The Mark 2010

Despite what some commentators are saying, new media does not threaten our democracy. In fact, it may be reviving it.

It must be late summer because Globe and Mail columnists keep venturing further afield and writing pieces that completely misunderstand the intersection between technology, demographics, and politics.

First it was Lawrence Martin, who was worried about the future of the country since his profile of young people was (as my friend put it) limited to "an unthinking, entitled drain on the country we call home and pillage without contribution … "

Now Michael Valpy is worried. He's actually worried about a lot of things, but the part that has him most worried is that Canadians are becoming segmented into smaller groups and that this threatens the fabric of our democracy and country.

The premise goes something like this: the decline of mainstream media and the rise of social media mean Canadians are suffering from a social cohesion deficit. Increasingly we have less in common with one another and engage in narrower and smaller conversations. So on the one hand there will no longer be a "political agenda" we can all agree on and on the other hand, because we are all segmented and finding our own reading material, we’ll only read pieces we agree with. So on the one hand, social cohesion:

“…is what enables us to talk to one another with some confidence of being not only heard but, as Isaiah Berlin would have it, being understood. It is what enables Canadians to live together with sufficient levels of trust and security and to conduct their democracy more or less under the rubric of having a common purpose and serving the common good.”

One benefit of a common source of news like newspapers, Valpy quotes a Carleton University professor as saying:

…is that you always find things you didn't know you were looking for. You come across views that you don't agree with or don't like,” says Christopher Waddell, director of Carleton University's school of journalism. “When you're searching for things on the internet, I think it's much less likely that you're searching for things that challenge you. You're much more likely to be searching for positive reinforcement.

And it goes on …

Society is always better when someone is trying to undermine your views. And particularly, social cohesion is better, because being challenged forces you to think through why you believe what you believe. It's the stimulus for debate and discussion and a recognition of multiple others.

What’s so frustrating is that Waddell and Valpy arrive to the debate both three years late and with the wrong conclusion. As Steven B. Johnson, who wrote many fantastic pieces on “serendipity,” might ask: "Does Michael Valpy even use the internet?" And Jeff Jarvis, based on what he wrote in 2007, would probably ask: “Is Waddell in a coma?” But of course a mainstream media columnist and a professor who trains them would naturally see a diminishing role for mainstream media as a threat to democracy and the very fabric of the country. This argument has been tried, and frankly, it doesn't have legs. Democracy and Canada will survive the decline of mainstream media – just as they survived before mainstream media existed.

Indeed, the decline of mainstream media may actually be healthy for our democracy. Here are two thoughts for Valpy to stew on:

The first comes from "Missing the Link", a piece Taylor Owen and I wrote ages ago:

The “necessary for democracy” argument also assumes that readers are less civically engaged if they digest their news online. How absurd. Gen Y is likely far more knowledgeable about their world than Boomers were. The problem is that Boomers appeared more knowledgeable to one another because they all knew the same things. The limited array of media meant people were generally civically minded about the same things and evaluated one another based on how much of the same media they’d seen. The diversity available in today’s media – facilitated greatly by the internet – means it is hard to evaluate someone’s civic mindedness because they may be deeply knowledgeable and engaged in a set of issues you are completely unfamiliar with. Diversity of content and access to it, made possible by the internet, has strengthened our civic engagement.

This strikes at the core of how Valpy and I disagree. To be harsh, but I believe fair, he is essentially arguing that we may be better off not only if we are dumber, but if we are collectively so. In short, the country is better, stabler, and safer if we all talk about the same thing (i.e. the wants of Toronto/Ottawa/Ontario/insert favourite centralist scapegoat here)? Hogwash, I say! Forcing everybody to read the same newspaper or get the same news doesn’t breed social cohesion. It breeds resentment. Canada survived just fine for decades (if not a century) without mainstream media. Indeed, one could argue that if Canada has been racked by regionalism, it is in part because too many of us feel like others get to control the agenda. The West wants in! Quebec wants out! The Maritimes feel ignored! Aboriginal peoples are ignored! These are the result of a centralized media and a single national agenda that has limited oxygen, limited scope, and a pathetic attention span.

Moreover, diversity is what has and continues to make Canada great, and it is, paradoxically, the thing that binds us. Certainly for my tribe, what people value about their country is that you can come here (or be lucky enough to be born here) and do what you want. There is a common value set, but it is minimalist. The central value – now protected by the Charter – is that you can be who you want to be. And that is something many of us cherish. Indeed, don't underestimate the fact that this is pretty strong glue, especially in a world where many countries don’t offer such a right.

Second, I think there is a compelling case to be made that it is mainstream media that is killing democracy. Virtually every political analyst agrees that ever since Trudeau the power of the Prime Minister’s office has been steadily increasing, more recently to a degree that arguably threatens the role and function of parliament. Do committees matter anymore? Not really. Oh, and name a regional MP who has real weight – someone on par with John Crosbie in his heyday. Pretty hard. What about ministers? Their authority (and accountability) is not even a slice of what it used to be. And cabinet? Even it toes the line of the mighty, all-powerful PM.

What parallels this rise in the PM's absolute power? The increased use of two modern inventions: TV and polls. Television allows the prime minister to speak directly to Canadians everywhere – without having to be mediated by pesky local MPs or representatives. And with polls, the PM doesn’t even need local MPs to give him or her the “sense on the ground.” These two technologies have effectively marginalized the local MP, robbing them of their duties as the government’s ears and mouthpiece. But imagine a world where Valpy’s vision is realized? A world where polling becomes unusable and social media becomes dominant? With a citizenry fractured into hundreds of conversations, there are all sorts of information niches for MPs to fill and play important roles within. More importantly, without effective polling, MPs' local knowledge and local community connections (enhanced by social media) suddenly become relevant again.

If anything, Valpy has the story backwards. Polling and mainstream media (especially TV) are killing our democracy. Social media may be helping revive it.