Some ideas on how content dissemination could be done better in the case of debates on politics.
The motivation behind is that debates on politics can contain a large amount of very useful information that gives the audience a clearer, nuanced idea of what politicians are about and where their ideas come from. In the end, the format in which these debates are disseminated should facilitate comprehension from the public. But this comprehension should focus straight on the source instead of summaries, commentaries or cherry-picked snippets.
However, there’s a big problem with expecting an audience to consume straight from the source. Good debates are very long, usually in an audio or video format and to really dig into them, an audience would ideally spend some time with exclusive focus on them. For example, they would pause and check what these theory one of the debaters is citing is about, or what a term means.
At the same time, even though an invaluable medium for political thinkers and candidates to expose their ideas, challenge and be challenged, the long debate format has a key weakness which is real time fact-checking. To go back to the need for the public to deeply focus on the debate, they are also supposed to check factual claims from the debaters because it is common that in the heat of the moment, bogus facts are used to sustain arguments without which they would crumble.
What are some ideas to address this then?
First of all, I think that a platform that publishes a debate could be more interactive in the handling of information. For instance, links to explanations of key concepts and ideas could appear in a panel so that viewers can pause and check them. Even more, for those who listen on the go, there could be a button or voice command that pauses the video to explain it and then resumes it.
Then, there is the issue of navigation. Because they are such long pieces of content, debates should do like podcasts and other Youtube content that segments the videos into titled sections. This exists already but should be applied to more content than only that of professional content creators.
Another useful interactive feature would be a streamlined bookmarking system (ideally also including voice command options). The viewer can either bookmark the part they are at if they need to pause it or bookmark something that catches their attention and that they want to come back to later. Apart from that, the viewer could also add comments on the video such as questions inspired by it, reminders, ideas, opinions, phrases they wish to remember, etc. Again, all of this would be even better with voice commands or buttons in the interface that are easy to find.
With these features, the problem of fact-checking would be easier to solve. Viewers could bookmark a part where a fact is mentioned to check it later, or it could be done automatically. The latter is somewhat riskier, as the selection of the fact-checking source should be done carefully and impartially so as not to make the platform a driver for a single narrative that could very well be flawed but fed to every user that wants to fact-check statements.
The last idea that I think could greatly improve the possibilities for a better informational landscape in all of the internet is that accurate translation and contextualisation should be more widespread. I think that there is a treasure-trove of ideas, perspectives, and lucid explanations of concepts and theories that are uploaded in debates in other languages than English. If the language problem could be surmounted, and people were able to view content from other countries without any impediment, everyone’s thinking would become richer. It almost goes without saying that there is an issue today with the preponderance of English as the language of global content.
English is the common thread that allows everyone to have access to online content outside of their own country’s, but it usually is the only one. More than that, English is not only a language, but it can also be a certain temperament, a certain set of presuppositions and ways of speaking and prioritising some attitudes over others. Imagine if everyone could consume debates from thinkers of other intellectual traditions such as the French with the same ease as they consume that in English. Imagine if not only that, but if they could obtain a very summarised explanation of the context in which this debate is taking place. I personally think that the landscape of ideas thrown around in the internet would become much richer and discussions much more interesting.
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