The demise of nuance in an age of clickbait social content
In 2014, I began researching how leaders in higher education were increasingly using social media to engage with new audiences on campus, democratizing their leadership approaches and using two-way communications channels to make more informed and evidence-based decisions on behalf of their institutional communities.
At the time, I was excited about, what I perceived as, a new era of accountable and transparent leadership that I believed social media could help to usher in, not just at colleges and universities, but across the corporate and government leadership spectrum.
In 2017, my excitement has been tempered.
Not because I don’t see social media as a transformative and democratizing global force; I still very much do. Social channels and social listening can and will continue to be used by leadership across diverse sectors and industries, to bring new and previously marginalized voices to decision-making tables while also simultaneously helping to hold those same leaders to account with respect to the decisions they make and the things they say, er, Snap.
What I did not foresee (pardon my naïveté), in 2014, was how leaders, particularly, in the political arena, would aggressively employ social media channels to publish and disseminate content designed to persuade, to elicit strong emotional responses, shape public opinion, obfuscate facts and generate “clicks” and “views” rather than advance reasoned public discourse on any number of complex and multifaceted societal issues. According to Pew Research Center, this content is thriving with approximately one-quarter of Facebook and Twitter users reporting “a lot” of political posts appearing in their feeds, during the most recent U.S. election cycle.
To clarify, I’m not surprised that politicians and pundits are using social media, in 2017, to advance their agendas rather than acknowledge the inherent complexities of our societal challenges. They are not legally bound to be objective in their communication nor to be comprehensive. I am merely lamenting that the rise of clickbait political social content appears to have come at the price of nuanced and substantive public discourse. Particularly, the exchange of contrasting ideas in a way that fosters mutual understanding and forces parties with differing views to acknowledge that there are precious few absolute truths in our complicated world.
Got a strong opinion about climate change? Well, that’s a pretty meaty issue. You better be prepared to come to the discussion with more than your personal anecdotes, strongly held beliefs and your unverified sources.
Think the Middle East conflict is clear as day? Your attempts to cast aspersions about or completely vilify one side or the other won’t bring about peace and stability to that region nor will it advance the ongoing and emotionally-charged discussion.
Increasing the minimum wage.
Gender inequality.
Income inequality.
Whatever the hot-button issue, social media appears to have become the space where opinions rule and only select facts, matter. Specifically, those facts (or in some cases, unverified claims) that support your slant. Whatever that position may be.
This, when Pew polls in 2016 indicated that the majority of U.S. adults are looking for just the facts presented to them [by mainstream media] without opinion or interpretation.
In 2014, I thought I saw the potential for social media to catalyze new ways of engaging in meaningful conversations. Whether you were a college president or a campus activist, you could have a platform to have your voice heard. This democratization of voices, I had hoped, would contribute (at least partially), in the longer term, to the breaking down of cultural, racial and economic barriers.
And it still can. Even in the writing of this piece, I’m cognizant that I may be overgeneralizing trends in social media content; the alleged demise of the nuanced and the rise of other varieties.
There are plenty of examples of thriving and diverse outlets publishing groundbreaking content that is generating meaningful discussion, and plenty of click-throughs.
Humans of New York, immediately comes to mind with its incredibly moving profiles of the human experience. It challenges its readers to embrace voices and perspectives, they might not otherwise consider. They also serve as proof that clickbait content can be anecdotal but doesn’t have to oversimplify its source material. Humans of New York, embraces the complexities of its subjects; it’s not asking you to love or hate them nor to judge them. Just to recognize that their lives and experiences are varied and, often, pretty complicated.
Social media will almost assuredly continue to serve as society’s digital town square, a space where all forms of content, be it nuanced or not, will have its 140 characters of fame.
I still believe in the potential of social media and its users to usher in a new era of transparency and accountability, particularly, among our political leaders. But if we’re ever going to get there, we better be prepared to demand content that offers the full range of facts, that presents us with all sides of a story, even the sides we may disagree with, and most crucially, we better be prepared to intensely scrutinize that content (along with our own closely held beliefs) before our clicks do irreparable harm.
