Ein Ansatzt das Internet zu reparieren

Me

Digitale Interaktion neu denken: Über das Binäre hinausgehen

Soziale Medien haben prägenden Einfluss auf unsere Wahrnehmungen, Interaktionen und gesellschaftliche Gefüge. Das hat viele positive aber auch negative Auswirkungen. Ein dringendes Problem, das unsere Aufmerksamkeit erfordert, ist die zunehmende Polarisierung im Netz. Die Wurzel dieses Problems könnte überraschenderweise auch auf ein scheinbar harmloses Feature zurückzuführen sein, das auf Plattformen allgegenwärtig ist: ein binäres System von Feedback, oft ausgedrückt in “Daumen hoch” und “Daumen runter”.

Das Problem der Polarisierung

Polarisierung bezieht sich auf die Teilung der Gesellschaft in distinkte Gruppen mit konträren Ideologien oder Präferenzen, was zu einer fragmentierten Gemeinschaft führt. Das Internet, mit seinem enormen Potenzial für vielfältige Ausdrucksformen, ist paradoxerweise zu einem Schlachtfeld von Echokammern und polarisierten Lagern geworden. Dieses Problem wurde durch die binären Feedback-Mechanismen verschärft, wo komplexe Meinungen auf einfache Likes oder Dislikes reduziert werden. Solch ein System entmutigt Nuancen und fördert ein Umfeld, das von extremen Ansichten geprägt wird.

Der Binäre Übeltäter: Daumen Hoch und Daumen Runter

Das binäre Feedbackmodell, verkörpert durch “Thumbs up” und “Thumbs down” Buttons, gaukelt eine simplistische, schwarz-weiße Sicht auf Inhalte vor. Einem solchen Modell fehlt die Fähigkeit, die Komplexität menschlicher Meinungen einzufangen und reduziert reichhaltige, facettenreiche Diskussionen auf bloße Zustimmungs- oder Ablehnungszahlen. Die Frage, die sich stellt, ist: Was gäbe es für eine einfache Alternative? Eine Ansatz, die die Polarisierung mildern könnte, indem sie die Komplexität menschlicher Perspektiven sichtbar macht?

Die Vorgeschlagene Lösung: Der “Schieberegler”

Stellen Sie sich eine digitale Welt vor, in der die Meinungen der Benutzer anstelle einer binären Wahl mit einem Schieberegler inkrementell präsentiert werden. Dieser Schieberegler würde es Benutzern ermöglichen, ihre Meinungen mit größerer Präzision auszudrücken und bietet ein Spektrum an Werten, die die nuancierten Schattierungen von Zustimmung oder Ablehnung einfangen. Solche Systeme könnten die Art und Weise, wie wir online interagieren, revolutionieren, indem wir uns von der spaltenden Natur binärer Entscheidungen wegbewegen und hin zu einem inklusiveren, gradiellerem Verständnis von Inhalten und Meinungen.

Hochauflösende Reflexionen von Uns Selbst

Durch die Implementierung eines Schiebereglermechanismus könnte das Internet zu einem Spiegel werden, der hochauflösendere Bilder unseres kollektiven Bewusstseins reflektiert, statt grobe, 1-Bit-Grafiken mit wenig Nuance. Dieser Übergang zu einer “Graustufen” Darstellung von Meinungen könnte zu einem durchdachteren Engagement ermutigen, Empathie fördern, indem gemeinsame Grundlagen zwischen scheinbar unterschiedlichen Ansichten hervorgehoben werden und letztlich zur Heilung der polarisierten Landschaft beitragen.

Falling in love with a ghost

The system makes it possible to fall in love with a spirit. With someone’s mind without relating to the body.

I met a friend today. The friend told me about his life in an online system. About the friendships he has found there and what goes beyond friendships. He described a system, a society in which people meet who have a similar views of the world, similar dreams and fantasies. They follow similar paths to get closer to happiness or at least contentment. Those online people give themselves avatars that they choose themselves, that they design themselves according to their wishes and ideas.

Strict rules apply in the system, every now and then people disappear, sometimes because they have died in “real life”, more often they have been banished from the system. The rules give the system structure, a framework that holds it together as a system and prevents it from falling apart again, from dissolving back into its component parts. The individuals within the system are aware of the system and adhere to the rules. Everyone knows that anyone who does not abide by the rules runs the risk of being banished. Being banned means no longer being part of the system. In this sense, it is a free decision to submit to the rules of the system or not. There are many other systems, systems that function according to different rules. Everyone is free to choose a system. But there is no system without rules.

Sich in einen Geist zu verlieben

Das System ermöglicht es, sich in einen Geist zu verlieben. In den Geist von jemandem, ohne den Körper in Beziehung zu setzen.

Ich habe heute einen Freund getroffen. Der Freund hat mir von seinem Leben in einem online System erzählt. Von den Freundschaften, die er dort gefunden hat und dem was über Freundschaften hinausgeht. Er hat ein System beschrieben, eine Gesellschaft, in der sich Menschen treffen, die einen ähnlichen Blick auf die Welt haben, ähnliche Träume und Fantasien. Die ähnliche Wege gehen um dem Glück näher zu kommen oder zumindest der Ausgeglichenheit. Die Menschen dort geben sich Avatare, die sie sich selbst ausgesucht, die sie selbst nach ihren Wünschen und Vorstellungen gestaltet haben.

Im System gelten strenge Regeln und hin und wieder verschwinden Leute, es ist schon vorgekomen, dass sie im “Realen Leben” gestorben sind, öfter kommt es vor, dass sie aus dem System verbannt wurden. Die Regeln geben dem System Struktur, ein Gerüst, dass das System zusammenhält und verhindert, dass es wieder auseinander fällt, sich auflöst in seine Bestandteile. Die Individuen innerhalb des Systems wissen um das System und halten sich an die Regeln. Jeder weiß, dass wer sich nicht an die Regeln hält Gefahr läuft, verbannt zu werden. Verbannt zu werden, bedeutet nicht mehr Teil des Systems zu sein. In dem Sinne ist es eine freie Entscheidung, sich den Regeln des Systems unterzuordnen oder nicht. Es gibt noch viele andere Systeme, Systeme, die nach unterschiedlichen Regeln funktionieren. Jeder ist frei, sich ein System auszusuchen. Doch es gibt kein System ohne Regeln.

Neutral Perspective

NewsRoom

In this text I want to contrast what I have observed in journalism with what I observe in areas of YouTube from the perspective of someone, who made interactive documentaries for quite some time.

I am looking at areas of YouTube in the context of documentary, building of the definition of i-docs by Judith Aston and Sandra Gaudenzi who say that:

“Any project that starts with an intention to document the ‘real’ and that uses digital interactive technology to realize this intention, can be considered an interactive documentary.”

I think that interactive documentary formats (like for example on YouTube) accelerate the trend to an increasingly multi-perspectival, what Gaudenzi calls “negotiation, that a society has with reality”.

Or in simple terms, I think that YouTube & Co have the potential to help us, in the long term, to become more nuanced – and as a consequence – more tolerant, more accepting, less judgmental – and more open to new ideas. This, I think, might increase our ability to collaborate and become more creative in finding solutions, for the problems, that torment us.

I think, that it is already recognizable, that connected individuals and societies develop an increased acceptance for complexity. And I suggest, that this has to do, with the interactive and conversational structure of these media formats and the increased multidirectional flow of information.

I have been working in the newsroom of an international TV-news-broadcaster for more than 20 years. My job was called ‘picture editor’ or ‘image producer’, I was responsible for still images and graphics mainly for television (and sometimes social media). I was just just a cog in the wheel of producing news and documentary pieces, that were then broadcasted into the wider world.

I was helping journalists, who were considered to be the authors, to produce news artifacts. In this little text, I want to focus on the concept of “objectivity” – in the news-room, at which I got an inside perspective for more than 20 years. I want to compare that to habitual methods, that I see developing within interactive documentary and YouTube.

I see similarities between Korsakow (that is the think I invented and used to structure my own interactive documentaries) and YouTube, that I consider to be more interesting, than the differences, that certainly also exist.

This is to say: I think, I see something in YouTube, that I so clearly sense, because of my experience in interactive documentary. I would say – my brain got wired through Korsakow. And similar to me, having my thinking shaped by Korsakow, I recognize people on YouTube, that have their thinking shaped by YouTube – in a quite a similar way.

“Objectivity” was a concept, that came up regularly in the news-room over all these years. And the concept of “objectivity” of course also came up, in the context of me making “interactive documentary”. According to Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison (2007), the pursuit of objectivity, is one of the three basic scientific virtues (along with truth-to-nature and trained judgment), objectivity is considered a measure of quality in science and it certainly is considered to be a measure of quality, among the journalists in the news-room I was working in. Journalists tried to achieve ‘objectivity’ by reporting the things ‘as they were’, or at least as they looked to them, through the eye of a camera’ and not so much ‘as they, the journalists, perceived them’. With this approach they claimed to archive an ‘objective perspective’.

I took a different approach in my interactive documentary making, a different approach to that of the journalists in the news-room, but a similar approach to what I now often find on YouTube. I described reality as the thing that I saw, by describing reality from my subjective perspective.

I would argue that an ‘objective perspective’ in the sense the journalists usually claimed, a perspective at the thing somehow without a position from which it is looked at, does not exist. Reality can not be looked at from the outside, which is what an objective perspective would theoretically need. You can only look at reality from within reality. You can not look at reality from the outside, because – where should that be?

An “objective perspective” can in my opinion only be a fabrication.

Within reality there are many viewpoints from which to look at a thing. And only if one knows, from which perspective something is looked at, it can be seen in context with other perspectives, that almost certainly will not describe the thing in focus, the same way.

A subjective perspective without an agenda, this is what I increasingly see developing on YouTube & Co. In the title of this text I called this a “neutral perspective” and I would like to discuss with you, if this is a helpful term.

With “neutral” I mean, that the goal is to avoid classification, for example into good or bad – to avoid moral judgement. Maybe a paticual author on YouTube (or in Korsakow) has an opinion – of what is good or bad – but then the author makes this opinion clear and then focusses primarily on the arguments of people with different opinions, not in a way, that makes the arguments of the author stronger, as I so often observe not only in journalism – but to gain understanding for these other arguments and their resulting opinions.

To be clear, I am not talking about all authors on YouTube, but a particular kind of authors that are active in this kind of genre that I see developing on YouTube and in the realm of podcasts (Like for example Rezo, Lex Friedman, Sam Harris, Struthless and if you know more, please let me know down there in the comments!.

This in a way is not a new method: scientific methods usually work that way.

This is why I think this is important

I start with two very simple assumptions:

  1. The process of making a documentary artefact (like for example a documentary film, a news piece, a podcast, a YouTube-clip), influences the documentary artifact, that is made, in this process (Ok, this is obviously obvious, please don’t scream – point 3 gets interesting.)
  2. Documentary artifacts, have the potential, to influence the thinking, of the recipients of these artifacts, in a particular way. (Also kind of banal: you get influenced, I get influenced, we all get influenced by stuff we see/hear).
  3. The process of making must therefore have an influence, on the thinking of the recipients.

So this – as simple as it sounds – seems to me often overlooked. The “how” – how we communicate – if confrontative or seeking to understand, shapes the shared world, too – not just the facts. This is why I consider it to be so very important also on how we get to our understanding of the world.

To be (maybe overly) clear here, I consider myself to be a constructivist. This means that I consider the world to be at least to a significant extent to be the result of the communication, that takes place between people, what they agree on and what then becomes the shared reality.

“Netral perspective” is a friendly way to negotiate the world

So what is the trick? How is this “neutral perspective” achieved for example YouTube or Korsakow?

I consider the main ingredient to be what Cyberneticians like Heinz von Foester calls “observing the observer” and “Second order Cybernetics”.

And that, I would like to describe in the following way: “If one wants to get understanding of a thing (or topic, or question), it makes little sense to get a description of that thing without understanding the perspective, from which that thing was described.”

I assume here, that we all agree, that there are always (and I rarely use superlatives!) multiple perspectives, from which an object could be described accurately, differently and maybe even contradictory.

So how did folks on YouTube get there? Of course, I don’t know how much these authors consulted cybernetics literature, but what I do know – that I didn’t. I applied cybernetics thinking without knowing pretty much anything about Cybernetics (until recently, now I know a bit, a tiny bit).

Looking at my first interactive documentary projects, that develop that ‘neutral perspective’ (and not all my projects do), I noticed a number of similarities in the process of making, similarities I see on YouTube as well. For example, all these projects were to the highest degree self-motivated, that means that I did not have an audience in mind, when I did them, I was the primary audience, and I wanted to look at those topics in the most unbiased way, to get relevant answers, for the questions, that I wanted to get answers for.

Recently I revisited the first three of my interactive documentary pieces, in an auto-ethnographic undertaking, on which I have embarked within my studies:

In retrospect these were the questions that I tried to answer through my projects:

How am I limited in my thinking because of my upbringing?
[small world], 1997 (project only still works on PC)

Am I in danger of becoming addicted to alcohol?
[korsakow syndrome], 2000 (offline)

How can I identify a good partner in life?
[LoveStoryProject], 2003

Journalists in contrast – at least the ones I observed, constantly seem to consider the audience. This is expressed well in a sentence that I feel I have heard a million times, often, when I suggested an – what we called – info-graphic: “This is too complicated, the viewer does not get that”.

It might feel counter-intuitive to many, to think that YouTubers are not obsessed with their audience. They think about it, too, but it seems different. The YouTubers I look at regularly talk about their audience within the pieces they produce. But they talk of their audience as a source of knowledge and a typical sentence might sound like this: “I am not sure if I described this and that correctly, if you know more, please let me know, down there in the comments.”

In contrast, it is very rare, that journalists speak open about their lack of knowledge. It is widely considered to be unprofessional and a sign, that they did not do their research.

I think, that the difference in considering the audience makes all the difference, when it comes to ‘objective’ or ‘neutral’ perspective.

I would say that ‘neutral perspective’ can only be archived, if the perspective of the author is just one possible perspective, out of many perspectives, that are possibly there in the wider world or in the audience. The author of such a piece therefor needs to locate his or her perspective, make clear from where he or she is coming from to give room to other perspectives.

The ‘objective perspective’ that journalists usually claim in their attempt to make things explicable is decreasing complexity. They usually want to tell the story in simple terms. But to decrease complexity you need to leave out information, that is considered to be dispensable, but who is it to know, what information is truly dispensable? Maybe information is cut off that would have turned out to be important later?

I make an arguement that ‘neutral perspective’ allows a higher level of complexity, it leaves more information intact, but it asks for people and societies have to develop an increased tolerance and resilience for contradicting information.

And I think this is what is increasingly happening?

Do you think that too? – Please let me know down there in the comments!


This text is based on a talk I gave at NECS, conference in Bucharest on June 24th, 2022. The talk was part of the panel “Interactive Epistemologies. New Knowledge Economies in the Context of Interactive Documentaries and Web-Docs”.

Also on the panel were Florian Krautkrämer and Tobias Conradi, two of my three collaborators of interdocs.ch, a research project on interactive documentary that is based at HSLU.

The European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) is a platform for exchange between scholars, archivists and programmers.

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