first according to the calculations made by the search engine we use. When we shop online, we are urged to buy certain products that an algorithm thinks we will like or that people like us have purchased. When we travel, certain flights and hotels are flagged, and when we use social media, certain posts appear while others don’t. Most of us don’t check very hard to ensure that the information on which we base our choices isn’t emerging from the cyberequivalent of lead pipes.
A mediated world has all kinds of implications for everyday living and loving and working. The implications we care about here are the political implications for our roles as citizens—the ones to do with how we exercise and are impacted by power. We will be turning to these implications again and again throughout this book.
Even though Americans today still largely adhere to the basic governing narrative the founders promoted, the country is now light years removed from the founding era, when communication was limited by illiteracy and the scarcity of channels through which it could pass. Consider the timeline in Figure 1.4. It follows the development of the media through which we get information, receive narratives, and send out our own information (see also Snapshot of America: How Do We Engage Politically Online). Being a citizen in a mediated world is just flat out different from being one in the world in which James Madison wrote the Constitution. It’s the genius of the Constitution that it has been able to navigate the transition successfully, so far. The mediated world we live in gives us myriad new ways to keep the republic and some pretty high-tech ways to lose it. That puts a huge burden on us as mediated citizens, and also opens up a world of opportunity.
mediated citizens those for whom most personal and commercial relationships; access to information about the world and recreational or professional activities; and communication with others passes through third-party channels, which may or may not modify or censor that information
Among the things we disagree on in this country is what it means to be a citizen. James Madison obviously had ideas about this. As mentioned earlier, he hoped people would be so filled with what he called republican virtue that they would readily sacrifice their self-interest to advance the public interest. As we will see in Chapter 2, this public-interested citizenship proved not to be the rule, much to Madison’s disappointment. Instead, early Americans demonstrated self-interested citizenship, trying to use the system to get the most they could for themselves. This was a dilemma for Madison because he was designing a constitution that depended on the nature of the people being governed. He believed he had solved that dilemma by creating a political system that would check our self-interested nature and produce laws that would support the public interest.
public-interested citizenship a view of citizenship focused on action to realize the common good
self-interested citizenship a view of citizenship focused on action to realize an individual citizen’s interests
© John Atkinson, Wrong Hands. Used with permission.
Figure 1.4 Media Timeline
Still, the Constitution has not put that conflict to rest. Today there are plenty of people who put country first—who enlist in the armed services, sometimes giving their lives for their nation, or who go into law enforcement or teaching or other lower paying careers because they want to serve. There are people who cheerfully pay their taxes because it’s a privilege to live in a free democracy where you can climb the ladder of opportunity. Especially in moments of national trouble—after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, for instance—Americans willingly help their fellow citizens.
At the same time, the day-to-day business of life turns most people inward. Many people care about self and family and friends, but most don’t have the energy or inclination to get beyond that. John Kennedy challenged his “fellow Americans” in 1961 to “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country,” but only a rare few have the time or motivation to take up that challenge.
Snapshot of America: How Do We Engage Politically Online?
Source: Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, “Politics Fact Sheet,” www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/politics-fact-sheet/ (accessed March 15, 2016).
Unlike the citizens Madison and his colleagues designed a constitution for, mediated citizens experience the world through multiple channels of information and interaction. That doesn’t change whether citizens are self-interested or public-interested, but it does give them more opportunities and raise more potential hazards for being both.
Many older Americans who are not digital natives nonetheless experience political life through television or through web surfing and commenting, usually anonymously and often rudely. This is not always a positive addition to our civil discourse, but they are trying to adapt. You may have grandparents who fit this description. They probably want to know why you are not on Facebook.
But younger, more media-savvy digital natives—the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students we discussed in What’s at Stake . . . ?, millennials, Gen Xers, even some tech-savvy Baby Boomers—not only have access to traditional media if they choose but also are accustomed to interacting, conducting friendships and family relationships, and generally attending to the details of their lives through electronic channels. Their digital selves exist in networks of friends and acquaintances who take for granted that they can communicate in seconds. They certainly get their news digitally and increasingly organize, register to vote, enlist in campaigns, and call each other to action that way.
When, if ever, should individuals be asked to sacrifice their own good for that of their country?
In fact, as we saw earlier, hashtag activism, the forming of social movements through viral calls to act politically—whether to march, to boycott, to contact politicians, or to vote—has become common enough that organizers warn that action has to go beyond cyberspace to reach the real world or it will have limited impact. #BlackLivesMatter, #ItGetsBetter, and #NeverAgain are just three very different, very viral, very successful ways of using all the channels available to us to call attention to a problem and propose solutions.
hashtag activism a form of political engagement that occurs by organizing individuals online around a particular issue
Although living an intensely mediated life has the potential to broaden our horizons and expose us to multiple views and cultures, it does not automatically produce public-interested citizens. People can easily remain self-interested in this digital world. We can customize our social media to give us only news and information that confirm what we already think. We can live in an information bubble where everything we see and hear reinforces our narratives (see Don’t Be Fooled by . . . Your Own Information Bubble). That makes us more or less sitting
