Cognition, defined by Wikipedia, is having faculty for processing information, applying knowledge, changing preferences, analyzing different perspectives within different contexts, ability to process abstract concepts such as mind, reasoning, intelligence and learning, and able to think in a natural, artificial, conscious or unconscious way (Wikipedia, 2010).
If we apply this definition to Walter Lippmann’s content in Public Opinion on media and people’s inability to truly understand, capture, and digest global issues in a way that is authentic instead of aligned with stereotypes, biases, and narrow thinking, cognition is not likely happening broadly.
The pictures inside our heads often mislead us in the real world, as Lippmann describes (Lippmann, 1997). The limited access to facts, artificial censorship, limitation of social contacts, and meager time to engage in public affairs, make us want to distort events to fit into sound bites that use small vocabulary to express complicated issues. We fear that facing facts would threaten our routines, understandings, and lives. Due to this predicament, most people want morsels of truth that do not shake their grounding. For example, in the past slavery was considered natural, normal, and routine. Lippmann describes it as if the slave was meant to be a slave and therefore the owner was doing something very normal and rightful by owning slaves. That mindset had been set for generations and the norms were seen as normal, thus slavery continued for thousands of years.
If cognition is limited by most people, especially laymen who do not espouse to higher education and critical thought processes, it is likely the media or any material out there, especially today on the Net, can mislead, persuade, manipulate, and lie to the general public with very little backlash.
Dr. Tuma questioned how cognition and media relate. According to Lippmann, most media rely on the fact that the majority of people do not utilize higher levels of cognition (Lippmann, 1997). If people challenged, questioned, fought for truth, and required transparency, credibility, informed, and accurate information, it would change the news cycle to a much slower one and it would require a much higher cost to produce it. Additionally most consumers prefer news in sound bites, as attention spans wane and interests to commit to lengthy discussions narrows. Media involves a business model that predicts what consumers want, how they will respond, and what they will buy. The end goals are higher circulation and advertising revenue. This business model is not always ethical, for the betterment of the public, or in the interest of sharing truth, and democracy. Instead this business model involves making lots of money. The media and press, even with their specific motivations, are not to be blamed entirely for the lack of ideas, discourse, and proponents of free speech. The public has its part to carry as well. In the past, people’s participation was void.
“If the press is not so universally wicked, nor so deeply conspiring, as Mr. Sinclair would have us believe, it is very much more frail than the democratic theory has as yet admitted. It is too frail to carry the whole burden of popular sovereignty, to supply spontaneously the truth which democrats hoped was inborn. And when we expect it to supply such a body of truth we employ a misleading standard of judgment. We misunderstand the limited nature of news, the illimitable complexity of society; we overestimate our own endurance, public spirit, and all-round competence. We suppose an appetite for uninteresting truths which is not discovered by any honest analysis of our own tastes” (Lippmann, 1997).
In the name of progress, today we see people participating in media and dialogue in blogs. “As of January 2009, there have been a total of about 133 million blogs indexed by the blog search engine Technorati dating back to 2002” (NumberOf.Net, 2009). Blogs enable people to have space on the Net to share, create, espouse, and debate information. Blogs involve citizen journalism. Although blogs are not typically fact checked, nor accurate, they are a great breeding ground for thought and participatory dialogue. They are places where ideas can be fleshed out, creative, and individual interests can be published. This is a very different news sharing operation than what we have seen in the past.
I suppose media and cognition can work if the players are engaged, interested, educated, and participatory, as seen in some blogging. The Internet has allowed a new way of sharing information that didn’t exist in Lippmann’s time of early 20th century. Through cognitive efforts, people can think things through, gain global information, research a lot, and deliver information in a way that is more thoughtful and thought provoking. However, Lippmann’s points on how people can only unveil information through their own filters and perceptions will remain true, and if exposure to good information is limited, stereotypes will remain intact and people’s pictures in their heads will remain unchanged. Taking people from cognitive conservatism, egocentricity, and the need to keep a positive self- image will take time and much effort but we are hopefully headed in the right direction.
References:
Lippmann, W. (1997). Public opinion (original 1922). Available from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper2/CDFinal/Lippman/header.html.
NumberOf.Net. (2009). Number of blogs. Retrieved from http://www.numberof.net/number-of-blogs-2/
Wikipedia. (2010). Cognition . Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition
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