The Opinionated Blog

To be honest, this blog caught my attention because of the title, “What Do (Suburban) Women Want” by Marty Kaplan on The Smirking Chimp website.  I thought it would be about the comments Romney made about notebooks full of women. It was, instead, about an extremely small focus group with rating meters somewhere in Ohio that CNN used to gather and instantly broadcast opinions to the nation in the form of graphs on the bottom of the screen. The author described the graphs as worms or caterpillars which was apparently quite distracting to him. These graphs were meant to show the reactions of 35 people who were somewhat undecided as they watched the debates. According to the author they were actually split in their opinion but stated they could change their minds. They were also half men and half women. The sarcasm used describing the make-up of the focus group was actually rather over done but he did make a point. The author does hold the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media and Society, and has many other credible notations next to his name including White House speechwriter, Washington journalist, and Disney studio executive.

Mr. Kaplan made an interesting point in the overall idea that we are getting “real-time tabulation of the sentiments of various audience segments,” an instant opinion from Middle America if you will. The question is do we actually form our own opinions from reading news coverage and researching the issues, or are we getting our opinions from sources like Twitter because that is what it “trending” right now. In this fast paced, complex world, where so much information is at the fingertip of just about everyone, it’s hard to know all of it, and very easy just to see how many agree/disagree on an issue and go along with the majority, especially if it is an issue that does not affect us specifically. This is where Mr. Kaplan makes his strongest point:

 

“But when technology puts a finger on the civic scale, when it skews what we esteem in political discourse, when it privileges popularity over other criteria for worth, an instant reaction gizmo isn't just fun, it's potentially as subversive as the Electoral College, Citizens United or the ascendance of post-truth politics.”

I think the question is once again: is technology out-pacing our understanding of all the consequences of having and using it? Will we lose our ability exercise our own personal choice because we are so overly influenced by instantly knowing the opinions of others? Will checking to see what the opinions of others are affect the ratings of what opinions are? I don’t have an opinion on all that just yet. What a vicious circle this can become!