Smugly, my brother-in-law slipped me a YouTube link. The Great Global Warming Swindle, he said, a BBC documentary to debunk the environmental doom-sayers.
Dutifully, I went online. Yes, it was a critique on the much touted Inconvenient Truth of Al Gore. But undaunted, and being the self-proclaimed tree-hugger, I immediately Googled for the antithesis to this new conspiracy theory. I can't wait to share with him my findings.
But while a seed of doubt was planted, I clung fervently to my take on global warming. I am also aware that my brother-in-law is no lumberjack, but probably watched one too many episodes of Myth Busters and enjoyed the scientific deconstruction of everything.
He is a good eight years younger than me, and his take on life would surely be different. He would also typify the Internet Generation who some of us old sluggers might shadily suspect to be living off the radio waves emitting from their wireless modems.
But what struck me most about our exchange was how the Internet has become the centre in our quest for knowledge, not less because it gives us a variety of opinions and facts, but that within a click of a mouse, it could provide us with polar opposites of the very same belief.
And that piece of reality is a far cry from Low Chee Kong’s article (“PM Lee on Internet lessons”, 14 Apr), which suggested that the Internet today has been used to propagate information that does not give due consideration to the political motivations of those who disseminate them.
Such a preposition forwards two assumptions. One, that information available online is more skewed towards one particular ideal or agenda, compared to non-online media. And two, that the key problem of such a bias is that readers will believe whole-heartedly with the agenda proposed.
From the surface, the first assumption holds true. Writers are human, subject to their own biases. In the limited space of one publication or blog entry, it is difficult to portray both sides of the debate. That is even more so in modernity and online, where short attention spans do not take kindly to dual analyses. A writer makes his point as quickly as possible, and usually that which is of the greatest concern to him. The Internet plays host to a variety of extreme views that are often one-sided in coverage.
But the Internet must be viewed in the larger scheme of things. Like the antithesis I found online, the Internet as a whole is choked full of opinions, some in direct contradiction to each other. Cyberspace is not like a newspaper, which you buy one copy of and is thereafter subject to the content it holds. Rather, cyberspace provides a reader access to a wide range of views.
The recent unrest related to Tibet, China and the 2008 Olympics were picked up in a number of websites and blogs, but not all espouse the anti-China take on the issue, as much as controversial opinion would have you believe. For every search entry that paints China as the denigrator of human rights, another portrays Tibet as the propagator of violence.
Differing views expressed online usually vehemently support one cause. Biased, you might call it. But there are articles that spend laborious hours of research to refute or prove a point. The knowledge used in the analysis can span a wide range of disciplines, drawing references from yet other online sources. The level of detail is astounding, which only goes to show the passion and belief that the writer has in his views. Search for another article that argues strongly for the opposing view, and you have a healthy debate brewing in your mind.
Of course, you might agree with them, or not. Or you might choose to pick a bone with them, or not. Add this to the information that is already available offline, and one thing remains certain: The choice remains yours.
Which brings us to the second assumption. We too often assume that the information we see online is taken in whole by its audience. In reality, readers often engage in a selective process of accepting or denying the information they consume. This is influence by pre-conceived ideas of what the information is about, and the beliefs and concerns they have when reading it.
A case in point is the Malaysian elections. While it is easy to assume that Malaysiakini played a big part in turning votes against the ruling party, the truth is that voters saw a connection between what they experience in life and what was written online. No amount of virtual cajoling could have convinced them, if what they read bears no resemblance to what they feel on the ground.
More often than not, online readers find an easy connection with what they read, or choose to search to read. Regardless of what we believe, the Internet has a space for each of our beliefs.
In fact, with the diversity of opinions on the Internet, the bigger worry is not those who have a reason to seek out and find affirmation with information that they already believe in. Rather, it is those who have yet to decide which side they want to take that should concern us. Radicalism is already the status quo; who we stand to lose in the flood of variety are the skeptics, the potentially cynical. N
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