“Finger the Pulse” – a comedy segment on Trevor Noah’s “The Daily Show” – highlights the rational ignorance of voters. In this segment, Jordan Klepper attends Trump rallies and interviews supporters, asking them about their knowledge of political issues. With their response, he fires back with a witty comment, alluding to their ignorance or misunderstanding of political knowledge.
One of the interviewees admitted that she does all of
her research on politics – through Twitter and Facebook that is. To this,
Jordan Klepper responds that she puts facts and nonsense together. Jordan
agrees with the judgement that social media platforms are inherently biased
(from algorithmic and herd mentality factors) and vessel widespread misinformation
campaigns. Despite this, it’s incredibly rational for this woman to utilize
social media platforms for election information. When analyzing her marginal
costs and benefits of gathering information about politics and candidates, it
might be costlier for this woman to go out of her way and find unbiased,
credible sources to politically inform her. The convenience of social media in consuming
political information supports the marginal benefits one gets from using it as
a news source. Additionally, through the in-app adjustments made to limit
the misinformation circulating platforms, finding information outside of social
media platforms has an even greater marginal cost.
Although segments like “Finger the Pulse” take a jab at ignorant
and opinionated comments voters make, they highlight the preferences that
people have in gathering electoral information.
2 comments:
The interviewee on this particular "Daily Show" segment is by no means an outlier; according to Pew, 18% of Americans get their political news primarily from social media. This certainly amplifies the dangers of misinformation and inherent bias that Nikki mentioned. However, I don't necessarily believe that the cost of consuming misinformation is that much lower than the cost of consuming unbiased, credible news. Consider the fact that such reliable news can easily be found without even leaving social media. Institutional media sources have a strong presence on platforms such as Twitter and promote much of their solid reporting through these platforms. On Twitter, for example, AP has 15.3 million followers, Reuters has 23.8 million, and BBC News has 32.9 million. I don't deny that purchasing a newspaper or subscribing to a prestigious daily news service has a higher cost than using social media. For the millions of users above, however, the marginal cost of reading a Tweet by AP should be no greater than that of reading a Tweet by a random conspiracy theorist. There are many valid (and rational) reasons for voters to be ignorant, but the cost of accessing useful and credible information, given that one is already on social media, should not be a major one of them.
Pew: https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-get-their-news-on-social-media-are-less-engaged-less-knowledgeable/
I have to agree with Nicholas's take: the cost of consuming misinformation is not that much lower than the cost of consuming unbiased, credible news. However, I still believe that social media plays a larger role in the problems surrounding rational ignorance in that it ignores the very idea of it. Based on my own instagram and twitter feed, there is a widespread assumption that it is morally repugnant to not have a significant amount of knowledge on a range of political and social issues. Despite this assumption, as both Nicholas and Nikki have mentioned, it is economically rational for voters to remain ignorant on a wide range of political issues. Social media ignores this by touting the repugnance of political ignorance and hiding the costs of gaining political knowledge. For example, infographics posted on the Israel vs. Palestine conflict hide the deep complexities of the political issue. These posts lead to oversimplification of politics and a false belief that everyone should be (and can be) informed about every political issue. By doing so, the general public does not become any more informed. However, they start to believe that they are less ignorant than they really are. For a democracy, this is significantly more dangerous than rational ignorance that is at least somewhat balanced by self-awareness.
Infographics on the the Israel-Palestine Conflict: https://forward.com/culture/469509/instagram-infographics-social-media-influencers-make-israel-gaza-news/
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