Dull, abusive, self-satisfied: why can't we make audiences better?
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Version 0 of 1. Everyone knows the worst thing about cultural and intellectual production is the audience. Yes, you, reading this. You’re terrible. We dreamed of an agora, a village green, a linden tree. Instead we got the Sermon on the Mount from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. This is not, however, another censorious article about the tendentious nature and gender bias of online comments. Audiences should be able to participate in public debate, both as a human response to the world and a political ideal. Writers, critics and other thinkers also need audiences: their work derives meaning from inspiring others to engage, collaborate or refute. Related: Online comments: fear, loathing and fun below the line But in practice, audience responses are adversarial and polemical, determined both to nitpick small stuff and to crush opponents with disproportionately vicious force. Ideological cliques snipe at each other for low, low stakes. “I agree with you, so you’re smart and good!” “I disagree, which makes you stupid and evil!” But what if it is the mechanisms through which audiences commonly express themselves that make these comments so inhospitable to nuance and deliberation? Author and economist Umair Haque recently argued that Twitter is dying because its developers have failed to mitigate its abusive culture. I wouldn’t blame anyone for withdrawing from that blasted field of misdirected outrage and smarmy in-jokes. But audiences are rewarded for attracting attention and expressing emotion, not for their persuasiveness or empathy. When the mere fact of having an opinion becomes a legitimate audience response, grandstanding replaces debate. No wonder there’s a new debate about free speech brewing, with conservatives claiming the left is silencing them – when, in fact, they’re merely being invited to explain or defend their ideas. Then there are media formats that convert audience participation into glib public theatre. Where would commercial talkback radio be without a loyal squad of dingbats who reliably ring up in high dudgeon? And while Q&A shines when its panel consists of intellectuals, it’s much more often a depressing exercise in federal party politicking. (“Mr Turnbull, your leadership seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?”) How do we “have our say” when most of the available avenues only encourage us to be dull, abusive and self-satisfied? Two forthcoming events offer some provocations. One of the worst aspects of attending public talks is having to endure idiots asking rambling, indulgent questions. This is why The Interrobang, the Wheeler Centre’s “festival of questions” in Melbourne on 27-28 November, is kind of a genius move. An interrobang is a typographical portmanteau of exclamation and question mark, indicating equivocation. And by introducing a 28-member “brains trust” of local and international thinkers, then creating an online mechanism by which the public could submit and vote on questions to ask them, The Interrobang is itself equivocal: it invites randomness while in practice avoiding any unpleasantness on the day. There’s also a live QI-style panel show, in which all the audience-submitted questions are loaded into a barrel and teams compete to answer them most zingily. It’s quite an interesting experiment in audience goodwill. The website certainly attracted some deliberately silly questions, but others seemed to treat their question as an achingly sincere offering: one they hoped would be treated with respect. The same vexed issue of openness versus closure surrounds Junket, an “unconference” that youth publisher Junkee Media will hold in Canberra this weekend. While the Interrobang is, ultimately, a series of chats before a live audience, you can’t go to Junket unless you’re one of its handpicked “best and brightest young minds”. Writing at Junkee, curator Jess Scully describes Junket as an effort to move from discussion to action, because “Australia’s future is not a spectator sport”. Instead, a nine-member programming committee has chosen 200 participants who are all leaders, trailblazers or experts in their fields. Related: Women are silenced online, just as in real life. It will take more than Twitter to change that | Fiona Martin This elite few will be enjoying an action-packed program of 60 unstructured discussions and other schmoozy stuff. You, the less innovative pleb, can follow along on various social media platforms, with all the reductive chatter that implies. Of course, there’ll be substantial coverage at Junkee. As its name implies, Junket is a promotional event. Everyone involved will come away with a pleasant sheen of innovation and entrepreneurship. And yes, there are sponsors. But I admire that Junkee Media is trying to bring some transparency to its forum, while simultaneously declining to make it into public entertainment. Media brands frequently woo audiences by pandering to the nonsense that everyone’s opinion is valuable. Junkee’s having none of that. Instead, it openly promotes the belief that audiences must earn participation by having good ideas. There’s something dispiriting about the realisation that you’re not a disruptor or a thought leader, the person on the stage or the headshot on the website. But you can still choose how you respond to an idea: facetiously or sincerely, with generosity or cruelty, curiosity or pedantry. You’re the audience. |