Is the Internet a wonderful development for democracy? In many
ways it certainly is. As a result of the Internet, people can learn
far more than they could before, and they can learn it much faster.
If you are interested in issues that bear on public
policy—environmental quality, wages over time, motor vehicle
safety—you can find what you need to know in a matter of seconds. If
you are suspicious of the mass media, and want to discuss issues
with like-minded people, you can do that, transcending the
limitations of geography in ways that could barely be imagined even
a decade ago. And if you want to get information to a wide range of
people, you can do that via email and websites; this is another
sense in which the Internet is a great boon for democracy.
But in the midst of the celebration, I want to raise a note of
caution. I do so by emphasizing one of the most striking powers
provided by emerging technologies: the growing power of consumers to
"filter" what they see. As a result of the Internet and other
technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in
a process of "personalization" that limits their exposure to topics
and points of view of their own choosing. They filter in, and they
also filter out, with unprecedented powers of precision. Consider
just a few examples:
1. Broadcast.com has "compiled hundreds of thousands of programs
so you can find the one that suits your fancy…. For example, if you
want to see all the latest fashions from France 24 hours of the day
you can get them. If you're from Baltimore living in Dallas and you
want to listen to WBAL, your hometown station, you can hear it."
2. Sonicnet.com allows you to create your own musical universe,
consisting of what it calls "Me Music." Me Music is "A place where
you can listen to the music you love on the radio station YOU
create…. A place where you can watch videos of your favorite artists
and new artists."
3. Zatso.net allows users to produce "a personal newscast." Its
intention is to create a place "where you decide what's news." Your
task is to tell "what TV news stories you're interested in," and
Zatso.net turns that information into a specifically designed
newscast. From the main "This is the News I Want" menu, you can
choose stories with particular words and phrases, or you can select
topics, such as sports, weather, crime, health, government/politics,
and much more.
4. Info Xtra offers "news and entertainment that's important to
you," and it allows you to find this "without hunting through
newspapers, radio and websites." Personalized news, local weather,
and "even your daily horoscope or winning lottery number" will be
delivered to you once you specify what you want and when you want
it.
5. TiVo, a television recording system, is designed, in the words
of its website, to give "you the ultimate control over your TV
viewing." It does this by putting "you at the center of your own TV
network, so you'll always have access to whatever you want, whenever
you want." TiVo "will automatically find and digitally record your
favorite programs every time they air" and will help you create
"your personal TV line-up." It will also learn your tastes, so that
it can "suggest other shows that you may want to record and watch
based on your preferences."
6. Intertainer, Inc. provides "home entertainment services on
demand," including television, music, movies, and shopping.
Intertainer is intended for people who want "total control" and
"personalized experiences." It is "a new way to get whatever movies,
music, and television you want anytime you want on your PC or
TV."
7. George Bell, the chief executive officer of the search engine
Excite, exclaims, "We are looking for ways to be able to lift chunks
of content off other areas of our service and paste them onto your
personal page so you can constantly refresh and update that
'newspaper of me.' About 43 percent of our entire user data base has
personalized their experience on Excite."
Of course, these developments make life much more convenient and
in some ways much better: we all seek to reduce our exposure to
uninvited noise. But from the standpoint of democracy, filtering is
a mixed blessing. An understanding of the mix will permit us to
obtain a better sense of what makes for a well-functioning system of
free expression. In a heterogeneous society, such a system requires
something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual
choices. On the contrary, it imposes two distinctive requirements.
First, people should be exposed to materials that they would not
have chosen in advance. Unanticipated encounters, involving
topics and points of view that people have not sought out and
perhaps find irritating, are central to democracy and even to
freedom itself. Second, many or most citizens should have a range of
common experiences. Without shared experiences, a
heterogeneous society will have a more difficult time addressing
social problems and understanding one another.
Individual Design
Consider a thought experiment—an
apparently utopian dream, that of complete individuation, in which
consumers can entirely personalize (or "customize") their
communications universe.
Imagine, that is, a system of communications in which each person
has unlimited power of individual design. If some people want to
watch news all the time, they would be entirely free to do exactly
that. If they dislike news, and want to watch football in the
morning and situation comedies at night, that would be fine too. If
people care only about America, and want to avoid international
issues entirely, that would be very simple; so too if they care only
about New York or Chicago or California. If people want to restrict
themselves to certain points of view, by limiting themselves to
conservatives, moderates, liberals, vegetarians, or Nazis, that
would be entirely feasible with a simple point-and-click. If people
want to isolate themselves, and speak only with like-minded others,
that is feasible too.
At least as a matter of technological feasibility, our
communications market is moving rapidly toward this apparently
utopian picture. A number of newspapers' websites allow readers to
create filtered versions, containing exactly what they want, and no
more. If you are interested in getting help with the design of an
entirely individual paper, you can consult a number of sites,
including Individual.com and Crayon.net. To be sure, the Internet
greatly increases people's ability to expand their horizons, as
millions of people are now doing; but many people are using it to
produce narrowness, not breadth. Thus MIT professor Nicholas
Negroponte refers to the emergence of the "Daily Me"—a
communications package that is personally designed, with components
fully chosen in advance.
Of course, this is not entirely different from what has come
before. People who read newspapers do not read the same newspaper;
some people do not read any newspaper at all. People make choices
among magazines based on their tastes and their points of view. But
in the emerging situation, there is a difference of degree if not of
kind. What is different is a dramatic increase in individual
control over content, and a corresponding decrease in the power of
general interest intermediaries, including newspapers, magazines,
and broadcasters. For all their problems, and their unmistakable
limitations and biases, these intermediaries have performed some
important democratic functions.
People who rely on such intermediaries have a range of chance
encounters, involving shared experience with diverse others and
exposure to material that they did not specifically choose. You
might, for example, read the city newspaper and in the process come
across a range of stories that you would not have selected if you
had the power to control what you see. Your eyes may come across a
story about Germany, or crime in Los Angeles, or innovative business
practices in Tokyo, and you may read those stories although you
would hardly have placed them in your "Daily Me." You might watch a
particular television channel—perhaps you prefer Channel 4—and when
your favorite program ends, you might see the beginning of another
show, one that you would not have chosen in advance. Reading
Time magazine, you might come across a discussion of
endangered species in Madagascar, and this discussion might interest
you, even affect your behavior, although you would not have sought
it out in the first instance. A system in which you lack control
over the particular content that you see has a great deal in common
with a public street, where you might encounter not only friends,
but a heterogeneous variety of people engaged in a wide array of
activities (including, perhaps, political protests and begging).
In fact, a risk with a system of perfect individual control is
that it can reduce the importance of the "public sphere" and of
common spaces in general. One of the important features of such
spaces is that they tend to ensure that people will encounter
materials on important issues, whether or not they have specifically
chosen the encounter. When people see materials that they have not
chosen, their interests and their views might change as a result. At
the very least, they will know a bit more about what their fellow
citizens are thinking. As it happens, this point is closely
connected with an important, and somewhat exotic, constitutional
principle.
Public (and Private) Forums
In the popular
understanding, the free speech principle forbids government from
"censoring" speech of which it disapproves. In the standard cases,
the government attempts to impose penalties, whether civil or
criminal, on political dissent, and on speech that it considers
dangerous, libelous, or sexually explicit. The question is whether
the government has a legitimate and sufficiently weighty basis for
restricting the speech that it seeks to control.
But a central part of free speech law, with large implications
for thinking about the Internet, takes a quite different form. The
Supreme Court has also held that streets and parks must be kept open
to the public for expressive activity.1
Governments are obliged to allow speech to occur freely on public
streets and in public parks—even if many citizens would prefer to
have peace and quiet, and even if it seems irritating to come across
protesters and dissidents whom one would like to avoid. To be sure,
the government is allowed to impose restrictions on the "time,
place, and manner" of speech in public places. No one has a right to
use fireworks and loudspeakers on the public streets at midnight.
But time, place, and manner restrictions must be both reasonable and
limited, and government is essentially obliged to allow speakers,
whatever their views, to use public property to convey messages of
their choosing.
The public forum doctrine serves three important
functions.2
First, it ensures that speakers can have access to a wide array of
people. If you want to claim that taxes are too high, or that police
brutality against African Americans is common, you can press this
argument on many people who might otherwise fail to hear the
message. Those who use the streets and parks are likely to learn
something about your argument; they might also learn the nature and
intensity of views held by one of their fellow citizens. Perhaps
their views will be changed; perhaps they will become curious,
enough to investigate the question on their own.
Second, the public forum doctrine allows speakers not only to
have general access to heterogeneous people, but also to specific
people, and specific institutions, with whom they have a complaint.
Suppose, for example, that you believe that the state legislature
has behaved irresponsibly with respect to crime or health care for
children. The public forum ensures that you can make your views
heard by legislators simply by protesting in front of the state
legislature building.
Third, the public forum doctrine increases the likelihood that
people generally will be exposed to a wide variety of people and
views. When you go to work, or visit a park, it is possible that you
will have a range of unexpected encounters, however fleeting or
seemingly inconsequential. You cannot easily wall yourself off from
contentions or conditions that you would not have sought out in
advance, or that you would have chosen to avoid if you could. Here,
too, the public forum doctrine tends to ensure a range of
experiences that are widely shared—streets and parks are public
property—and also a set of exposures to diverse circumstances. In a
pluralistic democracy, an important shared experience is in fact the
very experience of society's diversity. These exposures help promote
understanding and perhaps, in that sense, freedom. And all of these
points are closely connected to democratic ideals.
Of course, there is a limit to how much can be done on streets
and in parks. Even in the largest cities, streets and parks are
insistently local. But many of the social functions of
streets and parks as public forums are performed by other
institutions, too. In fact, society's general interest
intermediaries—newspapers, magazines, television broadcasters—can be
understood as public forums of an especially important sort, perhaps
above all because they expose people to new, unanticipated topics
and points of view.
When you read a city newspaper or a national magazine, your eyes
will come across a number of articles that you might not have
selected in advance, and if you are like most people, you will read
some of those articles. Perhaps you did not know that you might have
an interest in minimum wage legislation, or Somalia, or the latest
developments in the Middle East. But a story might catch your
attention. And what is true for topics of interest is also true for
points of view. You might think that you have nothing to learn from
someone whose view you abhor; but once you come across the editorial
pages, you might read what they have to say, and you might benefit
from the experience. Perhaps you will be persuaded on one point or
another. At the same time, the front-page headline or the cover
story in Newsweek is likely to have a high degree of salience
for a wide range of people.
Television broadcasters have similar functions. Most important in
this regard is what has become an institution: the evening news. If
you tune into the evening news, you will learn about a number of
topics that you would not have chosen in advance. Because of their
speech and immediacy, television broadcasts perform these public
forum-type functions more than general interest intermediaries in
the print media. The "lead story" on the networks is likely to have
a great deal of public salience; it helps to define central issues
and creates a kind of shared focus of attention for millions of
people. And what happens after the lead story—dealing with a menu of
topics both domestically and internationally—creates something like
a speakers' corner beyond anything imagined in Hyde Park. As a
result, people's interest is sometimes piqued, and they might well
become curious and follow up, perhaps changing their perspective in
the process.
None of these claims depends on a judgment that general interest
intermediaries are unbiased, or always do an excellent job, or
deserve a monopoly over the world of communications. The Internet is
a boon partly because it breaks that monopoly. So too for the
proliferation of television and radio shows, and even channels, that
have some specialized identity. (Consider the rise of Fox News,
which appeals to a more conservative audience.) All that I am
claiming is that general interest intermediaries expose people to a
wide range of topics and views and at the same time provide shared
experiences for a heterogeneous public. Indeed, intermediaries of
this sort have large advantages over streets and parks precisely
because they tend to be national, even international. Typically they
expose people to questions and problems in other areas, even other
countries.
Specialization and Fragmentation
In a system with
public forums and general interest intermediaries, people will
frequently come across materials that they would not have chosen in
advance—and in a diverse society, this provides something like a
common framework for social experience. A fragmented communications
market will change things significantly.
Consider some simple facts. If you take the ten most highly rated
television programs for whites, and then take the ten most highly
rated programs for African Americans, you will find little overlap
between them. Indeed, more than half of the ten most highly rated
programs for African Americans rank among the ten least
popular programs for whites. With respect to race, similar divisions
can be found on the Internet. Not surprisingly, many people tend to
choose like-minded sites and like-minded discussion groups. Many of
those with committed views on a topic—gun control, abortion,
affirmative action—speak mostly with each other. It is exceedingly
rare for a site with an identifiable point of view to provide links
to sites with opposing views; but it is very common for such a site
to provide links to like-minded sites.
With a dramatic increase in options, and a greater power to
customize, comes an increase in the range of actual choices. Those
choices are likely, in many cases, to mean that people will try to
find material that makes them feel comfortable, or that is created
by and for people like themselves. This is what the Daily Me is all
about. Of course, many people seek out new topics and ideas. And to
the extent that people do, the increase in options is hardly bad on
balance; it will, among other things, increase variety, the
aggregate amount of information, and the entertainment value of
actual choices. But there are serious risks as well. If diverse
groups are seeing and hearing different points of view, or focusing
on different topics, mutual understanding might be difficult, and it
might be hard for people to solve problems that society faces
together. If millions of people are mostly listening to Rush
Limbaugh and others are listening to Fox News, problems will arise
if millions of other people are mostly or only listening to people
and stations with an altogether different point of view.
We can sharpen our understanding of this problem if we attend to
the phenomenon of group polarization. The idea is that after
deliberating with one another, people are likely to move toward a
more extreme point in the direction to which they were previously
inclined, as indicated by the median of their predeliberation
judgments. With respect to the Internet, the implication is that
groups of people, especially if they are like-minded, will end up
thinking the same thing that they thought before—but in more extreme
form.
Consider some examples of this basic phenomenon, which has been
found in over a dozen nations.3
(a) After discussion, citizens of France become more critical of the
United States and its intentions with respect to economic aid. (b)
After discussion, whites predisposed to show racial prejudice offer
more negative responses to questions about whether white racism is
responsible for conditions faced by African Americans in American
cities. (c) After discussion, whites predisposed not to show racial
prejudice offer more positive responses to the same question. (d) A
group of moderately profeminist women will become more strongly
profeminist after discussion. It follows that, for example, after
discussion with one another, those inclined to think that President
Clinton was a crook will be quite convinced of this point; that
those inclined to favor more aggressive affirmative action programs
will become more extreme on the issue if they talk among one
another; that those who believe that tax rates are too high will,
after talking together, come to think that large, immediate tax
reductions are an extremely good idea.
The phenomenon of group polarization has conspicuous importance
to the current communications market, where groups with distinctive
identities increasingly engage in within-group discussion. If the
public is balkanized, and if different groups design their own
preferred communications packages, the consequence will be further
balkanization, as group members move one another toward more extreme
points in line with their initial tendencies. At the same time,
different deliberating groups, each consisting of like-minded
people, will be driven increasingly far apart, simply because most
of their discussions are with one another.
Why does group polarization occur? There have been two main
explanations, both of which have been extensively investigated and
are strongly supported by the data.
The first explanation emphasizes the role of persuasive
arguments, and of what is and is not heard within a group of
like-minded people. It is based on a common sense intuition: any
individual's position on any issue is (fortunately!) a function, at
least in part, of which arguments seem convincing. If your position
is going to move as a result of group discussion, it is likely to
move in the direction of the most persuasive position defended
within the group, taken as a collectivity. Of course—and this is the
key point—a group whose members are already inclined in a certain
direction will offer a disproportionately large number of arguments
supporting that same direction, and a disproportionately small
number of arguments going the other way. The result of discussion
will therefore be to move the group, taken as a collectivity,
further in the direction of their initial inclinations. To be sure,
individuals with the most extreme views will sometimes move toward a
more moderate position. But the group as a whole moves, as a
statistical regularity, to a more extreme position consistent with
its predeliberation leanings.
The second mechanism, which involves social comparison, begins
with the claim that people want to be perceived favorably by other
group members (and to perceive themselves favorably). Once they hear
what others believe, they adjust their positions in the direction of
the dominant position. People may wish, for example, not to seem too
enthusiastic, or too restrained, in their enthusiasm for affirmative
action, feminism, or an increase in national defense. Hence their
views may shift when they see what other people and in particular
what other group members think.
Group polarization is a human regularity, but social context can
decrease, increase, or even eliminate it. For present purposes, the
most important point is that group polarization will significantly
increase if people think of themselves, antecedently or otherwise,
as part of a group having a shared identity and a degree of
solidarity. If, for example, a group of people in an Internet
discussion group think of themselves as opponents of high taxes, or
advocates of animal rights, their discussions are likely to move
toward extreme positions. As this happens to many different groups,
polarization is both more likely and more extreme. Hence significant
movements should be expected for those who listen to a radio show
known to be conservative, or a television program dedicated to
traditional religious values or to exposing white racism.
This should not be surprising. If ordinary findings of group
polarization are a product of limited argument pools and social
influences, it stands to reason that when group members think of one
another as similar along a salient dimension, or if some external
factor (politics, geography, race, sex) unites them, group
polarization will be heightened.
Group polarization is occurring every day on the Internet.
Indeed, it is clear that the Internet is serving, for many, as a
breeding ground for extremism, precisely because like-minded people
are deliberating with one another, without hearing contrary views.
Hate groups are the most obvious example. Consider one extremist
group, the so-called Unorganized Militia, the armed wing of the
Patriot movement, "which believes that the federal government is
becoming increasingly dictatorial with its regulatory power over
taxes, guns and land use." A crucial factor behind the growth of the
Unorganized Militia "has been the use of computer networks,"
allowing members "to make contact quickly and easily with
like-minded individuals to trade information, discuss current
conspiracy theories, and organize events."4
The Unorganized Militia has a large number of websites, and those
sites frequently offer links to related sites. It is clear that
websites are being used to recruit new members and to allow
like-minded people to speak with one another and to reinforce or
strengthen existing convictions. It is also clear that the Internet
is playing a crucial role in permitting people who would otherwise
feel isolated and move on to something else to band together and
spread rumors, many of them paranoid and hateful.
There are numerous other examples along similar lines. A group
calling itself the "White Racial Loyalists" calls on all "White
Racial Loyalists to go to chat rooms and debate and recruit with NEW
people, post our URL everywhere, as soon as possible." Another site
announces that "Our multi-ethnic United States is run by Jews, a 2%
minority, who were run out of every country in Europe…. Jews control
the U.S. media, they hold top positions in the Clinton
administration … and now these Jews are in control—they used lies
spread by the media they run and committed genocide in our name." To
the extent that people are drawn together because they think of each
other as like-minded, and as having a shared identity, group
polarization is all the more likely.
Of course we cannot say, from the mere fact of polarization, that
there has been a movement in the wrong direction. Perhaps the
more extreme tendency is better; indeed, group polarization is
likely to have fueled many movements of great value, including the
movement for civil rights, the antislavery movement, the movement
for sex equality. All of these movements were extreme in their time,
and within-group discussion bred greater extremism; but extremism
need not be a word of opprobrium. If greater communications choices
produce greater extremism, society may, in many cases, be better off
as a result.
But when group discussion tends to lead people to more strongly
held versions of the same view with which they began, and if social
influences and limited argument pools are responsible, there is
legitimate reason for concern. Consider discussions among hate
groups on the Internet and elsewhere. If the underlying views are
unreasonable, it makes sense to fear that these discussions may fuel
increasing hatred and a socially corrosive form of extremism. This
does not mean that the discussions can or should be regulated. But
it does raise questions about the idea that "more speech" is
necessarily an adequate remedy—especially if people are increasingly
able to wall themselves off from competing views.
The basic issue here is whether something like a "public sphere,"
with a wide range of voices, might not have significant advantages
over a system in which isolated consumer choices produce a highly
fragmented speech market. The most reasonable conclusion is that it
is extremely important to ensure that people are exposed to views
other than those with which they currently agree, that doing so
protects against the harmful effects of group polarization on
individual thinking and on social cohesion. This does not mean that
the government should jail or fine people who refuse to listen to
others. Nor is what I have said inconsistent with approval of
deliberating "enclaves," on the Internet or elsewhere, designed to
ensure that positions that would otherwise be silenced or squelched
have a chance to develop. Readers will be able to think of their own
preferred illustrations. Consider, perhaps, the views of people with
disabilities. The great benefit of such enclaves is that positions
may emerge that otherwise would not and that deserve to play a large
role in the heterogeneous public. Properly understood, the case of
"enclaves," or more simply discussion groups of like-minded people,
is that they will improve social deliberation, democratic and
otherwise. For these improvements to occur, members must not
insulate themselves from competing positions, or at least any such
attempts at insulation must not be a prolonged affair.
Consider in this light the ideal of "consumer sovereignty," which
underlies much of contemporary enthusiasm for the Internet. Consumer
sovereignty means that people can choose to purchase, or to obtain,
whatever they want. For many purposes this is a worthy ideal. But
the adverse effects of group polarization show that, with respect to
communications, consumer sovereignty is likely to produce serious
problems for individuals and society at large—and these problems
will occur by a kind of iron logic of social interactions.
The phenomenon of group polarization is closely related to the
widespread phenomenon of "social cascades." Cascade effects are
common on the Internet, and we cannot understand the relationship
between democracy and the Internet without having a sense of how
cascades work.
It is obvious that many social groups, both large and small, seem
to move both rapidly and dramatically in the direction of one or
another set of beliefs or actions.5
These sorts of "cascades" often involve the spread of information;
in fact they are driven by information. If you lack a great deal of
private information, you may well rely on information provided by
the statements or actions of others. A stylized example: If Joan is
unaware whether abandoned toxic waste dumps are in fact hazardous,
she may be moved in the direction of fear if Mary seems to think
that fear is justified. If Joan and Mary both believe that fear is
justified, Carl may end up thinking so too, at least if he lacks
reliable independent information to the contrary. If Joan, Mary, and
Carl believe that abandoned toxic waste dumps are hazardous, Don
will have to have a good deal of confidence to reject their shared
conclusion.
The example shows how information travels, and often becomes
quite entrenched, even if it is entirely wrong. The view, widespread
in some African-American communities, that white doctors are
responsible for the spread of AIDS among African Americans is a
recent illustration. Often cascades of this kind are local, and take
different form in different communities. Hence one group may end up
believing something and another group the exact opposite, and the
reason is the rapid transmission of one piece of information within
one group and a different piece of information in the other. In a
balkanized speech market, this danger takes a particular form:
different groups may be lead to quite different perspectives, as
local cascades lead people in dramatically different directions. The
Internet dramatically increases the likelihood of rapid cascades,
based on false information. Of course, low-cost Internet
communication also makes it possible for truth, and corrections, to
spread quickly as well. But sometimes this happens much too late. In
that event, balkanization is extremely likely. As a result of the
Internet, cascade effects are more common than they have ever been
before.
As an especially troublesome example, consider widespread doubts
in South Africa, where about 20 percent of the adult population is
infected by the AIDS virus, about the connection between HIV and
AIDS. South African President Thabo Mbeki is a well-known Internet
surfer, and he learned the views of the "denialists" after stumbling
across one of their websites. The views of the "denialists" are not
scientifically respectable—but to a nonspecialist, many of the
claims on their (many) sites seem quite plausible. At least for a
period, Mbeki both fell victim to a cybercascade and through his
public statements, helped to accelerate one, to the point where many
South Africans at serious risk are not convinced by an association
between HIV and AIDS. It seems clear that this cascade effect has
turned out to be deadly.
I hope that I have shown enough to demonstrate that for citizens
of a heterogeneous democracy, a fragmented communications market
creates considerable dangers. There are dangers for each of us as
individuals; constant exposure to one set of views is likely to lead
to errors and confusions, or to unthinking conformity (emphasized by
John Stuart Mill). And to the extent that the process makes people
less able to work cooperatively on shared problems, by turning
collections of people into non-communicating confessional groups,
there are dangers for society as a whole.
Common Experiences
In a heterogeneous society, it is
extremely important for diverse people to have a set of common
experiences.6
Many of our practices reflect a judgment to this effect. National
holidays, for example, help constitute a nation, by encouraging
citizens to think, all at once, about events of shared importance.
And they do much more than this. They enable people, in all their
diversity, to have certain memories and attitudes in common. At
least this is true in nations where national holidays have a vivid
and concrete meaning. In the United States, many national holidays
have become mere days-off-from-work, and the precipitating
occasion—President's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day—has come to be
nearly invisible. This is a serious loss. With the possible
exception of the Fourth of July, Martin Luther King Day is probably
the closest thing to a genuinely substantive national holiday,
largely because that celebration involves something that can be
treated as concrete and meaningful—in other words, it is
about something.
Communications and the media are, of course, exceptionally
important here. Sometimes millions of people follow the presidential
election, or the Super Bowl, or the coronation of a new monarch;
many of them do so because of the simultaneous actions of others.
The point very much bears on the historic role of both public forums
and general interest intermediaries. Public parks are places where
diverse people can congregate and see one another. general interest
intermediaries, if they are operating properly, give a simultaneous
sense of problems and tasks.
Why are these shared experiences so desirable? There are three
principal reasons:
1. Simple enjoyment is probably the least of it, but it is far
from irrelevant. People like many experiences more simply because
they are being shared. Consider a popular movie, the Super Bowl, or
a presidential debate. For many of us, these are goods that are
worth less, and possibly worthless, if many others are not enjoying
or purchasing them too. Hence a presidential debate may be worthy of
individual attention, for many people, simply because so many other
people consider it worthy of individual attention.
2. Sometimes shared experiences ease social interactions,
permitting people to speak with one another, and to congregate
around a common issue, task, or concern, whether or not they have
much in common with one another. In this sense they provide a form
of social glue. They help make it possible for diverse people to
believe that they live in the same culture. Indeed they help
constitute that shared culture, simply by creating common memories
and experiences, and a sense of common tasks.
3. A fortunate consequence of shared experiences—many of them
produced by the media—is that people who would otherwise see one
another as unfamiliar can come to regard one another as fellow
citizens, with shared hopes, goals, and concerns. This is a
subjective good for those directly involved. But it can be
objectively good as well, especially if it leads to cooperative
projects of various kinds. When people learn about a disaster faced
by fellow citizens, for example, they may respond with financial and
other help. The point applies internationally as well as
domestically; massive relief efforts are often made possible by
virtue of the fact that millions of people learn, all at once, about
the relevant need.
How does this bear on the Internet? An increasingly fragmented
communications universe will reduce the level of shared experiences
having salience to a diverse group of Americans. This is a simple
matter of numbers. When there were three television networks, much
of what appeared would have the quality of a genuinely common
experience. The lead story on the evening news, for example, would
provide a common reference point for many millions of people. To the
extent that choices proliferate, it is inevitable that diverse
individuals, and diverse groups, will have fewer shared experiences
and fewer common reference points. It is possible, for example, that
some events that are highly salient to some people will barely
register on others' viewscreens. And it is possible that some views
and perspectives that seem obvious for many people will, for others,
seem barely intelligible.
This is hardly a suggestion that everyone should be required to
watch the same thing. A degree of plurality, with respect to both
topics and points of view, is highly desirable. Moreover, talk about
"requirements" misses the point. My only claim is that a common set
of frameworks and experiences is valuable for a heterogeneous
society, and that a system with limitless options, making for
diverse choices, could compromise the underlying values.
Changing Filters
My goal here has been to understand
what makes for a well-functioning system of free expression, and to
show how consumer sovereignty, in a world of limitless options,
could undermine that system. The point is that a well-functioning
system includes a kind of public sphere, one that fosters common
experiences, in which people hear messages that challenge their
prior convictions, and in which citizens can present their views to
a broad audience. I do not intend to offer a comprehensive set of
policy reforms or any kind of blueprint for the future. In fact,
this may be one domain in which a problem exists for which there is
no useful cure: the genie might simply be out of the bottle. But it
will be useful to offer a few ideas, if only by way of introduction
to questions that are likely to engage public attention in coming
years.
In thinking about reforms, it is important to have a sense of the
problems we aim to address, and some possible ways of addressing
them. If the discussion thus far is correct, there are three
fundamental concerns from the democratic point of view. These
include:
(a) the need to promote exposure to materials, topics, and
positions that people would not have chosen in advance, or at least
enough exposure to produce a degree of understanding and
curiosity;
(b) the value of a range of common experiences;
(c) the need for exposure to substantive questions of policy and
principle, combined with a range of positions on such questions.
Of course it would be ideal if citizens were demanding, and
private information providers were creating, a range of initiatives
designed to alleviate the underlying concerns. Perhaps they will;
there is some evidence to this effect. New technology can expose
people to diverse points of view and creates opportunities for
shared experiences. People may, through private choices, take
advantage of these possibilities. But, to the extent that they fail
to do so, it is worthwhile to consider private and public
initiatives designed to pick up the slack.
Drawing on recent developments in regulation generally, we can
see the potential appeal of five simple alternatives. Of course,
different proposals would work better for some communications
outlets than others. I will speak here of both private and public
responses, but the former should be favored: they are less
intrusive, and in general they are likely to be more effective as
well.
Disclosure: Producers of communications might disclose
important information on their own, about the extent to which they
are promoting democratic goals. To the extent that they do not, they
might be subject to disclosure requirements (though not to
regulation). In the environmental area, this strategy has produced
excellent results. The mere fact that polluters have been asked to
disclose toxic releases has produced voluntary, low-cost reductions.
Apparently fearful of public opprobrium, companies have been spurred
to reduce toxic emissions on their own. The same strategy has been
used in the context of both movies and television, with ratings
systems designed partly to increase parental control over what
children see. On the Internet, many sites disclose that their site
is inappropriate for children.
The same idea could be used far more broadly. Television
broadcasters might, for example, be asked to disclose their public
interest activities. On a quarterly basis, they might say whether
and to what extent they have provided educational programming for
children, free air time for candidates, and closed captioning for
the hearing impaired. They might also be asked whether they have
covered issues of concern to the local community and allowed
opposing views a chance to speak. The Federal Communications
Commission has already taken steps in this direction; it could do a
lot more. Of course, disclosure is unlikely to be a full solution to
the problems that I have discussed here. But modest steps in this
direction are likely to do little harm and at least some good.
Self-Regulation: Producers of communications might engage
in voluntary self-regulation. Some of the difficulties in the
current speech market stem from relentless competition for viewers
and listeners, competition that leads to a situation that many
broadcast journalists abhor about their profession, and from which
society does not benefit. The competition might be reduced via a
"code" of appropriate conduct, agreed upon by various companies, and
encouraged but not imposed by government. In fact, the National
Association of Broadcasters maintained such a code for several
decades, and there is growing interest in voluntary self-regulation
for both television and the Internet. The case for this approach is
that it avoids government regulation while at the same time reducing
some of the harmful effects of market pressures. Any such code
could, for example, call for an opportunity for opposing views to
speak, or for avoiding unnecessary sensationalism, or for offering
arguments rather than quick soundbites whenever feasible. On
television, as distinct from the Internet, the idea seems quite
feasible. But perhaps Internet sites could also enter into informal,
voluntary arrangements, agreeing to create links, an idea to which I
will shortly turn.
Subsidy: The government might subsidize
speech, as, for example, through publicly subsidized programming
or publicly subsidized websites. This is, of course, the idea that
motivates the Public Broadcasting System. But it is reasonable to
ask whether the PBS model is not outmoded. Other approaches,
similarly designed to promote educational, cultural, and democratic
goals, might well be ventured. Perhaps government could subsidize a
"Public.net" designed to promote debate on public issues among
diverse citizens—and to create a right of access to speakers of
various sorts.7
Links: Websites might use links and hyperlinks to
ensure that viewers learn about sites containing opposing views. A
liberal magazine's website might, for example, provide a link to a
conservative magazine's website, and the conservative magazine might
do the same. The idea would be to decrease the likelihood that
people will simply hear echoes of their own voices. Of course many
people would not click on the icons of sites whose views seem
objectionable; but some people would, and in that sense the system
would not operate so differently from general interest
intermediaries and public forums. Here, too, the ideal situation
would be voluntary action. But if this proves impossible, it is
worth considering both subsidies and regulatory alternatives.
Public Sidewalk: If the problem consists in the failure to
attend to public issues, the most popular websites in any given
period might offer links and hyperlinks, designed to ensure more
exposure to substantive questions. Under such a system, viewers of
especially popular sites would see an icon for sites that deal with
substantive issues in a serious way. It is well established that
whenever there is a link to a particular webpage from a major site,
such as MSNBC, the traffic is huge. Nothing here imposes any
requirements on viewers. People would not be required to click on
links and hyperlinks. But it is reasonable to expect that many
viewers would do so, if only to satisfy their curiosity. The result
would be to create a kind of Internet "sidewalk" that promotes some
of the purposes of the public forum doctrine. Ideally, those who
create websites might move in this direction on their own. To those
who believe that this step would do no good, it is worth recalling
that advertisers are willing to spend a great deal of money to
obtain brief access to people's eyeballs. This strategy might be
used to create something like a public sphere as well.
These are brief thoughts on some complex subjects. My goal has
not been to evaluate any proposal in detail, but to give a flavor of
some possibilities for those concerned to promote democratic goals
in a dramatically changed media environment.8
The basic question is whether it might be possible to create spaces
that have some of the functions of public forums and general
interest intermediaries in the age of the Internet. It seems clear
that government's power to regulate effectively is diminished as the
number of options expands. I am not sure that any response would be
worthwhile, all things considered. But I am sure that if new
technologies diminish the number of common spaces, and reduce, for
many, the number of unanticipated, unchosen exposures, something
important will have been lost. The most important point is to have a
sense of what a well-functioning democratic order requires.
Beyond Anticensorship
My principal claim here has been
that a well-functioning democracy depends on far more than
restraints on official censorship of controversial ideas and
opinions. It also depends on some kind of public sphere, in which a
wide range of speakers have access to a diverse public—and also to
particular institutions, and practices, against which they seek to
launch objections.
Emerging technologies, including the Internet, are hardly an
enemy here. They hold out far more promise than risk, especially
because they allow people to widen their horizons. But to the extent
that they weaken the power of general interest intermediaries and
increase people's ability to wall themselves off from topics and
opinions that they would prefer to avoid, they create serious
dangers. And if we believe that a system of free expression calls
for unrestricted choices by individual consumers, we will not even
understand the dangers as such. Whether such dangers will
materialize will ultimately depend on the aspirations, for freedom
and democracy alike, by whose light we evaluate our practices. What
I have sought to establish here is that in a free republic, citizens
aspire to a system that provides a wide range of experiences—with
people, topics, and ideas—that would not have been selected in
advance. •
Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished
Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago. His
most recent book is Republic.com.
Return to the forum on democracy and
the internet, with Cass Sunstein and responses.
This article borrows from Cass R. Sunstein, Republic.com
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). The excerpts used
here are reprinted by permission.
1 Hague v. CIO, 307 US 496 (1939).
2 I draw here on the excellent treatment in Noah D.
Zatz, "Sidewalks in Cyberspace: Making Space for Public
Forums in the Electronic Environment," Harvard Journal of Law and
Technology 12 (1998): 149.
3 For a general discussion, see Cass R. Sunstein,
"Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go To Extremes," Yale Law
Journal (2000).
4 See Matthew Zook, "The Unorganized Militia Network:
Conspiracies, Computers, and Community," Berkeley Planning
Journal 11 (1996), available at
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/-zook/pubs/Militia_paper.html.
5 See, e.g., Sushil Bikhchandani et al., "Learning
from the Behavior of Others," Journal of Economic
Perspectives (Summer 1998): 151-70.
6 I draw here on Cass R. Sunstein and Edna
Ullmann-Margalit, "Solidarity Goods," Journal of Political
Philosophy (forthcoming in 2001).
7 See Andrew Shapiro, The Control Revolution
(New York: Basic Books, 1999).
8 See Sunstein, Republic.com, for more
detail.