Journalism in the Age of digital complexity
(Text based on a Portuguese original, translated with the help of Google Translator and Grammarly)
The controversy over environmental degradation on the planet has been going on for at least 50 years without the reduction of CO2 emissions by motor vehicles having been universalized until now. Everyone knows the consequences, but the advances were millimetric for a simple reason: it is a complex problem, where concepts such as good or bad, fair or unfair and right or wrong cannot provide the answers and promote the changes we want and need.
Journalism is part of this frustration because it is through it that people receive the data, facts and events that influence the way we see the world in which we live. And journalism, no matter in which country, is still deeply contaminated by an approach to reality based on a dichotomous view, that is, that news has two sides. Almost all currently existing writing manuals recommend consulting both sides of an issue when producing a journalistic report.
But issues such as the environmental crisis are increasingly presented as complex, that is, with more than one side and all sides influencing each other. The information avalanche on the internet is generalizing the news complexity by making available countless different versions and interpretations about the same piece of data, fact or event. We are immersed in an environment of oversupply information where dichotomous concepts can no longer provide the desired answers.
A more recent example, in Brazil, is the heated debate over the regulation of digital platforms that host social networks, the controversial Bill 2630. In the same law project, Brazilian legislators want to find solutions for problems as diverse as the regulation of high-tech companies, the survival of the traditional press, the remuneration of journalists and a body to supervise the operation of conglomerates that control Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and Whatsapp, just to name the best-known online vehicles.
The great dilemma for journalism in the coming years will be to seek a complex way of approaching controversial issues. For now, the only thing known is that the technique of listening to both sides no longer works. It does not work, because it is no longer able to give the real dimension and consequences of the subject of a report, such as the Amazon deforestation, as well as contributing to regrettable Manichaean developments, as happened during the recent investigations about corruption in the government. During the news coverage of the so-called Lava Jato scandal, the newscasts dedicated generous minutes to denounce alleged corrupt practices and mere seconds to bureaucratically give the position of the other side.
The end of a journalistic dogma
The press has been accustomed for decades to approaching most news as a conflict between good and evil, between right and wrong, where one win and the other loses. In electoral campaigns, the spirit of horse racing prevails, and the main concern is who is ahead in the polls. The issues involved in the dispute for votes are in the background. There is an attempt to imprison reality in the straitjacket of the dichotomous view at the risk of compromising the reliability, accuracy, relevance and pertinence of news.
The press has always put itself in the position of having to be on the right side to steer the public in the right direction. The concern is laudable, but the reality is different. She also needs to abandon the informal dogma that she has the answers people are looking for. Journalists and media owners must take into account that the understanding of reality no longer depends on a few genius people or a few omniscient companies, but on social collectives, in which the different journalistic approaches are an integral part.
Thus, journalistic coverage in the era of informational complexity can no longer escape the fact that diversifying the publication of different perceptions becomes an absolute priority in the daily lives of journalists. The concern is no longer on delivering a ready-made product so that people can incorporate the journalistic recipe into their worldview.
This is a change that will require a profound change in habits, rules and values, both in journalism, in communication companies and the news consumers. We have too much information, so it’s impossible to know everything. If we don’t know everything, we will need help from those who know what we don’t know if we are to solve a complicated problem. We, as citizens, have no Other alternative apart from learning to coexist with doubts and uncertainty.
One of the most important challenges in the complex approach to the items included in the public agenda of debates is the need for journalism to identify in detail the diversity of interests and motivations hidden in the published data, facts and events. This concern already exists today in writing manuals, but the usual practice of reporters and editors is no longer able to account for the diversity and complexity of news, given the pressure for immediacy and novelty.
In these circumstances, individualism becomes counterproductive, creating the need for collective and integrated work in the exercise of journalism. Another development of the complex approach to news is incorporating the public as an integral part of the information production process. In the era of news-based communication (see details here) anyone with access to a blog, social network or follower of an influencer has, potentially, access to the public space of debates, contributing to complicate the already difficult journalistic task of seeing the world as something that is not limited to the two-sided rule.
