tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312167291643152201.post5782559260954065187..comments2008-08-19T16:27:39.756-07:00SandHillBloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03578443690601654961noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312167291643152201.post-58256321324551017922008-08-19T16:27:00.000-07:002008-08-19T16:27:00.000-07:00It's good to think about the impact of the internetz and tech in general on democracy and politics, and Sunstein does that, at least. For example, one of the big debates in political science is the extent to which blogs polarize the electorate vs. creating greater opportunities for deliberation between opposed points of view. Sunstein's very worried about the cocooning effect that blogs and other super-personalized technologies can have, as you mention - but I think he's over the top in his concern. <BR/><BR/>A good way to think about it is that personalized media and the internetz are probably good for politics, but bad for democracy - that is, it does get people interested in and fired up on participating in politics, and when they do, they do so within a cocooned setting that amplifies their original position; but this is less beneficial for democracy and deliberation than, say, sitting around on the bench outside the local general store and discussing politics with your neighbors. The question is how good this tradeoff is (more partisan politics, but less democracy) - given how badly democratic participation has deteriorated in the US, I actually don't think it's a disaster.<BR/><BR/>Also, @ nathan d, I'm agreed that "giving people things they didn't know they wanted" will continue, even in a hyper-personalized media content world. And the reason is something that market logic has never wanted to recognize theoretically (though obviously anyone who's ever worked in marketing a product knows this to be true) - people preferences in making consumption choices are not innate desires or wants that just have to be activated, but they have to be manufactured or synthesized. That'll be true even in the most personalized of worlds - the personal can continually be made and remade by content providers.<BR/><BR/>And so when it comes to Sunstein's idea that we're losing common experiences, that may be true at the level of content, but not at the level of medium - and depending on how you feel about Marshall McLuhan's famous "the medium is the message," I think in spite of personalization/polarization in content, we do share in a common experience of Online Life, or Wired Life, and this creates more bonds than Sunstein might think (a TV Nation? One Nation, Wired Up, with Liberty and Justice?). Sunstein's argument wrongly treats technology itself as a neutral thing, worrying instead about the content - but the technology itself is, for better and worse, a form of social experience too, a form of content itself if you like... Just like people who, on a full-time basis, watch TV, read books, interpret tea leaves, or read natural signals (farmers or hunters) will all have more in common with others who do the same thing than with others who use different media, even in the same country or city.R Whyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01372640401224257937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312167291643152201.post-62290130947804697632008-07-28T14:29:00.000-07:002008-07-28T14:29:00.000-07:00"Common Experience" when it comes to media does, indeed, seem to be a dying concept. Giving people things they didn't know they wanted will remain -- we will still turn to various outlets we trust to "program" for us, though those channels will be increasingly numerous in selection and narrow in scope. As someone knee-deep in content discovery experiences I can say it's an exciting time to be thinking about these things....Nathan Dhttp://nathan.dintenfass.comnoreply@blogger.com