651-Final-Paper

Raymond Steding

Professor Iswari Pandey, Ph.D.
English 651
1 May 2017

The Truth Behind Today’s Social Cognitive Dissonance

Reltivity, relationships, and others responsibile for feelings of cognitive dissonance enter into the conversation of this essay as matters of perspective. I attempt to establish within the reader an understanding of how the interpretation of media may not be taken so seriously that it triggers an emotional response which in turn shuts down dialogue. My theme is to show how facts have a value of relevancy similar to a narrative that claims we are nearly out of water because the glass is half empty. But then that depends on so many things including perspective and the relevancy of such a fact. The fact then is subject to its position and the myriads of narratives that wish to capitalize on molding your perspective to fit a particular narrative. But let me go no further here because the facts we are dealing with come to us through media as at most are second hand facts. Keep in mind the value of things that come second hand from sources over the Internet and over mainstream media to you; they do not come without carrying gifts. The most notorious of these gifts is identification. Media would like to accommodate your, what Kenneth Burke might call, terministic screen and send messages through it as their own.

My argument is to explicate terministic screens and invalidate such strangleholds on unprovable opinionated facts that serve as actuaries for narratives of corporate and private entities. Reality demands the valuation of the narrative that accompanies second hand facts much less than the value of the facts that you gain when speaking with one another in dialogue during discussions arising out of ambiguities of interests beyond what are commonly shared among the speakers. To lay the basis for my claim that value on truthful items is relative and it is not the truthfulness of a fact that matters as nearly as does its relevancy to a first hand healthy relationships which will be there for the sharing of real experiences long after the truth has been proved or found its way to conform more meaningfully within its rightful place during its transformation of ambiguities into meaningful content. Aristotle's views on ethics and Kenneth Burke's key terms, consubstantiality and terministic screens provides the basis for my argument. Carl Gustav Jung’s statements on what took place leading up to World World II provide a cautionary point of reference for the processes of identification we see as a repeat of those who seek to identify rather than to individuate.

Censorship, propaganda, and freedom of the press all are all parts of this essay’s explication of how media establishes particular viewpoints that may be valued as opinions rather than facts. The narratives media establishes with the use of facts must be valued as opinions rather than taken as truths. Who knows the truth of falsity of things so far from first hand experience and what wise man would justify their identity by arguing accordingly? The exigency for resolving existing tensions must be addressed due to an acceleration of collective acts of violence and claims that instances of a de facto censorship--by Google’s search engine and its role in advertising revenues. If communications are shut down between those that have differing opinions then not only will conversation be silenced but also the possibility of the resolution of conflict through discussion. Indeed, if facts taken from media sources beyond our personal life's experience provide the foundation of the symbolic processes, both psychologically and ethically then we best be open for discussion as to how to deal with these psychological processes.

I introduce the dangers we face by way of Stephen Mi I offer the following video as to the virtues of free speech

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And, according to Professor John Duffy in his essay “‘The Good Writer: Virtue Ethics and the Teaching of Writing,’ we inhabit a rhetorical climate in which there is no widely shared agreement as to the nature of fact, or what counts as evidence, or how to interpret such evidence as may be presented” (242). The root of the problem is that the internet has opened media distribution to nearly all opinions rather than particular narratives of broadcast media.

It is not that one view is right and another wrong but the way that an internet user gains a sense of trust when visiting a website as compared to the way a viewer of mainstream media earns trust through identification with newscasters, or authors of newspaper columns. Our confidence in news sources binds our particular viewpoints through identification to the opinions that we hold. We value our communications with others because our sense of identity in part comes from others perception of us. Challenged beliefs become assaults on our character. Cognitive dissonance results because our identity producing function is at odds with our friend’s and our associate’s opinions. Hence the adage of not talking about politics or religion during family gatherings. All well and good at family gatherings but the never ending political views over both internet and broadcast media have given rise to strong responses from both sides. We can’t escape acquaintances at school, work or home whose opinions don’t differ. Social discord now points at censorship. By understanding that people have different opinions because of, what Burke calls, terministic screens we come to a realization of relevancy toward media information and become less emotional and more readily willing to concede. Relativising the value of opinions according to the understanding that information behind personal views comes from unreliable media sources results in a  less personal assault. We can then, to use a phrase quoted in Duffy’s essay, participate in “‘trustful talk among strangers’” (Allen, Duffy 244).

An excellent example of a discussion between two professionals that have very different political views is the interview entitled “The Truth About Fake News” by Chris Martenson Martenson who holds a Ph.D. degree in pathology from Duke University and an MBA degree from Cornell University. His guest is Melissa Zimdars, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College, the author of a list of news sites that became popularly known as the list of Fake News Sites.  Her site is OpenSources.co. And it has the mission statement: “to empower people to find reliable information online.” When Zimdars originally released her list, Peak Prosperity.com, Martenson’s website, appeared as one of the fake news sites. She has since removed Martenson’s site from the list. During the interview, Zimdars agrees with him about censorship being a bad idea. They both agree that trust in news sources is what causes people to continue relying on a source. Zimdars’s solution to obtaining accurate news information is to use what is referred to as triangulation--to obtain multiple viewpoints about a particular subject. Martenson emphasizes that his website backs up everything posted with links to the source documentation and states that the source documentation on websites is what enables him to have trust. [put in Zimdars’s OpenSources method somewhere]

   The interview revealed two different approaches for determining the credibility of website information and the overlap of Martenson’s reliance on supportive documentation onto Zimdars’s approach is apparent. This online essay is an example of how links to source documentation provide a level of credibility not available in broadcast media. Instead of soundbites web users have to ability to research entire documents to verify things aren’t taken out of context. Chris Martenson’s blog is another example of documentation embedded within a website. In his essay “The Relentless Push Towards War” Martenson links to five sources that provide a basis for his commentary. Although, sources alone may not convince a person that the article is truthful most internet sites depend on publishing truthful information since that is what provides a sense of identification within the viewer. Peak Prosperity depends on member subscriptions as well as advertising to survive. If viewership is low because of lack of identification with the site's content then the site will fail.

I call the dependence of sites to produce truthful well-founded information that leads to identification within the viewer open public review. It is a function of what Burke calls terministic screens. [Do my Burkian thing in two paragraphs]

   Several problems to determining the truthfulness of information appearing in media are that the United States Government may not be a democratic form of governance according to a Princeton study. And whether or not this is so the government has made propaganda legal by the repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1947 and the replacement of its definition with the Smith-Mundt Act of 2012; within the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 goes further and provides for the funding of media organizations to produce propaganda. Effectively what this means is that very little if anything that concerns government operations and this may include any and all “facts” related to political, scientific, economic, medical and so on may be fabricated according to the discretion of government personnel. Entire online independent media organizations may be co-opted, and propaganda me be spread over mainstream media. Therefore, anything that comes from mainstream media sources and anything that comes from internet media sources may be fake news. There may be no way to know unless you work for the department within the U.S. Government that produces the propaganda or their subcontracted media organizations. Except for researchers that establish facts how is an audience to know? And further, the fake news facts may serve an oligopoly at the expense of the populace.  

To expand on what I’ve said above, I’ll take a few quotes related to all three documents. The Princeton study “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” concludes that their “analyses suggest that majorities of the American public have little influence over the policies our government adopts . . . Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance . . . But [they] believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened” (577). The changes in the NDAA exacerbates that possibility.  [Find the original documents and quote from them. Include quotes from NDAAs.]

Several news outlets reported that the 2013 NDAA overturned a 64-year ban on the domestic dissemination of propaganda (described as "public diplomacy information") produced for foreign audiences, effectively eliminating the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences.[42][43][44][45] The social news media site BuzzFeed, for example, quoted an unnamed source saying the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 would allow “U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.”[44]

The Media and Outreach Coordinator for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, Gregory L. Garland, noted that the United States shoots itself in the foot by the release prohibition of materials produced by the State Department and the BBG within US borders and by preaching freedom of the press abroad while practicing censorship at home.[46] He argued against a complete repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 stating that the law "creates a statutory firewall between resources intended for foreign audiences and those used domestically. Tear down that firewall, and it will be a matter of time before resources and personnel who focus on talking about America overseas are diverted for domestic “public affairs,” the short-term political imperative of any administration."

[Refute the above with Snopes then conclude with, it doesn’t matter at this point kind of thing. Then onto Burke and identification or mix in Burkean stuff with the above.]

According to Burke, the farther away from direct personal experience we get, the farther we are away from the truth and caught up in our symbol producing system. When this system establishes itself on an unstable information system, I contend that this creates an internal sense of cognitive dissonance: symbols no longer represent the same thing to people. The sense of instability within our symbol producing system latches onto perceived truths within an unstable information system that seeks to return to stability by becoming polarized into a collective yet necessarily subjective agreement (since facts have become unknowable). It is now about the left and right, about what is true and what is not, what is good and what is bad, who is sexist, who is racist, and about just who it is that is the cause of my cognitive dissonance.  Thus the sense of cognitive dissonance divides us through its reliance on collectivism and prevents open discussion because discussions assault our personal collectively polarized identifications: our symbol producing system. Effectively, everyone has become othered into collectivist groups.

Recognition of the unreliability of today’s media sources and the tendency for cognitive dissonance to polarize/constellate onto collective consensus systems of belief should allow us to communicate through open discussions more easily. Direct discussions produce first-hand experiences and therefore the most verifiable fact based truths possible. Rather than division, the tension from cognitive dissonance should be motivation toward a rhetoric of ethics--persuasion with a commitment to the health of the conversation. Hopefully, I have shown that the truthfulness of media is at most tentative and at worst it is, impossible to disprove, fake news and government propaganda. The approach that I take as a student is one of skepticism that relies on the truthfulness of human interactions found in a discussion, deliberation, and participation with one another. The rest to me is "opinion" that is likely based on unreliable sources unless those sources come from before the enactment of the NDAA of 2013, and to some extent that includes peer-reviewed articles.

I value opinions from a perspective based on personal experience, and that allows me to discuss political and social issues without getting my personal identification within my symbol producing system threatened. Beliefs based on unstable truths from media sources are relative and therefore not a threat to my individuality.  I can concede and agree more easily because I have a sense of the overall scope of what we are dealing with when we speak about things that we have heard from media sources. That includes attitudes that we have gained, political positions, and alliances with collective social movements. The perspective positioned in the first-hand experience allows one to be, as Duffy says, committed to the health of the reader-writer [listener-speaker] connection” (241). The discourse then is not based on false information rattling around in a person’s symbol producing system but rather based on a position of personal experience that has the purpose of seeking to improve the “health of the connection” (Duffy 231).