford attributed the nomination to the fact that post-truth went from a peripheral concept to exploding in popularity in 2016 pace the British vote on the EU leading to Brexit and with the American presidential election.

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Chapter 7. Epilogue: Digital Roads to Totalitarianism

Abstract

The digital revolution was meant to emancipate. In the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace from 1996, John Berry Barlow declares the new digital reality, Cyberspace, to be an independent new world of freedom and equality without oppression of the old world of nation-states ruled by governments. Barlow compares the digital revolution to the American War of Independence and the pioneers of digitalization to the heroes of the American Revolution: “… those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers.”

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Correction to: Reality Lost

Vincent F. Hendricks, Mads Vestergaard

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Backmatter

Title: Reality Lost
Authors: Vincent F. Hendricks
Mads Vestergaard
Copyright Year: 2019
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-00813-0
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00812-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00813-0