A couple of weeks ago I got caught in a heavy snow storm on a familiar trail in the Washington Cascades. I know every rock, tree, and turn of the trail. With snow falling hard, and ten feet already on the ground, I mistook everything around me as familiar. I was lost.
This is an appropriate allegory for anyone following American politics right now and for government agencies engaging with the public as well.
The media coverage of politics has changed with the growing volume of information–making it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, much less opinion.
The new media environment could be described as information anarchy. It has exposed voters, candidates, and elected officials to more information than ever before through new social media outlets, like blogging, Twitter, and Facebook. The filters of the traditional media of newspapers, network television, and radio are now largely irrelevant. The political system is amidst an awkward transition toward coping with the conditions of information anarchy.
The new conditions have been apparent in the Republican presidential primary. Front runners have ascended and descended rapidly based on media overexposure. Like a sensational YouTube video clip, candidates rise on waves of curious onlookers but fail to sustain the excitement. The same information forces that led to their rise contribute to their demise through the coverage of oratorical gaffes and awkward moments. Anarchy has challenged even the most seasoned campaign strategists to balance political messaging with time spent on damage control.
But it is not just candidates who are trying to adjust to the new media age. The current 112thCongress has revealed the pitfalls of new media. Representatives Chris Lee (R-NY), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and David Wu (D-OR) resigned as a result of personal indiscretions made very public through Craigslist, Twitter, and phone cameras.
Their troubling behavior might have been kept secret or excused as eccentric even just a few years ago. With the public entranced by the collapse of the personal lives of public figures-e.g., Tiger Woods, John Edwards, and Lindsey Lohan, more candidates and elected officials are likely to be casualties of new media or decide politics is not for them.
More broadly, information anarchy has contributed to a certain degree of political instability in recent years. The high media exposure of every move and statement by incumbents has fed a pervasive anti-incumbency. Successive “change” elections of 2006, 2008, and 2010 switched party control of Congress or the presidency.
Today, Gallup polling suggests 63% of registered voters do not believe most members of Congress deserve to be reelected. With negative campaigning well-funded, conditions are right for another anti-incumbent election in 2012.
The explosion in campaign finance tends to feed the anarchy. According to the Committee for Economic Development, in 1998, $781 million was spent on all Congressional races; by 2010 the total was $1.9 billion. The emergence of Super PACs, resulting from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, promises to accelerate the deluge of unfiltered information with unlimited spending in television, radio, and the ubiquitous new media.
Elections are now an arms race with every ad or statement requiring a response and, subsequently, a response to the response. The act-and-react cycle continues until the day after the election. But it also colors how many citizens view government as whole and that view can hardly be called encouraging. Even agencies making genuine progress in improving its services to citizens face speaking into a fiercer, ever louder headwind of media noise.
The long-term implications of information anarchy on American politics are impossible to know.
American society is built upon the foundation of free speech and related freedoms. The wealth of information may eventually enable greater participation in politics, greater accountability of those in office, and a rigorous vetting process for candidates.
In the final analysis, rising skepticism may be the antidote to the negative aspects of information anarchy. Until the political system fully adapts to information anarchy, we should prepare to be lost in a snowstorm of political messages in the months and years ahead.
James Windle is an Associate Dean and instructor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, in Washington DC. The views expressed are his own and do not represent National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.