talkback

Interesting comments from Janadas Devan on interaction on the Net. We won't email him about this; don't want to clog up his inbox!
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THINKING ALOUD
Continuous 'talk back' on the Net is here to stay
By Janadas Devan, ON WORDS

A COUPLE of months ago, I wrote a piece defending homosexuality in this space. As one might expect, it caused something of a fuss.
I received an extraordinary number of e-mail messages - more than 150, I think. Roughly half were supportive of my position - and these were generally short, most no more than a couple of sentences long; and roughly half took strong exception - and these were generally long, most exceeding 400 words, trailing quotations from Scripture.
Straits Times journalists are required to reply to readers who write to them. So I dutifully wrote back to my correspondents. A few among those who disagreed strongly with me replied to my replies. So I decided to conduct a small experiment.
Wondering how invested they were in their positions, how determined to debate, and how willing to do so in a civil tone, I decided I would engage three of my more forceful correspondents.
I knew I wasn't going to change their minds, and they must have known they weren't going to change mine. But I was curious to see how long the exchanges would last. Would my correspondents tire after a few rounds? Would they become agitated and angry? Would they decide I was a hopeless case and throw up their hands?
To my utter surprise, they didn't. Back and forth the exchanges went, the threads getting longer and longer, as my correspondents and I argued about theology and biology, history and the law.
The tone throughout was civil. They knew where I stood; they knew I knew where they stood; no minds were changed; and yet we were able to engage in a conversation. Not bad at all, considering the entrenched convictions on both sides.

IT IS customary among the mainstream media to bemoan the Internet. Politicians, government officials and academics, too, generally have a low opinion of what passes for informed opinion in chatrooms and on blogs. This should not be surprising, for much of what is found on the Internet is indeed shoddy.
There are chatrooms devoted to Singapore affairs that are extraordinarily vicious. Racist epithets are common, vile language the preferred mode, and ad hominem attacks on all and sundry - newsmakers as well as fellow chatroom participants, government officials as well as opposition figures - the usual procedure.

It would be a mistake, though, to regard these sites as representative. For one thing, there are not many of them. For another, an examination of the identities of their regular participants would reveal the same revolving cast, many of whom seem to know each other.
Presumably, they gather in these chatrooms to let off steam, though they don't seem to get much relief from their ventings. They seem mad as hell and appear determined to remain so in perpetuity. The bile they spew is unlikely to infect the rest of the online community, let alone the rest of Singapore.

Every society, including Singapore's, has always had ranters. The fact that the ranters can now rant online does not mean the universe of ranters will inevitably expand at an exponential rate. That didn't happen when other media - radio, television and, yes, books and newspapers too - first came on the scene; and there is no reason to believe it will with the Net.

As for blogs, they vary widely in quality. At one end, there are some exceptionally intelligent ones; at the other end, some exceedingly dumb ones; and in between, a vast grab bag of sense and nonsense. Naturally, the in-between bodes large, irritating experts and officials, who are apt to notice the nonsense and elide the sense. To quote historian Robert Conquest's First Law: 'Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on subjects he knows about.'

Since the Internet is filled with opportunities for the few who do know something about a particular subject to come across the many who don't, it is inevitable that the cultural elite and the experts should wring their hands in despair over what they come across on blogs.
Some perspective, though, would be in order. Journalists, especially, who turn up their noses at blogs, should at least have the honesty to admit that the mainstream media too can be described in similar terms - some good, some dumb, and in between, a vast grab bag of middling sense and sometimes outrageous nonsense. No more than the blogosphere, journalism is not rife with George Orwells.

More importantly, the critics are missing the fact that the online community is capable of regulating itself and sifting the wheat from the chaff. The extraordinary growth of Wikipedia - the online, reader-generated encyclopedia - is a case in point. Wikipedia does correct its errors; its contributors are generally self-critical; its open structure, allowing virtually anyone to edit entries, has not led to confusion.

One can observe the same process on The Straits Times website. Many articles on the site, news reports as well as commentaries, allow readers to offer comments. These are not always sharp or well-informed, but the more egregious ones are often corrected by other readers.
As a result, this newspaper now has a watchful community of online readers. They are not vast in number - particular subjects tend to draw the same cast of readers. But they do manage to train a critical eye not only on newsmakers and journalists, but also on themselves.

I followed a thread some weeks ago on Singlish. The discussion took a predictable course, with participants rehearsing familiar arguments from both the pro- and anti-Singlish perspectives. But occasionally, they broke new ground, and on one occasion, I was driven to consult a textbook on linguistics to refresh my memory of some of the technical terms cited in an entry. Almost all the participants on the thread were young.

Society has to get used to the fact that they want a say. Unlike their parents, who might have been content to read an article or listen to a speech without wanting to issue immediate responses, the young today insist on responding.
Journalists have to get used to the fact that readers would want to write back; and politicians and government officials have to get used to the fact that citizens would want to talk back - and not only at election times, but all the time.

This genie is out of the bottle and it would be impossible to stuff him back. For better or worse, the Net has spawned a continuous conversation. We just have to learn to conduct it in a civil and productive manner.

janadas@sph.com.sg (With thanks to ST)