I am addicted to my phone. It goes everywhere with me. I listen to at least 6 hours of music day, and check twitter at least 20 times a day. I am a cyborg. For this blog, however, I am more interested in how the digital world messes with my decision making capabilities and ability to evaluate information in a couple of interesting ways.
Lets begin with InfoWars, shall we? Give this video a look. Then look at his website.. Compare it to websites at various places on the derangement spectrum, from Fox News, to the Drudge Report, to Breitbart, all the way to InfoWars again. After comparing all of those websites and poking around the headlines a little bit, I would be hard-pressed to place them on a “credibility spectrum”, critically evaluating the content of each, absent an outside fact checker, or doing extensive research. The fact of the matter is that InfoWars and good ole’ Fox News don’t look that different. Mind, you, I am not saying that they are the same. Fox News is a cancer on our body politic (in my humble opinion) that functions remarkably like state media, but there are legitimate journalists who work there, and they stay away from most of the ghastliest conspiracy theories. However, the difficulty one (particularly one with any sort of conspiratorial bent) might have in distinguishing between the four is a problem.
The fact of the matter is that if you can hire some graphics folks, a couple of savvy social media promoters, you can make your own legitimation. This is, in my mind, a central part of the current *ahem* situation we find ourselves in around fake news and the possibility of a “post-truth” world. Consider this for a second. Industries have barriers to entry. You can't be a baker without an oven and a grain supplier. Usually, the larger and more powerful the industry, the higher the barriers to entry (and likelihood of an oligopoly forming). Think banking, or heavy industrial production (chemicals and carcinogens inc), or, as the case would be, matzo. Silicon Valley has upturned this, so far. It remains to be seen if the government will bring the hammer down, or if the patent wars lapse into a bloody, litigative stalemate, but for the moment, low barriers to entry/disruption are alive and well. All this to say that it is not hard to become legitimate in tech.
Okay, so what? I promised personal reflection, not a dry meditation on industry barriers. Where I think it is relevant is as a specific kind of choice paralysis. This is a prominent theme amongst those studying digital culture right now. There is so much available we are actually getting less out of the abundance. Normally, the stakes are low. I can't get too exercised about people have trouble wading through all of the content on spotify. However, when the task is not just to make a damn choice (for crying out loud, we just want to watch Netflix, Isaiah, just pick a show!) but to choose right, we wade into less sure territory. This presents a mini crisis for me each time I try to write a paper. I don't want to be the unwitting tool of the Koch brothers and their well funded university programs, or of Russian bots, or any other of the many actors it feels like are trying to deceive me. In other words, a crisis of legitimation meets choice paralysis. I am both aware that many things that look acceptable and I assume have passed through the JSTOR gatekeepers sans alarm may be financed by big oil, but am so awash with possibilities that I work myself into a tizzy. The end result is I am more suspicious, less accepting of ideas that don't immediately pass my smell test. This crisis has effectively narrowed my own personal Overton Window. I have no idea how to reverse this.
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