By
Roy Peter ClarkSenior Scholar and Vice President
If we crave a civil discourse about incivility, we might
begin by gazing through the various frames people build to express their
opinions on this topic. These frames
contain sets of values, which exist in tension if not in conflict. When these values compete, one instinct is to
retreat inside one of them. A better
move is to work toward a set of standards and practices in which some of these
values can co-exist, if not be reconciled.
Frame #1. The Freedom Frame: Those who see the problem through this frame
value freedom of expression as a primary value.
They sometimes cite the First Amendment, an argument that may confuse
the right to speak with the duty to publish.
Democracy is messy and impolite, they argue. Over time civility has been used as a weapon
of oppression against words or ideas at the margins of acceptability or
antagonistic to the status quo. Our
ability to tolerate even obnoxious expression is a sign of our strength. While traditional newspapers provided few
opportunities for public comment and expression, the Internet has democratized
expression as never before. The examples
of crude extremism should be interpreted not as a vice of new media, but as a
virtue. Obnoxious speech can be tolerated,
even if it's not encouraged.
Frame #2. The Responsibility Frame: Those who see through this frame argue that
with all freedoms come responsibilities, not just for news organizations, but
for any person who chooses a public platform for expression. Responsible restraint includes not publishing
certain military secrets, or directions for building bombs, or promoting the
abuse of children, or threatening someone's life. In our day, it also includes taking special
care with language that insults a person on the basis of race, gender and other
familiar categories of identity. Through
this frame, words like community, dialogue and conversation are valued --
sometimes at the expense of unfettered speech.
The worry is that crude or hateful speech crowds out responsible speech
and chases away many who might want to be included. Obnoxious speech, they argue, crowds out
reasonable speech.
Frame #3. The Business Frame: Those who see through the business frame
invoke a duty to create healthy, profitable news enterprises. They argue that we are in the midst of a
technological and media revolution in which news Web sites will soon become the
first place most people turn for breaking news.
While newspapers experience drops in circulation and advertising
revenue, more money is being made on the Web -- but, right now, not enough to
offset the losses experienced in traditional media. Who will pay for good journalism? What does a viable new business model look
like? What we need, they argue, is more
and more business on the Web, more and more eyeballs on the page. On the Internet, readers demand
interactivity. Unbridled comment
sections are central to the culture of new media. Some controls are necessary and desirable,
but current budgets cannot afford the manpower necessary to preview hundreds of
comments in advance of publication. Nor
do they want to assume the legal responsibilities that come with the decision
to preview and edit public commentary.
Frame #4: The Journalism Frame: Those who see through this frame argue
that, while journalism changes all the time, some values in the practice of
journalism should endure -- even when challenged by social, political and
technological shifts. One traditional
value requires journalists to check things out before publication. Journalists
also value the process of editing, protocols of judgment based on experience
and buttressed by sets of standards and practices. To support their arguments, they would cite
cases in which people's lives and reputations were damaged by lies,
fabrications, misrepresentations, identity piracy or threats online. They would likely argue that -- at least
within journalism Web sites -- a culture of civil discourse must be encouraged
and enforced, that new-media owners must provide the resources necessary to
make this work.
Frame #5: The Self-Policing Frame: Those who see through this frame argue that
there is wisdom in the collective, that truth can be achieved over time, and
that the best online communities of interest are self-regulating. They cite evolving practices that have helped
shape, in a short period of time, the cultures, communities and markets
expressed via the Internet. These
practices, they argue, help correct the record; hold traditional journalists'
feet to the fire; marginalize the worst offenders; give authority to the most
reliable commentators; and democratize a process that in the hands of
traditional journalists has become something of a self-anointed priesthood.
***
Those who develop standards for news Web sites will be
drawing on all these arguments, no doubt, and many more. On this issue, it may turn out that some
yet-to-be identified center will hold -- and not the extremes. Comment without boundaries creates a
wasteland in which reason cannot breathe.
And comment surrounded by palisades ostracizes points of view all
citizens need to face.
