The 2004 election was a kind of prototype: candidates started realizing the relatively-young Internet’s potential for raising campaign funds — and to get votes. In Campaign 2008 candidates in both parties are nurturing weblogs (with conference calls to friendly sites), blog outreach activists (by hiring bloggers to pitch ideas and positions to other bloggers) and to raise funds (Rep. Ron Paul set a record). But will any of this truly make a REAL difference in the final vote count?
Can candidates in 2008 truly rely on blogs to increase their portion of votes — or have most weblogs evolved into partisan echo chambers?
To get some answers on this (and some other things) we went to an expert: Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic and is a frequent witness before congressional committees. He is also a supporter of Democratic Senator Barack Obama.
In this original interview, he deals with the issue of weblogs’ value to political candidates in early 21st Century America, whether comments on blogs (supposedly a tool for dialogue and convincing people) have lived up to their potential, complications that ensued when campaigns have hired veteran bloggers - -and answers some some questions about Obama plus other matters.
(This issue of the impact of blogs was the subject of a 2005 Stanford University panel discussion with bloggers on eDemocracy: The Role of Blogs and Online Activists in 2004.Listen to it HERE.)
This interview was originally posted on my own blog and has been re-edited for TMV.
Cass Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic and is a frequent witness before congressional committees. After clerking for Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court, he worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department as an Attorney-Advisor. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute. He has written numerous books and articles, including recently “Republic.com 2.0,” a discussion of, inter alia, how current technological and social trends (including blogs) intersect with democratic ideals and the American democratic structure. On December 22, 2007, I had the privilege of interviewing Professor Sunstein by e-mail exchange.
The Talking Dog: Let me jump right in with your analysis of blog “echo chambers”, which you believe are inconsistent with a healthy vibrant democracy because people should be, in your view, exposed to “unexpected” views more common in a news “general interest intermediary” such as an evening newscast or newspaper… how would you respond to my proposition that rather than a newscast, the big lefty blogs (I’m unsurprisingly somewhat less familiar with the big righties, though Instapundit doesn’t have comments…)… still, taking the highest traffic liberal blog, for example, The Daily Kos (especially since Markos Moulitsas is, or was before Newsweek snagged him, anyway, much more likely to describe himself as a “political activist” or “Democratic activist” rather than as a “journalist”), if you look at The Daily Kos or Atrios or other similar blogs (at least on the liberal side) as the equivalent of a vibrant and virtual political club (like a party, Kos even has yearly conventions!)– or a “deliberative enclave”–and while conveying facts and links and so forth, are doing so in the context of public policy advocacy and if generating an “echo chamber” doing so for the purpose of actually advancing an agenda within the democratic process– i.e., attempting to aggregate the kind of power necessary to get anything done in our system? And indeed– the fact that an unmoneyed citizen acting on their own (at least without an accompanying campaign contribution check) is unlikely even to get an appointment with their own member of Congress let alone have a serious chance to influence legislation a bigger part of the problem than these attempts to (my words) level the playing field?
Cass Sunstein: Sure, you’re right, partisan blogs are participating within the democratic process. No doubt about that. And the Internet allows more voices to be heard, which is a good thing, even a great thing. On balance, the Internet is good for democracy. (My 2006 book Infotopia explores some of the positive sides; it’s the happy sibling to the darker Republic.com 2.0.) But two things may both be true, if they do not contradict each other. It is also true that echo chambers, made possible by the Internet, can increase (unjustified) extremism, decrease diversity among like-minded people, increase errors, and make people see their fellow citizens as enemies or adversaries in some kind of quasi-war.
The Talking Dog: I take it that you are familiar with research to the effect that public radio and television listeners and viewers tend to have not merely a more liberal view of the world, but a more accurate view of the world for example, at least on some issues, reality having a distinct liberal bias according to Stephen Colbert). Do you view that observation of a “news service” apparently engendering misinformation (as I do) as more troubling than a blog “echo chamber”… or IS that precisely what happens in an echo chamber, i.e., the very problem is the lack of conflicting views leading to a failure of an actual basis to ascertain accuracy?
Cass Sunstein: More than one thing can be troubling. (AIDS is troubling, so is terrorism, so is climate change.) The problem with echo chambers is that those who live there tend to end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk – and that is unhealthy for participants and for democracy, at least if people have not heard conflicting views. Terrorism itself is an extreme version of what I’m exploring here. (By the way, reality has no liberal bias, though liberals may like to think it does.)
The Talking Dog: Of course, individual politicians (and as you note, your own faculty at the Univ. of Chicago) have blogs of their own, and in their own name; however, other times, blogs seem to be bearding for broader political agendas. Do you see it as a problem when political parties (and while I think both parties are guilty of this, the right does a far more effective job of this than the left) play this role? This includes managing to coordinate talking points with blogs at the same time that figures in the media are repeating them and politicians may be giving speeches on the floor of Congress using the same talking points… what Peter Daou has called a triangle between political parties (or “the political establishment”), blogs (”the netroots”) and the media… While I view that trend– coopted blogs– of either party– as a potentially serious problem for democratic discourse–though at the moment the right is far more effective at this– especially when done without disclosure of the relationships– how do you see it?
Cass Sunstein: This is a definite problem. If there is an association between a party and a blog, disclosure is important. People should know if there is a lack of independence.
The Talking Dog: Similarly, you recognize that one of the government’s functions in the course of “regulating the internet” is the prevention of fraud for example; what’s your view of fraud BY the government (as I.F. Stone would say, all governments lie) such as Armstrong Williams being paid to pretend he is an objective journalist rather than on the payroll of the Dept. of Education or other paid political advocacy masquerading as public service announcements (whether on the taxpayers’ dime or not)?
Cass Sunstein: This sort of thing is terrible – an indefensible abuse of public trust by all involved, and damaging to the democratic process as well.
The Talking Dog: My friend Lindsay Beyerstein turned down the job of John Edwards campaign blogger , before it was famously offered to Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan; Lindsay then noted, among a number of problems with the offer, that many things she wrote would likely prove to be liabilities to Edwards. It was observed that the bloggers chosen by the Edwards camp were popular precisely because they were likely to throw red-meat to their hungry fans, i.e., preach to the choir, and in the strongest of terms; both Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan famously resigned in an episode somewhat damaging to Edwards, for precisely the reasons that Lindsay anticipated. That said… do you recognize the empirical “chicken-egg” problem in your analysis of “blog echo chambers” (i.e. in the most popular blogs, either side, there is an overwhelming volume of liberals linking to liberals and conservatives linking to conservatives)… to wit, these blogs are popular by and large because they tell their audiences what they want to hear… in other words, large numbers of people WANT an echo chamber as compared to a general interest intermediary, at least when it comes to their blog reading, and the blogs likelier to be “general interest intermediaries”, at least in the political realm, are by and large likely to be less popular because people LIKE their echo chambers? Or in your view is that precisely the problem… people like “The Daily Me”…. and if given the opportunity, prefer to drown out views they disagree with?
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