Truthiness in a Connected World-Part 1 - Shelly Palmer - MediaBizBloggers

Over the next few weeks we are going to explore the concepts and constructs of Truth with a capital quotTquot truth with a lower case quottquot truthiness as coined by Stephen Colbert reality wikiality also coined by Stephen Colbert and facts as they apply to our connected worldWhat is True I don39t really want to delve into the metaphysical or philosophical nature of truth I39m simply trying to help us define and label a baseline Are facts true By definition they are Barack Obama won the presidential election and is at this writing the President of the United States This is a fact By definition it is trueI have a new favorite quote that I truly overuse by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan quotamp8230 you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own factsquot We can all agree that facts are true can39t we No we can39t Here39s an experiment my son and coauthor Jared devised to test the practical existence of factObjective Explore the way facts truth and narrative affect crowds and groups Observe the relationship between fact truth and narrative and apply the findings to the future of social networking news and mass mediaApparatus A ball is dropped off a table The ball has a special coloration and pattern such that people who are colorblind see it as a distinctly different color than people who aren39t colorblind After having the subjects view the event they will be asked to describe itHypothesis Everyone will agree on the fact that the ball dropped We will call this a quotsuperclusterquot The colorblind individuals will say that the ball was one color the noncolorblind people will say that the ball was another color There will also be at least two distinct quottruth clustersquot those who are colorblind and those who are not color blindMy son spends a little too much time in his college physics lab but I like the physics metaphors we are using here because information seems to travel in particles and waves just like energy Here39s how 20th century physics might help you think about the 21st century information problem we39re discussingWhat is true in the 21st century With a little bit of help from Einstein39s special relativity we know that 1 There is no way to distinguish between reference frames and that 2 The laws of physics hold true in all reference framesIn one of Einstein39s famous gedanken thought experiments he showed that simultaneity is relative to the observer Although relativistic effects such as time dilation and length contraction can39t be seen day to day there are some important implications of Einstein39s postulates No two people observe the same event the same way and both observers are correct though the numerical values of physical observations may differ If that39s the case then what actually happens Who is right and who is wrong Who can be trusted ExamplesBarack Obama is the president of the United States of America North Carolina is closer to the North Pole than South Carolina There was a ball in the aforementioned experiment that hit the floorA Truth according to mw is quotthe state of being the case the body of real things events and facts A judgment proposition or idea that is true or accepted as true the property as of a statement of being in accord with fact or realityquot ExamplesThe ball was blue The ball was red The ball was painted such that colorblind people thought it was a different color than those who saw it who were not colorblindWhat happens when the colorblind observers find out that the ball appeared a different color to noncolorblind observers A certain number of them will adjust their facts Will all of them Should theyTruth Narrative Authority Reality and WikialityStephen Colbert coined the term quottruthinessquot I like it This idea will become surprisingly important in the future as the source of news becomes more important Here39s the dilemma1 A leftwing cable news show reports some aspects of a physical event2 A rightwing cable news show reports other aspects of the same physical event3 My friend on Twitter who claims to have been a witness reports other aspects4 My friend on Facebook reports some mixture without any qualifying statements5 Another friend on Facebook or Twitter writes an opinionated statement about the eventSo what actually happened What is fact and what is narrative Who has more truthiness What is the reality What is the Wikiality Are these the same Which source should I trust Who has the narrative authorityThe way to solve this problem is to filter and give weight to each source Marshall McLuhan said quotthe medium is the messagequot but in the 21st century we say quotthe median is the messagequot If you are going to report the news then you are going to have to be able to make the distinction between fact and fiction truth and narrative reality and wikiality The median the measure of the central tendency will become the accepted truth along the same lines as political philosopher John Stuart Mill39s idea of the tyranny of the majority Stephen Colbert coined this idea as quotWikialityquot Urbandictionarycom defines it as quota reality as determined by general consensus rather than cold hard facts If enough people say it is true then it is truequot JS Mill noted that the majority isn39t always right it just so happens to be the most accepted If we think about each physical event as a single data point then the lines we draw to connect these lines can be thought of as the narrative Think about giving meaning to random events as the equivalent of statistical curve fittingThe accepted narrative will either be the most compelling to us or the one that is closest to the Truth Maybe the best narrative doesn39t even connect all the lines perhaps it is merely a line of best fit Regardless of its shape adding narrative comforts us because it lets us piece together random events giving life a seeming progression and meaning and the ability to cope with nihilismUnder these circumstances it makes sense that the key to narrative authority and Truth dominance is to tap into this narrative addiction and give the consumeruseraudience the most truthful data points or the most compelling narrativeBut what happens when the truth is not the most compelling narrativeTo be continuedShelly Palmer is the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology media ampamp entertainment He is the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2008 New York House Press and the upcoming Get Digital Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy 2009 Lake House Press Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences NY the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards For information about Get Digital Classes visit httpwwwshellypalmercomseminars Watch Digital Life with Shelly Palmer Tuesdays at 10p ET on WNBC39s NY Nonstop httpwwwshellypalmercomdigitallifeRead all Shelly39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Shelly Palmer MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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Truthiness in a Connected World-Part 1 - Shelly Palmer - MediaBizBloggers

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