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Jeff Jarvis

@jeffjarvis

, 13 tweets, 3 min read

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So much to object to in this piece. Start here: the idea of "mainstream opinion" is itself exclusionary, like "mass" and "melting pot," not giving a hearing or respect to voices that fall outside. That's what media did. That's what Twitter broke open. 1/

theatlantic.com/international/…

Next: Twitter is not a monolith, like mass media. It is individual voices. You can chose to hear them or not. To aggregate them into a whole--"Twitter says"-- misunderstands its value. Polls are just as bad, lumping people into warring factions. 2/

theatlantic.com/international/…

Next: The first complaint here is not against Twitter but against mass media for taking one tweet and blowing it up for the sake of conflict and clicks. Mirror, please. 3/

theatlantic.com/international/…

4/ Twitter did not turn primaries into electoral exercises at the edges. That was the case with American primaries long before Twitter.

theatlantic.com/international/…

Gotta love mainstream media making this complaint: "All of this gives the social network—and its most active users—outsize power to shape the political conversation." All this gives media--and their paid commentators--outsize power to shape the political conversation. 5/

And: "The echo chamber of social media reassures those extreme voices that they are in fact the mainstream." How about: The echo chamber of mass media reassures those voices that they are in fact the mainstream. 6/

And: "The Twitter Primary drives its members to extremes, while chilling the speech of outsiders." The mass media primary drives is passive "audience" to extremes, while ignoring the speech of outsiders. 7/

And this, dismissing both citizens on Twitter and journalists: "Ultra-liberal attitudes to race and gender are indeed not held by the masses, including racial minorities."
Raymond Williams: "“There are in fact no masses. There are only ways of seeing people as masses.” 8/

"Once again, the cloistered world of Twitter is creating a false sense of consensus." Once again, the cloistered world of mass media is creating a false sense of consensus. 9/

How patronizing can it get? "There is, of course, nothing wrong with people having strong opinions on social media...activists on Twitter should understand that their opinions, though valid, are not as widely shared as they may believe" 10/

What's exclusionary here is the myth of the mass, the mainstream, the center and the dismissal of anyone deemed by those who define mainstream to be outside it. No. Society is made up of individuals and politics is the process of conversation & negotiation. 11/

Finally: No two people on earth see the same Twitter (or Facebook). To presume you know what "Twitter" says it like saying you can summarize the opinions of all society. But, of course, that is precisely the problem with media and polls and columns. 12/