The power of narrative in political campaigns

Most in the general public consume political campaign messages ad nauseam as we get closer to an election cycle, but have they stopped to think campaign messages are geared a certain way? The answer is simple: Voters want someone they personally identify and connect with.

According to an article published by The Economist in 2012, the author explains a narrative for a political candidate “…is the emergent product of an informal consensus among journalists and commentators. If each journalist is disposed to tell the story a different way, no consensus will emerge and there will be no one dominant narrative.” Conversely, if they both look at the candidate through the same prism as they are trying to be portrayed, there is a dominant narrative.

During the 2012 United States presidential campaign, Mitt Romney and his campaign staff made sure they avoided the national press corps, who would follow him around wherever he went because they are trying to get some insight behind Romney. They did not want to play into the dominant narrative of Romney being stiff, unrelatable and having the propensity to give the wrong kind of soundbite. According to Loiaconi (2015), a well-crafted television advertisement can move public opinion, but not shift the narrative too much. In today’s world, we let a candidate’s narrative play out social media. Twitter is an effective social tool because of its brief 140-character messages, the public’s propensity to react to every soundbite and the power and influence of hashtags to spark discussions, debates and online communities, according to Shirky (2008).

Hamby (2013) illustrated that as the national press corps’ collective frustrations grew with each avoidance by Romney and his campaign staff, journalists turned to cynicism, thereby mocking the Romney campaign, producing their own hashtags and becoming a part of the narrative the national media was trying to portray about Romney. While countless journalists, including those who were on the campaign trail with Romney in 2012, admitted the might have went too far by essentially inserting themselves into the narrative, it marks a changing of the guard for how campaign narratives are constructed and managed. Loiaconi (2015) explains “[c]ampaign narratives are to some extent driven by the complicated relationship between journalists, their audiences, and the candidates they cover.”

As we look to the 2016 election cycle, every viable candidate and campaign staff are turning to social media to construct and bolster their dominant campaign narrative or narratives. To exemplify this, one only needs to look at presidential candidate Donald Trump. Billed as a political outsider and the vigor to “Make America Great Again”, Trump has been lauded by the left to become a viable candidate in the crowded Republican primary race. No matter what thinks about the legitimacy of his candidacy, campaign or tactics, he has used Twitter quite effectively to get his campaign narrative and platform out there for the world to see. Tobe Berkovitz, an advertising professor and former consultant in politics credits this to an oversimplification of political communication. Berkovitz explains “Trump tweets something and all of a sudden that’s the scroll bar on cable news for an hour…How pathetic is that? 140 characters and that’s your lead.” Twitter, by its nature, is geared towards producing soundbites in the soundbite culture we live in, as explained by Hamby (2013). It is also true because of the way people want to consume short blurbs of information online, rather than long paragraphs. Short blurbs of concise information are seen as valuable because they are informative and convenient.

Once a candidate’s projected narrative is out there, it is not up them how it is received or whether it takes hold as the dominant narrative. In this way, a candidate’s narrative is akin to a brand’s identity, where it is co-created by the company and the consumer because it is just as much a part of their lives than it is to the company. Nowadays, this is usually negated and mediated through consumer engagement with the brand on the website and on social media. In Trump’s case, this is where his campaign has fallen a bit short. Whether it was Trump’s Twitter fight with a Modern Family writer, Fox News Channel contributor Michelle Malkin or media mogul Arianna Huffington, the feuds and potshots, both directed at him and ones that he fires back, detracts from his campaign’s messages and trivializes his campaign narrative.

How important do you think dominant narratives are to the 2016 presidential candidates?

Prisoner’s dilemma in the doctor’s office

Shirky (2008) described a story where two robbers stole, crashed it a half mile down the road and were subsequently arrested by the police. At the police station, both robbers are sticking to the same story, so when the police officer interviews them individually, he offers each robber a first-come, first-serve deal. The first robber to cooperate with police will get a significant reduced sentence or none at all, while the robber gets charged, but if both robbers stick to their stories, they will be held overnight and release because the police do not have an evidence of who committed the crime. Shirky (2008) detailed the simplified payoff matrix to the situation with the four possible outcomes as follows:

1. We each stick to our stories, they’ve got no evidence, and they keep us both overnight. 2. I stick to the bystander story and you turn me in. You get a reward, while I get charged. 3. I turn you in while you stick to the story. I get a reward, while you get charged. 4. We turn each the other in. We both get charged (p. 189).

This is an example of the Prisoner’s dilemma, a thought experiment first conceived by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher in 1950, where the prisoners may not make the most rational decision of both sticking to their stories and getting released the next morning because they cannot communicate with each other and coordinate their strategy.

The Prisoner’s dilemma is considered a social dilemma. According to Hittleman (2012) on the WordPress blog Tech for Social Change, “Social dilemmas occur when individuals put their interests ahead of group interests or make decisions that can be detrimental to the group as a whole.” Hittleman (2012) continued by saying “…Individuals often make choices that negatively affect group members because they do not see how everyone can benefit or they do not want to put in the effort of contribution.”

One place one would not typically associate with having any of them would be the doctor’s office. According to Johnson (2015), the doctor-patient relationship has mirrored the Prisoner’s dilemma in recent years. Johnson (2015) explains the following situation:

A patient seeking opioids for pain may have real pain or may be faking. If he has real pain, the rational choice for the doctor is to treat him. If he has fake pain, it is still in the doctor’s best interest to treat the patient. Otherwise, the patient will give him a low satisfaction score — resulting in loss of reputation and reduced income.

This leads to the doctor prescribing the antibiotics anyway, which is in this case are opioids, against their medical advice because they either know the patient will become so insistent on prescribing the antibiotics that they will go seek another medical opinion until they get the treatment they desire or the doctor does not want to argue with the patient any longer because they have other patients wanting to see them.

The quick  solution to a social dilemma leads to bigger societal complications.

This especially comes into play today in the modern view of the health system in the United States. Previously, the patient’s symptoms were assessed and they were provided with the best available treatment, but in today’s marketplace, the health system is trying to cut costs from rigorous medical testing of treatments, while still trying to improve health (Johnson, 2015). The patients want antibiotics cheaper of what they think will be the treatment, but doctors want more thorough testing done to prove it is safe before antibiotics hit the market, which creates The Prisoner’s dilemma.

To compound this issue, the over prescribing of antibiotics is causing the evolution of “superbugs,” which include “E. coli, salmonella, MRSA, supergonorrhea” (Newsday Editorial Board, 2015). Superbugs are antibiotic-resistant because bacteria has to find ways to repel the proliferation of antibiotics, which creates stronger, more complex bacteria.

Shirky (2008) argues we can gear for and reduce social dilemmas, but we can never solve them completely. Social tools make it easier for society to prepare for the various social dilemmas created because it is easier to amplify the message for collective action. Much like Shirky’s (2008) discussion of the power of hashtags to inspire calls for collective action, the same can be done to curb our addiction to antibiotics.

Will the power and the amplification of social tools be enough to curb this trend of superbugs or will superbugs, which are increasingly growing in this technological age take hold?

Recognizing Revolution

The revolution in the ways in which we socialize, share information, and organize that Shirky (2010) discusses in Here Comes Everybody is upon us. In past posts on this blog and through continuing discussions, the rate of change has been a thread that has driven the conversation about how society is able to process and embrace the technological changes and impacts around us. Considering the emergence of Twitter as Shirky’s book was first published brings to light the questions of longevity, especially in a year where Twitter’s stock has dropped and its future long-term appeal remains questionable.

Our ability to connect online—to open source information, code, and ideas has already revolutionized the workforce and the way in which we pursue and distribute our ideas. Consider the underwater robot that David Lang and Eric Stackpole built in an effort to explore an underwater cave to search for gold. Clay Shirky presents the story of Linux and the way in which open sourcing and collaboration has guaranteed its success and initial promise. In similar, but much smaller scale, Lang and Stackpole put their idea out to the larger community online for feedback and help in building a robot that would help them explore an underwater cave.

The results of their pursuit provide evidence of the revolution that is happening around us. Unsure of what design would work best, Lang and Stackpole put two designs online. The result, their final product, was an underwater robot that could be built cheaply with parts easily available to the general public. It is important to note again that their efforts were born out of a personal interest to explore; they went into their endeavor without any pre-conceived expectations or predictions about the larger results their quest might produce.

The result of their quest produced a much larger outcome than simply finding the best design for them to build for their personal exploration. Due to the open source nature, they did receive a lot of input and help in the design of their remote control vehicle (ROV). Throughout it all they shared their design, code, and successes with everyone. The larger result was that their viewers and contributors wanted one too. An effort to explore a cave turned into a business proposition. Using Kickstarter, a network that Shirky (2010) was too early to discuss, they were able to fund their business start-up, distributing ROVs far beyond the geographical area of their small cave where they wanted to search for gold. Another unexpected outcome was the network of affordable underwater robots that are now connected and capable of collecting data across the globe.

Any person with an idea has an opportunity to find an audience and seek out expert advice through the connectedness that the Internet provides. Shirky (2010) identified the ways in which this was empowering in 2010. The small example of David Lang and Eric Stackpole captures even more of the ways in which the Internet has empowered the “everyman”. One small personal pursuit grew into a valuable environmental collection tool.

The revolution is happening now and it is around us. While Twitter and other social media tools may lose some of their shine, real change has arrived in the ways in which we learn, socialize, and organize. The opportunity to grow an idea and make a difference is one that is now accessible to the “everyman”. The question is not whether or not a revolution will happen, it is here. In what other ways have society’s behaviors already changed? What implications will open sourcing have in regards to the workplace and economy?

Shirky, Clay. (2010). Here Comes Everybody. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

The Power of Online Groups

The cost of sharing and coordinating has dropped substantially in the last decade, allowing unorganized groups to work together quickly and effectively through shared awareness. New social tools and methods of communication help ordinary people organize groups and events with little effort or planning. Shirky (2008) argues that the documentation of information is directly connected with the rate of group organizing. He explains that social tools (like blogs) allow people to produce permanent, public documentation by publishing information online at relatively no cost. Shirky elaborates on this point, explaining that to “speak online is to publish, and to publish online is to connect with others. With the arrival of globally accessible publishing, freedom of speech is now freedom of the press, and freedom of the press is freedom of assembly” (p. 171).

In addition to promoting social awareness, public documentation also creates new possibilities for action and change: “Whenever you improve a group’s ability to communicate internally, you change the things it is capable of” (Shirky, 2011, p. 171). As a result, groups can have both a positive and negative social effect. Shirky explains that the distinction between real and online life is becoming increasingly blurred, changing how we exchange information and interact with one another. The internet provides a space for people to meet other like-minded individuals and form groups without the need for social approval. On the other hand, this freedom also extends to criminal and terrorist groups, making it easier for them communicate and organize. Shirky explains that social tools only amplify our existing capabilities and the receptiveness of a social tool depends on its value in comparison to existing practices.

This week’s reading made me think of a current news story involving the cancellation of two public discussions scheduled to take place at the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival in March 2016, in Austin, Texas. According to the Washington Post, the SXSW festival is one of the largest technological conferences in the country. The cancellation of two panel discussions- one on gaming journalism integrity and the other on harassment in gaming- resulted from “numerous threats of on-site violence”. This occurred after the forums were linked to Gamergate, an online community known for harassing  women (game developers, users, critics)  involved in the gaming industry, using the hashtag Gamergate as a digital signature. Gamergate users have been accused of various acts of harassment including: posting misogynistic comments, publishing personal information (private phone numbers and addresses), as well as rape and death threats. The Washington Post describes the Gamergate controversy as “the undying culture war around diversity and inclusion in video games”. In a statement, SXSW event planners explained that to ensure the safety of attendees they felt they needed to cancel  the discussions. The cancellation has created a lot of public backlash, especially because one of the forums was based on digital harassment.

One of the panel’s speakers, Caroline Sinders, gave copies of her communications with SXSW organizers to the Washington Post which highlight the neglect of the event organizers. Sinders claims that the Gamergate community is well-known for online harassment and that event planners ignored her request for security provisions prior to the event’s cancellation. She believes the events could have gone on as scheduled if planners acknowledged the social impact of digital harassment and the need for organizers to take these matters seriously. Rather than confront the very issues leading to the panel discussion, SXSW decided to avoid the conflict by cancelling the forums altogether.

I think this article illustrates how online groups can use social tools for destructive purposes. Do you think the SXSW planners were justified in cancelling the panel discussions? Is it possible to manage online harassment without sacrificing anonymity or user freedom?

References

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody. Penguin Books.

Man Seeking Diagnosis. All Symptoms Welcome.

Self-diagnosing has always been pretty popular with people in this day and age. Instead of going to the doctor, it’s much easier to either decide what your ailment is yourself, or to ask a friend who is clearly an expert. When the Internet started booming, it made it even easier for a person to look up any symptoms they might be having. Self-diagnosis has never been so easy.

The rapid growth of social media has made it even easier. On a regular basis, people are posting Facebook statuses about a cough they have, or tweeting about whether or not it’s a good idea to have a dental procedure on a tooth that has been giving them a lot of trouble.

Self-diagnosis is something that we are frequently told is a bad thing to do. By diagnosing ourselves, or listening to someone who isn’t considered an expert, we’re exposing ourselves to a lot more issues and problems in the long run because we really don’t know if our diagnosis is correct. Even I’m guilty of this. I’m a frequenter of Googling what’s wrong with me instead of taking the time to make an appointment to see my doctor.

I thought about this a lot when I was reading Shirky’s chapter on Solving Social Dilemmas. Part of the chapter is about a class that he taught at NYU, and one of the students in the class.

The student in his class worked for the magazine YM. The magazine had a set of bulletin boards online where people could go on and connect with each other. It was a great way for teenagers to talk about issues they were having or things that they liked. However, Shirky was shocked when his student told him they were shutting the bulletin board for health and beauty, something that would be an important subject for teenage girls. According to Shirky (2008) “… she said, ’Most of the girls were fine, but we couldn’t figure out how to stop this one group of girls from swapping tips on remaining anorexic’” (pp. 203-204).

According to Shirky (2008) “The problem for YM wasn’t that the bulletin board had failed to get the interest of their readers. The problem was that it had succeeded in a way for which YM was unprepared” (p. 204). When you’re creating a bulletin board to help people, no one really expects that it will take a turn like this. However, the people using this board don’t see what they’re doing as wrong or unhealthy. They think they’re helping themselves. It’s the same with people who seek out help from the Internet when they’re suffering an ailment. They don’t see it as being an invalid resource for medical help. It’s the right thing for them to do to help themselves.

According to Shirky (2008) “The shock turns out to be misplaced: the Pro-Ana movement is in fact a self-help movement, because the content of a self-help movement is determined by its members The logic of self-help is affirmation— a small group bands together to defend its values against internal and external challenges” (p. 208). These girls were trying to seek help from others that they trusted. Even if they didn’t know them, they felt a connection from sharing the same disorder. It’s the same with self-diagnosis. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen people enlisting the help of faceless strangers, asking on a message board about their depression or what their cold symptoms could mean. It seems strange, but it really isn’t. People see the Internet as a resource and they believe that it’s a valid resource even if professionals say that it isn’t.

So, here’s my question for you: Do you think it’s bad for people to seek out the help of others on the Internet instead of seeking the help of a professional? Or do you think diagnosis should be left to the professionals?

References

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations (pp. 203-204, 208). New York: Penguin Press.

Social Death

Clay Shirky refers to human beings as “social creatures” all the time. So what happens when you take the social out of the creature? With 2.2 million people in incarceration in the United States, their social has been taken. In 2005, a study conducted shows that 25,000 prisoners were held in solitary confinement, a hard stat to judge because solitary confinement from state- state varies by name. Only 44 States refer to it as solitary confinement, others refer to it as special management  units or isolation cells. The 25,000 prisoners is a lot higher than what is reported and collected as data. When the census was done in 2000 the results showed that 81,622 inmates were in some type of solitary confinement, this number does not include juveniles in solitary confinement in the United States.

 “One of the most severe punishments that can be meted out to a prisoner is solitary confinement; even in a social environment as harsh and attenuated as prison, complete removal from human contact is harsher still.”(15)

What are the effects of prisoners in solitary confinement? According to an article published in The New York Times. Research shows that solitary confinement worsens mental illness and symptoms started with prisoners with no history of illness. Research for this article was done at Pelican Bay State Prison in California one of the country’s toughest penal institutions. The study was done to show the psychological effects of isolation on prisoners. It started in 1993 and again 20 years later. The researchers were astonished to see the sum of the same prisoners were still in solitary confinement 20 years later. As the study concluded, it was determined that severe isolated men produce a “social death”. Prisoners involves spoke about being human experiments, struggling to remain sane, withdrawn, shining human conversation, and extremely disoriented.  After being released from solitary confinement the research shows that the prisoner still experienced the psychological effects of the isolation. They would avoid crowds, they felt overwhelmed. Not able to relate, a feeling of dizziness, developed obsessive compulsive disorders, they didn’t enjoy physically being touched. Some show signs of having a difficulty thinking, decreased impulse control, panic attacks and worse some committed suicide.

According to Dr. Terry Kuper, “Human beings require to very basic things social interaction and meaningful activity. By doing things we learn who we are and we learn our worth as a person. The two things solitary confinement does not make people solitary and idol.”

Is this rehabilitation? Does solitary confinement make prisoners more dangerous? Is it possible for inmates to adjust to the confinement? Do we as a society want a person who’s been in solitary confinement  entering back into society? Is there an alternative to solitary confinement so inmates could have more social interaction?

 

REFERENCES

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody. New York. Penguin Books.

Goode, Erica. “Solitary Confinement: Punished for Life” The New York Times. Aug 2015. Print

Gossip 2.0

Clay Shirky describes in his book “Here comes everybody” how internet and social media influence group dynamics and organizations. “Groups of people are complex, in ways that make those groups hard to form and hard to sustain; much of the shape of traditional institutions is a response to those difficulties. New social tools relieve some of those burdens, allowing for new kinds of group-forming, like using simple sharing to anchor the creation of new groups” (p. 25). Since people don’t have to publish on newspapers and therefore aren’t restricted by gatekeepers or limited space anymore, everyone can publish his opinion Platforms for this may be blogs like wordpress.

However this reminds me a lot on what gossip provided to larger groups in the early centuries. For most people gossip is connected with something negatively and should have stopped. But in fact gossip enables us to act effective in large groups. Gossip can be defined as the exchange of information with evaluative content about absent third parties (Foster, 2004). Dunbar explains in his theory how with the growth of the group size of monkeys also the amounts of grooms are rising and it is a time intense activity for the group. This is the reason that humans living in large groups developed language to be more effective. Because humans are only able to have an average group size of about 150 people, they need to speak about third parties. Therefore through talking about persons with other persons they can enlarge their network size, are able to be more effective and able to do it while performing other tasks. Persons use gossip with the purpose of enlarging their networks and to gather information in a fast way. Additionally people can only observe a certain amount of networks or people.

Reading Shirky’s book I had to wonder if the internet is in fact a Gossip 2.0. At this point of our society, we are having more knowledge than we can handle effectively and due to the global village the society is also growing closer together. It allows us to publish and process data without limits and more effective. Is it a new form of language?

And indeed Clay Shirky seems to consider this and talks about the challenges of groups complexity.(p. 29) or about gossip itself. In the video below Shirky addresses, how gossip matters. What do you think, is the Internet indeed kind of an extended new version of gossiping?

References

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2004). Gossip in an evolutionary perspective. Review of General Psychology, 8, 100–110.

Rosnow, R. & Foster, E.K. (2004). Rumor and Gossip Research. American Psychological Association.

Shirky, Clay (2008). Here comes everybody. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Boost Awareness, Boost Sales

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With the development of technology in social networking sites, this creates an opportunity for groups to reach their potential.  The ultimate goal of sports administration professionals is to create successful organizations both on and off the field, these groups include professional sports teams, university sports programs, and local youth sports.  The financial side of the sports world is vital to the success of the overall program.  Filling the stadiums with fans will increase revenue through ticket sales, concession purchase, and merchandise sales.  All of these profits benefit to the overall success of the program during the course of the year.  Relatively new, social networking sites can be used to increase these profits and develop a successful organization.  With a strong presence in place, it then turns over to the group “fans” to really get the ball rolling.  It requires the group to share, cooperate, and act together as described by Clay Shirkey in his book Here Comes Everybody.  Using Shirkey’s thoughts on group practice, a sports professional, or any business professional can use this framework to increase sales on their end.

Social Networking Sites, such as Facebook have a feature called “share”.  A user on the web uses this feature to “share” a message that a page has conveyed on their own page.  For example, a university creates an athletics page covering all news, upcoming events, and information on the sports teams.  Users can share this information on their own page increasing the number of users that the page reaches.  This puts extra emphasis on the strength of the page itself, it must be strong in writing, visually appealing, and evoke emotion.  Having a strong base will get users to share this page which will lead to increased sense of pride of the program itself.  Going back to the group sharing being the main driver in this discussion.  If an online presence can develop a following from a group of the population, it will then lead to more followers by this core group sharing about the organization.  The sharing goes from the organizations page to the individual user’s page which will eventually lead to users checking out the original page itself.

Sharing then leads into the cooperation of the group as a whole when dealing with the development of the organization.  The organization thrives off the consistent sharing of information that is leaving this form of media.  It requires cooperation by both the users and the administrators of the page to always accommodate.  Feedback is a great way to increase the cooperation of the group itself.  By taking feedback from the users, the page administrators can make changes to reach the full potential of the page’s purpose, which is to increase fan support.  By developing a strong page, it will increase the cooperation of the core users, which will in turn increase the number of the core.  The larger the core the better chance the page has to reach the full potential of users.

Taking the action is the third phase to increasing this revenue numbers.  It requires the group to act on the information that is presented.  In the case of sports organizations, it’s all about filling the seats.  A strong internet presence sharing base with cooperation of the users means nothing if it is not invoking an action.  Success can be measured by how many users take action from the page.  For example, if a sports organization is advertising a big rivalry game the main goal is to sell out on tickets.  This is the most important part to any online advertiser for a sports organization, but also the hardest to achieve.  Building a core of users and getting information out is made easier with the internet.  The strength of the sharing aspect and cooperation of users will determine the success of the action taken phase will increase.

Overall, online social networking sites can be used to increase revenue to a particular business if group dynamics are taken into consideration.  By building a strong base, a group will share this for others to check out the page.  With consistent cooperation from a group of people the advertisement will reach the highest potential of users.  Which will in turn lead to action being taken, from what the administrator is looking for.

Global climate change: Tragedy on the Horizon?

The world has been faced with an ever-present debate about the increasingly daunting problem of climate change. While this global issue has been a hotbed of controversy and discussion in that time, it is an expedited issue, rather than a new one.

According to Harding (2007), Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier uncovered in the 1820’s that “greenhouse gases” trap heat after energy is absorbed from the sun. In 1868, John Tyndall theorized that the ice ages were the result of a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It was discovered later that an increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would gradually cause a raise in global temperatures by 5-6°C. It was not until 1938 when Guy S. Callender found a trend in the 19^th century, where the burning of fossil fuels had raised the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 10 percent. By the 1960’s, an increasing amount of data from greenhouse gas emissions, empirical evidence that global temperatures were increasing and complex, mathematical models to predict future changes to the global climate. Since the 1960’s, the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 “to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection” and the  Group of Twenty (G20) summit in 1999 of the world’s twenty largest economies to study, review and promote high-level policy and financial stability issues have legitimized and centralized global climate change and allow for consistent and more strict policies, regulations and mandates to try to curb goal climate effects.

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim released The Inconvenient Truth in 2006 where he followed former presidential candidate Al Gore on his lecture circuit to raise public awareness of the realities and dangers of global climate change and immediate calls to action to reduce the environmental degradation caused by human activity.

The global climate change issue has been thought of as an example of “tragedy of the commons.” Shirky (2008) explains this economic concept was first described by biologist Garrett Hardin in 1968 to understand how shared resources are overused and eventually depleted impacting the collective. Shirky (2008) said of the tragedy of the commons, “…while each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are arrayed against that outcome” (p. 52). This means while everyone can agree that steps should be taken to curb our impact on the environment, we cannot get everyone to buy-in to the outcome because we are still offering voluntary incentives to more expensive technology, like tax breaks on businesses that use green technologies, so the use of the resources is weighed against the more expensive green technologies

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, delivered a speech last month warning how global climate change posed major threats to businesses and the economy, in terms of financial stability. “We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors — imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix,” Carney said. “In other words, once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.” Carney sees global climate change as a “tragedy of the horizon,” rather than a tragedy of the commons because its problems and potential crippling implications are on a timescale beyond what any authority plans for, in terms of business or political cycles, that this problem full of uncertainty is not a concern of any authority because they do not have to confront implications that are on the horizon.

Unlike Carney’s assertion of the issue being tragedy on the horizon, rather than tragedy of the commons, it is both. While the implications and responsibility probably will not be felt or enacted upon until the horizon is closer, the issue is not temporal bound nor is it the sole responsibility of authorities to correct. As we burn more fossil fuels today, not only are we dealing with the bigger implications on the horizon, but we are also impacted by the smaller side effects of it  today (current dynamic climate patterns). Additionally, global climate change affects and impacts all forms sentient life on all levels, not just macro concerns of businesses, economies, the environment and the financial stability of the system, but also mirco concerns like the quality and way of life for all lifeforms in the biosphere.

“The Art of Asking”: Is Crowdfunding the Way of the Future?

With the rapid growth of the Internet, the outlet for producing and selling music has grown enormously. It used to be really difficult for a musician to get their start. It would require a large amount of work, and the aspiring hopefuls had to keep their fingers crossed that someone would hear their music and sign them to a label.

Eventually websites such as Myspace came along, and it made things a bit easier for musicians to get the word out about their music, but it still wasn’t an easy platform. Some musicians, such as Minnesota-based band Owl City, got their start there, but some still struggled to get the recognition that they needed.

Getting signed was ultimately the way to get a professional quality album out. Now, that’s not necessarily the case. I still wouldn’t say that it’s easy, however, websites such as Kickstarter and Gofundme have made it more doable for musicians, or anybody really, to get the funding they need/want for the project that they’re working on.

So, what is crowdfunding? Basically it’s a campaign started by a person and they are asking for a certain amount of money to fund whatever project they’re working on. Anyone can contribute however much or little they want in crowdfunding.

A great example of this is Amanda Palmer. Unhappy with her label, Palmer fought to get away from her label and released her latest album via crowdfunding.

According to Palmer (2013) “…I turned to crowdfunding. And I fell into those thousands of connections that I’d made, and I asked my crowd to catch me. And the goal was 100,000 dollars. My fans backed me at nearly 1.2 million, which was the biggest music crowdfunding project to date.”

Artists, musicians, and anyone who needs help, has the ability to ask for money. To ask for help when they need it. However, crowdfunding gets a lot of flack. People think it’s solely a person asking for a handout. Palmer suffered a lot of criticism for crowdfunding her album because people didn’t think someone who had previously been on a label should be asking for money. But why? Is it wrong for people to utilize the Internet to get the support they need for what they love?

According to Shirky (2008) “We are so natively good at group effort that we often factor groups out of our thinking about the world” (p. 16). I think a huge contributing factor is that a lot of people think it’s shameful to ask for help, even if they need it. However, with the Internet at our disposal, asking for help has never been easier. The growth of technology has made it so easy for people to share their art and music. Reading Shirky’s writing showed proof that if we work together, we can help produce something awesome.

According to Shirky (2008) “When we change the way we communicate, we change society) (p. 17). If crowdfunding is going to continue to be a valid source of producing projects, the way people look at it needs to change. So, let me ask you: How do you feel about crowdfunding? Do you think it’s wrong for a person to implement the help of many so they can raise money? Or do you think this is something that should continue to grow? Personally, I think crowdfunding is a great way for people to produce something that they may not have the chance to because money isn’t readily available. I think it’s a tool that can be used to our advantage.

References

Palmer, A. (2013, February). The art of asking. Retrieved October 20, 2015, from https://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking?language=en

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations (p. 16, 17). New York: Penguin Press.