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PAPER NÚM. 7
(Papel nº7/Paper 7)
Eli Noam
Noam, director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, spoke last night on "Why Information Technology is Bad for Democracy" to the New York chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research at the Media Studies Center. Though he acknowledged democracy-promoting effects of the Internet, such as absence of government control, creation of an informed citizenry, and closer communication with elected officials, Noam chose to "look at the dark side" of problems that might arise from too much technology - and how, perhaps, to solve them. "There is such a thing as being too politically informed, as being too mobilized," said Noam, who believes that excess information can lower voter participation. If people are overwhelmed with information, he contends, they will start to believe that what they say doesn't matter. "The difference between polling and voting becomes blurred," he said. Noam listens to claims that the Internet makes it easy for the average citizen to enter politics and he agrees, as long as "you're the only one who does it." If everybody on the Internet has a voice for his or her political message, said Noam, then each message must be made more powerful than all the others just to be heard. In order to "punch through the clutter," said Noam, message production becomes slick and expensive; therefore the barriers to political involvement take on a new form. According to Noam, messages will have to increase their hype, shrillness and simplicity, and they will undergo the "15 minutes of fame" compression. Political messages, said Noam, will have to benefit the consumer, who will be telling advertisers, "Do something for me." In essence, political advertisers will have to pay citizens to pay attention, he said. Whereas the 1990s were dominated by a revolution in computer-processing power, causing bottlenecks in transmission, Noam forecast an "enormous increase in transmission capacity" in the next decade. This enhanced long-distance capacity per household will mean more of all of the computer power that we have now. "The question of the bandwidth shortage at the end of the 20th century," he said, "will be like the question of the beginning of the century, 'Will there be enough women to staff all those switchboards?' " One of the implications of this vast increase in transmission capacity will be an individualization and further narrowing of mass media and, according to Noam, the creation of "Me-casting" and "Me channels." Targeting to individuals, he said, will also become a factor when messages can be sent not just to mass groups but to individuals who are of interest to political advertisers. Noam foresees the role of political consultants becoming a "full service operation," when they will be called upon to handle all of the data that will be needed on individuals for candidates' use. In addition, Noam speculates that because people will be pre-selecting virtual communities, such networks will eventually become political communities that require leaders, mediation, and possibly even distribution and taxing systems. "Will this be democratic?" he wondered, suggesting that there is a danger it will not be. "Political stability depends on a little bit of a lag, a little inertia," said Noam. "This is a revolution, and revolutions destroy." Noam lists a variety of other ways in which increased technology - i.e., increased facts, information and opinions - will affect social dynamics: Broad social agreements will be harder to reach, and there will be decentralization, further decay of urban centers as geography becomes more irrelevant, and a decline in the coherence of the nation-state. There is often a romanticizing of the past, said Noam, and an optimistic view of the future. He observed that shortly after the birth of the nation, while there were few newspapers, there was an informed citizenry. There is no guarantee, he said, that more information will be of good quality; we are more likely to see fragmentation, cacophony and "undifferentiated garbage." Noam predicted a day when competition and sensationalism will have reached such heights that we will be longing for "the good old days with Matt Drudge." While information technology is "enchanting and intoxicating," said Noam, his overriding and provocative qu
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