7 Reasons “Coffee House” Media Can Improve National Security
The cover feature of this week’s Economist, “Back to the Coffee House,” says that they way we receive and share news is returning to a bygone era of “conversational culture.” Before advertising and mass marketing modernized news into conventional papers as we know them today (or… knew them… until recently), news was participatory, partisan, and disseminated chiefly by word of mouth.
A return to “coffee house” culture raises two concerns: first, that we’re losing accountability journalism to a cyberspace where literally anyone can say literally anything; and second, that increasingly partisan journalism will be bad for society and politics. But on the whole, a return to the “coffee house” news culture is a good thing—even for national and international security and policy. Here’s why:
1. New media enable a fast and furious system of checks and balances. In all fields, especially policy, allegations are questioned, statements tested, and liars dethroned quickly online. This has been a particularly influential force in other parts of the world, where authoritarian regimes are finding it more difficult than ever to censor and withhold information or lie.
2. The conversational “coffee house” transmission of news enables the spread of important information in parts of the world that still can’t access it like we do in the West. When just a few tech-savvy individuals can tap into a rare, urban patch of Wi-Fi in a poverty-, conflict- or disaster-stricken area, they can gain valuable information and report to the outside world. Those tech-savvy individuals also serve as ambassadors of news to their communities, carrying information to people who remain beyond the reach of new or uncensored media.
3. New media enable partnerships between national security thinkers, doers, and critics. Doubts were raised this week about whether influential media outlets should partner with think tanks, in particular, due to questions of bias. But—as pointed out in an excellent response at Information Dissemination, think tanks have a specific skill set: producing high quality, in-depth research. Journalists have a different skill set: telling and publicizing important stories. Partnerships between the two allow journalists to spread expert research and well-informed opinion. It is a natural alliance by which both partners leverage their respective strengths for benefit of the public.
4. New media encourage accessibility and transparency—even transparency of bias. This is important because it is true that influential scholars, policymakers, and organizations are often serving a specific agenda—but that agenda may be tweeted straight from the horse’s mouth (weird visual). A quick web search can reveal background and funding information on politicians, lobbyists, and policy organizations. In the age of partisan news, we are more empowered than ever to filter it ourselves.
5. Social media spread ideas. (Duh.) Because the various aspects of our lives and identities inevitably overlap on the internet, we encounter information that we wouldn’t necessarily have seen otherwise. The more exposure we have to different ideas and their sources, the better we become at distinguishing between them. A new, if strange, sort of self-education is available on the web, which is good for public policy on the whole.
6. Social media link influential actors in public, unregulated forums. Most government bodies and their public officials, think tanks and their fellows, and media outlets and their journalists have social media accounts. Discourse and debates occur in directly observable ways that simply were not possible in the past, creating space for the public to follow the conversation. A good Twitterfight between big-wigs is like watching a car accident; you just can’t look away! And sometimes observers even form a smarter opinion in the process.
7. As media technology advances, so does the technology for its organization. Tools for sorting through the endless barrage of information are constantly improving. Tablets, smartphones, apps, and endless Google updates are streamlining the process by which we absorb and evaluate news. This is certainly helpful for those who take in news by the heap: policymakers, wonks, officials, students, citizens—anyone who wants to know what’s going on in the world. And national security actors have access to minute-by-minute updates on global events, enabling them to be more informed than ever.
There is an important correlation underlying these points: that good, solid news and a better informed public will lead to better national security policy decisions. This correlation rests on the assumption that informed policymakers need the support of an informed constituency, and that we need the media to provide high-quality, well-publicized information for that correlation to work. Admittedly, there is room for improvement at each link of this chain.
Ultimately, new media are serving to raise awareness on issues like never before, pressuring policymakers to expedite the long slog of policy formulation. In the end, the hope is that more accessible, open, and faster media will strengthen the correlation between good information and good policy, contributing to better security policy for all.
