Big Brother and Democracy

The proliferation of CCTV has led some people to fear that we are entering an Orwellian world in which, no matter where you are, Big Brother is watching you. But I think we are far closer to the other side of Orwell's dystopia, where things are the other way round and it is you who is always watching Big Brother! We now live in a world that is similar to that of Winston Smith in this regard: there are fewer and fewer places where you can avoid the numbing, incessant, glare of the screen. It is not clear to me that the proliferation of real-time, always-on, channels to our collective conscience will enhance our freedom.

The screen is everywhere. Some homes have one in almost every room. No pub is complete without several. At the baggage collection belt in airports you are beamed with ads about hotels and car rental. Some petrol stations now have screens at the pumps. Incredibly, flat screens are now appearing above the urinals in Dublin pubs.  Think about it. Even on your visit to the toilet, where you normally let your tipsy mind blissfully wander over what your friends were saying, even that little pleasure is now blasted away by the captive tedium of the moving image. And it gets worse: tech companies are now in a frenzied race to put a little TV screen on every mobile phone, or as they put it, in the palm of your hand. And not just your hand, everyone's hand. They dream of a world where reality TV and info-tainment are everywhere, all the time.

It is possible to argue that a proliferation of media channels is a good thing. We will all benefit from more competition for our attention, from more freedom to choose what we see and hear, and from more liberty about when and where we do so. But this view crumbles under the weight of the facts. Over the last few decades, as the number of TV channels, and the number of newspaper titles proliferated, the provision of content has become concentrated in fewer hands. More deregulation has seen the big owners increase their hold not just horizontally, but vertically as well: they own the content, and they own the distribution chain. Ironically then, the explosion in diversity is a mirage. It's purely technical – more gadgets and faster access to information, but the information itself is supplied by ever fewer sources.

In one sense we are getting what we deserve. Nowadays the general public are far more interested in new ways of getting information, than they are about its source or veracity. Does any of this matter? Well, it matters a great deal because it has the potential to undermine perhaps the most crucial achievement in the history of our civilisation: democracy. Transparent debate is the oxygen of democracy, and it is fairly obvious that concentrated ownership carries the risk of indulging vested interests in the choice of what we see and hear. This feeds back into the vital decisions we make – on how we treat the weakest in our societies, on how much regard we give to the environment, on how we should make peace or wage war. Democracy is a precious but imperfect tool, and we would do well to pay attention to any development that blunts it further.

So what is on all those screens anyway? Far more of just about everything except the kind of solid news and debate that underpins democracy. Much of what is broadcast as news is highly sensationalised. The TV news business – it is a business – makes profits by blasting shocks at the lightening rod of our emotions. Short bursts. Loud. Punchy. In Clinton's time we heard more about what he did on the couch of the oval office than what he did at his desk. In the wars in Iraq we saw repeated footage of ‘precision' strikes, and very little about the reality on the ground. In Ireland, an alien would be forgiven for thinking that our biggest problems are a massive crime wave (mostly hyped) and country wide road carnage (we are mid table by European standards, and per journey, probably near the safest). In short, much of what we get as news is just dramatised trivia or emotional arousal.

One feature of modern instantaneous news is that everyone gets the punchy story at the same time. Thus if the story prods an emotion, a whole population feels it at the same time. The result is often peculiar and seldom constructive. If the story conveys, for example, a perceived insult, the result is collective anger that sometimes bursts out in a kind of mass hysteria. A kind of Danish cartoon affect – where, across the Muslim world, effigies were burnt in the streets and waves of spontaneous violence surged forth. There was little room for debate on the very real challenges faced by Muslim countries, or those faced by the West in engaging them.

The case of the British chancellor on a trade visit to India is similarly odd. Gordon Brown had travelled to the subcontinent to talk about Britain's relationship with one of the world's great emerging powers. But when there he found himself fielding questions about a rather dreadful reality TV show on Channel 4.

For his first stop, Brown had chosen a city that is the ultimate symbol of the globalisation of technology. Bangalore is where hundreds of western companies have built large subsidiaries to which they have outsourced key projects in the development of the technologies that will drive instantaneous delivery of news and information in the coming decades.

It's the instantaneous and ubiquitous nature of news delivery that provoked the demonstrations which blighted the chancellor's visit. That a Briton had apparently insulted an Indian celebrity on Big Brother was beamed across the world in real-time. Hundreds of thousands of Indians took it personally. It was like hitting a gigantic, collective raw nerve. Effigies were burned and crowds convulsed in the streets. The Indian government expressed its concern at racism in Britain. Ironically, for all its flaws, Britain is one of the most tolerant and multi-cultural nations in the world, while India is among the most unequal and discriminatory. Clashes between Muslim and Hindu are frequently bloody, and despite all efforts the caste system remains intact. The chancellor must have been perplexed.

The Big Brother episode is typical of how global, instantaneous media perverts the permanent debate that is democracy. In the future, we will have more screens, and permanent connection, but, unless we are careful, not necessarily more freedom.

Ciarán Mac Aonghusa, Churchtown, Dublin 14