Snicklefritz
Senior Moderator
My daughter purchased a copy of Al Gore?s latest book, The Assault on Reason for me as a Father?s Day gift. Needing a break from my frequent monitoring of the Department of Health and Human Services blog, and from the flu community?s discussion of the same, I started reading Gore?s work this evening. As I read the Introduction, thoughts about the DHHS blog kept insinuating themselves into the interior dialogue I was having with Gore. Finally, I had to put the book down and just apply his thinking to the many conversations about the DHHS blog to see if Gore?s ideas had any relevance. They did. And now, I find myself once again face to face with my laptop searching for a way share my thoughts about the DHHS blog and why it felt so?well, awkward.
Many in the flu community have expressed the idea that DHHS was stunned by the response they received. The reasons given were that the decision makers at DHHS were na?ve with regard to the blogosphere, or that they were stunned by the articulate and sophisticated way that flubies communicated their considerable subject knowledge. According to Gore, the first reason may be closer to the truth, without obviating the second.
Gore says that democracy requires discourse, the free exchange of ideas in search of truth in order to make reasoned decisions that are best for the citizenry. Democracy is participatory and requires a response from citizens, to the actions of government in order to keep the government honest about what it is doing and why.
He goes on to say that printed media was the only mass communications media in the days of the founding fathers and that they could not have imagined the advent of modern communications technology. Reading the newspapers and periodicals of the day was the only access citizens had to ideas current at that time. But, representatives in government lived in their local jurisdictions, were available and public discourse was common. News media remained the predominant mass communications technology until it was usurped around 1963 by television.
Gore says the difference between receiving information via reading, and receiving it from watching television is important because each triggers a different part of the brain. Reading triggers that portion of our brain where abstract reasoning and imagination take place and requires mental effort to translate words into ideas, images and concepts. Television triggers a different portion of our brain that processes images rather than words and evokes emotional responses rather than reasoned ones. But, more than that, television is a totally passive media. One cannot have discourse with the TV. One cannot disagree, or offer alternative explanations or solutions. One cannot seek the truth. In fact, one cannot say much of anything to the TV without risking institutionalization.
For the last four decades government, politicians and businesses have become increasingly sophisticated at using the television media to craft exactly the messages they want us to receive. And we have sat in our respective living rooms and passively received what we were intended to receive without recourse to discourse. Now, our discourse has been reduced to poll results.
Government is simply no longer used to two-way communications between themselves and the citizenry, and when the citizens of Flublogia responded it was like an old ?Knock, Knock? joke gone wrong. DHHS said, ?Knock, knock!?, but when we said, ?Who?s there??, DHHS was so startled they forgot the punch line and sat there dumbfounded and unable to respond, so they said nothing at all. Instead of dialogue, we had simultaneous monologues. Eventually, they recovered their composure, but they can never recover their naivet?.
But, what of the flu community?s experience of the blog? For many it was difficult to maintain their composure as they dealt with months or years of frustration and pent up resentment and anger at not hearing from the government, or not being able to be heard. On the blog, the flu community did an admirable job of stating their case objectively, reasonably and powerfully. But, in the security of the forums that was not the case. As Mike Coston quipped, ?Hell knoweth no fury like that of a ?flubie? scorned.? The Admiral Agwunobi?s disconnected first blog was the proverbial last straw and ?flublogia? erupted. Why?
Gore sheds some light on that too. He uses ?Attachment Theory? as a metaphor for explaining the alienation, mistrust and outright anger many Americans feel toward the government. Attachment Theory is a developmental psychology theory that states, in part, that how a primary caregiver responds to an infant in the first months of life is a determinant in the ability of the child to emotionally engage their environment in later life. On one extreme (the good one) an infant who receives consistent and positive feedback from its primary caregiver will perceive itself as having power over its environment. The infant cries, the mother responds. The infant notices the response and connects it to its own actions. Toward the middle of the continuum an infant that receives an inconsistent response will develop a mistrust of both its own ability to influence the environment and the environment itself. At the far end, an infant that receives no response sees itself as powerless and as a victim. This invokes feelings of fear and rage and engenders sociopathic behavior.
Gore suggests that using a one-way communications media to send tailored message to a passive populace, while at the same time denying them a means of responding has the effect of evoking feels of powerlessness, mistrust and anger toward the government. Now, using this as a metaphor where the government is the caregiver and the flu community is the infant, and applying it to the DHHS blog, we can see that the government?s response, either inconsistent or non-existent, would produce the feelings of anger that have been expressed.
If Gore is right, or rather, if my application of Gore is right it suggests that how the government communicates a message of pandemic preparation will depend a great deal on both the media and the way the different media are used. In other words, it questions whether we can use 30 second PSA messages, which are mostly images, to convey the content of a pandemic preparedness message when images are processed primarily at an emotional level? Will a televised one-way communication from a President whose popularity numbers are in the 20?s overcome feelings of mistrust, resentment and alienation?
I believe the answer to both of these questions is no. What is needed, it seems to me, is exactly what DHHS has started to do with the DHHS blog, however imperfectly they may be doing it. If anything needs to be ?advertised? on TV it is the existence of the dialogue occurring in the blogosphere. They will certainly have to be more responsive and provide more information for discussion, but once they have done that the dialogue will inform the participants of the threat and the appropriate response. It?s all in the dialogue.
Many in the flu community have expressed the idea that DHHS was stunned by the response they received. The reasons given were that the decision makers at DHHS were na?ve with regard to the blogosphere, or that they were stunned by the articulate and sophisticated way that flubies communicated their considerable subject knowledge. According to Gore, the first reason may be closer to the truth, without obviating the second.
Gore says that democracy requires discourse, the free exchange of ideas in search of truth in order to make reasoned decisions that are best for the citizenry. Democracy is participatory and requires a response from citizens, to the actions of government in order to keep the government honest about what it is doing and why.
He goes on to say that printed media was the only mass communications media in the days of the founding fathers and that they could not have imagined the advent of modern communications technology. Reading the newspapers and periodicals of the day was the only access citizens had to ideas current at that time. But, representatives in government lived in their local jurisdictions, were available and public discourse was common. News media remained the predominant mass communications technology until it was usurped around 1963 by television.
Gore says the difference between receiving information via reading, and receiving it from watching television is important because each triggers a different part of the brain. Reading triggers that portion of our brain where abstract reasoning and imagination take place and requires mental effort to translate words into ideas, images and concepts. Television triggers a different portion of our brain that processes images rather than words and evokes emotional responses rather than reasoned ones. But, more than that, television is a totally passive media. One cannot have discourse with the TV. One cannot disagree, or offer alternative explanations or solutions. One cannot seek the truth. In fact, one cannot say much of anything to the TV without risking institutionalization.
For the last four decades government, politicians and businesses have become increasingly sophisticated at using the television media to craft exactly the messages they want us to receive. And we have sat in our respective living rooms and passively received what we were intended to receive without recourse to discourse. Now, our discourse has been reduced to poll results.
Government is simply no longer used to two-way communications between themselves and the citizenry, and when the citizens of Flublogia responded it was like an old ?Knock, Knock? joke gone wrong. DHHS said, ?Knock, knock!?, but when we said, ?Who?s there??, DHHS was so startled they forgot the punch line and sat there dumbfounded and unable to respond, so they said nothing at all. Instead of dialogue, we had simultaneous monologues. Eventually, they recovered their composure, but they can never recover their naivet?.
But, what of the flu community?s experience of the blog? For many it was difficult to maintain their composure as they dealt with months or years of frustration and pent up resentment and anger at not hearing from the government, or not being able to be heard. On the blog, the flu community did an admirable job of stating their case objectively, reasonably and powerfully. But, in the security of the forums that was not the case. As Mike Coston quipped, ?Hell knoweth no fury like that of a ?flubie? scorned.? The Admiral Agwunobi?s disconnected first blog was the proverbial last straw and ?flublogia? erupted. Why?
Gore sheds some light on that too. He uses ?Attachment Theory? as a metaphor for explaining the alienation, mistrust and outright anger many Americans feel toward the government. Attachment Theory is a developmental psychology theory that states, in part, that how a primary caregiver responds to an infant in the first months of life is a determinant in the ability of the child to emotionally engage their environment in later life. On one extreme (the good one) an infant who receives consistent and positive feedback from its primary caregiver will perceive itself as having power over its environment. The infant cries, the mother responds. The infant notices the response and connects it to its own actions. Toward the middle of the continuum an infant that receives an inconsistent response will develop a mistrust of both its own ability to influence the environment and the environment itself. At the far end, an infant that receives no response sees itself as powerless and as a victim. This invokes feelings of fear and rage and engenders sociopathic behavior.
Gore suggests that using a one-way communications media to send tailored message to a passive populace, while at the same time denying them a means of responding has the effect of evoking feels of powerlessness, mistrust and anger toward the government. Now, using this as a metaphor where the government is the caregiver and the flu community is the infant, and applying it to the DHHS blog, we can see that the government?s response, either inconsistent or non-existent, would produce the feelings of anger that have been expressed.
If Gore is right, or rather, if my application of Gore is right it suggests that how the government communicates a message of pandemic preparation will depend a great deal on both the media and the way the different media are used. In other words, it questions whether we can use 30 second PSA messages, which are mostly images, to convey the content of a pandemic preparedness message when images are processed primarily at an emotional level? Will a televised one-way communication from a President whose popularity numbers are in the 20?s overcome feelings of mistrust, resentment and alienation?
I believe the answer to both of these questions is no. What is needed, it seems to me, is exactly what DHHS has started to do with the DHHS blog, however imperfectly they may be doing it. If anything needs to be ?advertised? on TV it is the existence of the dialogue occurring in the blogosphere. They will certainly have to be more responsive and provide more information for discussion, but once they have done that the dialogue will inform the participants of the threat and the appropriate response. It?s all in the dialogue.
