嚴肅媒體面臨的嚴肅問題
A decade ago, Cass Sunstein, an American legal scholar, co-authored a book, Nudge, with the economist Richard Thaler. In it, they argued that subtle social cues — nudges — can shape the behaviour of populations. The idea proved so persuasive that it influenced White House policy, and Sunstein and Thaler rose to prominence.
Now Sunstein has published another book, #Republic, which describes how social media shapes politics and journalism. So far, it has not received as much attention as Nudge. This is a pity: the ideas in #Republic are arguably more important — and more pressing.
最近，桑斯坦又出版了一本新書，名爲《#共和》(#Republic)。該書描述了社交媒體對政治和新聞的影響。不過，到目前爲止，該書還沒有獲得像《助推》那樣的關注度。這真令人遺憾：《#共和》中的觀點可以說更爲重要——也更加發人深省。These days, many voters seem furious with both journalists and social media. In this column last week, for example, I wrote about the tribalisation of the media. This has sparked more online reader comments than almost anything else I have written — and most of them are angry.
最近，許多選民似乎對記者和社交媒體感到憤怒。例如，我在不久前的本專欄中撰寫了一篇關於媒體“部落化”的文章。該文的在線讀者評論數量超過我以往撰寫的所有文章——而且大部分評論是憤怒的批評。
Amid all the emotion, what is notably lacking are proposals for a way forward. Readers and viewers say they want the media to be “less biased” and to “focus on the facts” but the problem of how to finance and organise serious non-partisan journalism for the mass market remains largely unsolved. The trouble is that partisan social media is free — and readers seem to be hungry for this. So how can we support real news when most voters keep flocking to entertaining stories that are (at best) partisan and (at worst) deliberately fake?
在一片激昂情緒之中，明顯少了點什麼：沒人提出解決問題的建議。讀者和觀衆指出，他們希望媒體“少一點偏見”，“多關注事實”。但是，爲大衆市場服務的嚴肅的、無黨派傾向的媒體如何獲得資金、如何運作的問題依然懸而未決。問題是有黨派傾向的社交媒體是免費的——而讀者似乎也在“狼吞虎嚥”地吸收此類內容。所以，當大多數選民樂此不疲地閱讀這些（在最好情況下）帶有黨派傾向的、（在最壞情況下）是蓄意僞造的娛樂性消息時，我們如何能支撐真實新聞呢？This is where #Republic comes in. Sunstein believes that one of the biggest problems in media today is the phenomenon of “informational” and “reputational cascades”: if a story or idea gets launched on Facebook or Twitter in a format that is easy to Like or Share, it can snowball rapidly and sway public opinion. This makes social media prone to both polarisation and manipulation — and undermines established journalism.
這正是《#共和》討論的問題。桑斯坦認爲，當今的媒體面臨的最大問題之一就是“信息瀑布”和“名氣瀑布”現象：如果一個故事或想法在臉書(Facebook)或推特(Twitter)上以便於點贊或分享的形式上傳，它可能會像滾雪球一樣快速傳播，並左右公衆輿論。這使得社交媒體很容易走極端和受到操縱——並衝擊傳統新聞業。Sunstein suggests some strategies to fight back. The loftiest — and perhaps least realistic — idea is that governments or philanthropic groups should create so-called “deliberative domains”: spaces online or in the physical world where opposing political viewpoints can be debated. Conferences sometimes try to do this for elite participants but Sunstein wants mass-market deliberative domains. He also advocates campaigns to promote media literacy among the public.
桑斯坦提出了一些應對策略。最高屋建瓴、或許也是最不現實的想法是，政府或慈善團體應該建立所謂的“辯論場”——即網上虛擬空間或現實世界空間，供持不同政治觀點的雙方在上面進行辯論。有時候會議的目的就是爲社會精英提供討論的場所，不過，桑斯坦希望創建的是大衆市場辯論場。他還倡導開展一些活動，提升公衆的媒體素養。Another proposal is for governments to require media companies to promote non-partisan coverage, similar to the standards that the Federal Communications Commission used to impose on television. The government could also force partisan websites to include links to articles with conflicting points of view: Breitbart, for example, might carry a link to a piece by Huffington Post, and vice versa. Or social media companies could perhaps create algorithms that enable readers to collide with unexpected ideas to which they would not otherwise be exposed (say, with a “serendipity” button that shows news from a variety of sources).
另一項建議是，政府應要求媒體在報道時儘量不能有黨派傾向，這與美國聯邦通信委員會(Federal Communications Commission)對電視媒體的要求類似。政府也可以強制要求有黨派傾向的網站提供表達不同觀點的文章的鏈接：例如，新聞網站Breitbart可以附上一篇赫芬頓郵報(Huffington Post)的文章鏈接，反之亦然。或者社交媒體公司也許可以創建一些算法，使讀者能夠接觸到其原本沒有機會看到的想法（比如說，增加一個“新發現”(serendipity)按鈕，點擊這個按鈕，就會顯示來自其他不同消息來源的新聞）。A more draconian move would be to force social media sites to adhere to certain legal standards, similar to those imposed on print journalism. Alternatively, the media itself could be subsidised, in a bid to offset — or balance — the commercial pressures that are increasingly encouraging private sector media outlets to be more partisan.
更爲嚴厲的做法就是迫使社交媒體網站遵守某些法律標準，類似於印刷媒體適用的法規。或者，媒體本身可以得到補貼，以抵消或平衡商業壓力，正是這些壓力越來越鼓勵私營媒體選擇支持某一黨派。
