Some political topics are hot for years. Tax. Immigration. Climate change. They are necessarily controversial: the only way a topic that many people pay a lot of attention to can stay that way, is if there are heated opinions that contradict each other. More marginal topics tend to be asymmetric: on one side is a highly opinionated small group, on the other side is a large group that can't be bothered (perhaps because they are busy caring about their own marginal topics?). A marginal political issue has three possible outcomes. One, the small opinionated group runs out of steam, and the issue dies. Two, the small group manages to push their issues to the agenda of the majority, which yields. Three, another small group is formed around the opposing view of the first. The topic has become controversial. Now let's see how media affects the possibility of the small group of pushing their issue to the majority agenda.
Centralized news: the issue can be known by insiders (journalists) for a long time, but not published due to lack of interest from the public. Lots of fuel, no spark. Suddenly, an igniting publication leads to a lot of material being published in a seemingly coordinated effort. The issue occupies people's attention for a short time, relatively likely to lead to change due to discomfort of gatekeepers of being scrutinized. The journalists involved have much to cover, so may be relatively objective on most topics. But also less well-read.
Decentralized model: issues immediately published. Over time, Schelling points for complaints are defined. Difficult for gripers to prove objectivity, outsiders tend to assume that they are one-sided. Even if opposite gripe group exists: the average of two extremes is not necessarily good policy. Some of the involved people have really seen a lot of data and may have come to a radical solution, others who propose radical solutions are just biased. The point is that it's difficult for outsiders to tell who is who.
What can we do to make the decentralized model better, relative to the centralized? The main scarce resource is the attention and understanding of the majority (the majority is not stupid, they may just be busy with their own hobbyhorses). Given that public attention for your topic will be short, intense, and initially very uninformed, some actions follow:
* Produce content that summarizes the topic and position to outsiders, even when almost no-one is paying attention. This content will help people quickly understand your case once the topic becomes hot.
* It is important to post often. Outsiders who are looking into your subject are pretty much by definition people who care about recent events. The most recent post should not be older than a couple of weeks. Could be a good idea to keep an explanatory post in storage to be published at the right time. Or as a pinned post.
* Make it very easy for outsiders to find out what your policy suggestions are. Most of the gripe during the culture wars has been on the form "You should care more about group X", which doesn't fit this format.
* Since there is a very high bit cost for including exceptions and modifications to your suggested policy, the best strategy may be one of Max-Min. That is, assume that the policy will be misunderstood, perhaps deliberately, so pick a suggested policy which will be beneficial even in its dumbest implementation.
No comments:
Post a Comment