Alternative Editorial: A Social Contract For the Digital Age?
Following up on last week's subtle shift in the US media's reporting on the culture wars, we noticed another, also subtle shift in the UK media reporting. Leadership for climate justice moved decidedly away from government and was relocated - precariously - into the hands of the Royal Family.
Let's unpick this a little. Firstly, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson pre-empted the publication of a report on whether or not he deliberately misled the House of Commons by calling the standards committee a 'kangaroo court' and resigning as an MP. In so doing he grabbed the headlines for his outrage, as if he were a victim (see here for the injustice of real kangaroo courts).
Outdoing even his own previous 'limits of behaviour', this last week Johnson continued to smash law after law with impunity. First breaking the confidentiality of the report and then taking on a job as a highly paid Daily Mail columnist (the owner of which he narrowly failed to make a peer in the same week, one of the perks after he resigned his office).
For fear of splitting his own party – currently divided between Johnson's fans and enemies - PM Rishi Sunak failed to stand behind the committee’s findings against Boris. In so doing Sunak followed in the steps of Dominic Raab who called into question the 'right' of the Civil Service to sanction his bullying behaviour. This also follows Suella Braverman who repeatedly delegitimates the courts for applying Human Rights law to refugees. Claiming that such laws stop the government delivering for the people.
In an audacious shape shift, Johnson was suddenly on the front page of the largest selling title in the UK (bar the Metro free paper) - talking about slimming drugs not law breaking. Proving his ongoing populist attraction and ability to sell papers - a business model at the heart of our politics.
In the meantime, King Charles stepped into the space vacated by the floundering politicians by inviting US President Joe Biden for a climate summit in the UK. In a move unprecedented for the Royal Family, Charles used the week before his official birthday to seed his story so that when the big day arrived it was implanted in the images shared by the media.
Anyone unfamiliar with the official birthday rituals will wonder in what way this might be effective but take a look here. The recently crowned King on horseback, leading the Trooping of the Colour, planes flying overhead and crowds cheering. Once derided for talking to plants, now in his full powers, taking on failing politicians in his stand for the planet.
The day after, his son The Prince of Wales stepped into the new slipstream by announcing his commitment to ending homelessness in the UK. Not only would his own children be exposed to it (as he was by his mother the Princess of Wales) but he was preparing to build social housing on his Cornwall Estate. While few readers would take this on face value - no amount of exposure or parcelling out land can be real for a Royal - these offers nevertheless shift the moral ground for the public. Suggesting that outside of party politics there is the possiblity of a different response to the multiple crises we face.
In a way similar to party politics, here is another power struggle to keep us distracted. The Royal Family is un-elected and full of its own internal strife, capturing the attention of the public space. In whose interest is it for us to 'get behind' Charles and William? Is this another UK soft power move - re-igniting the world's never ending love-affair with Buckingham Palace? (ref) There will be those who cheer alongside those who object.
But for others this battle only deepens the sense of powerlessness. The political system only gives us one vote in five years and the Opposition is failing to outdo the current government in relation to climate justice. On the other hand, the Royal Family is the very epitome of our disenfranchisement as actors: our only role there is to cheer when things go well. Keeping us in thrall to the current tensions between the British state and a green monarchy suits the media well: maintaining our ring-side view as paying observers.
The flaw in their business model is that we no longer rely on the mainstream newspapers to define the public space - in fact they account for a constantly shrinking piece of the puzzle. Not only are individual titles dying, but whole newspaper groups are too, as people confess they read less official news than ever before.
Instead we are relying increasingly on social media and other parts of the internet to supply us with news of our own framing. This occurs in particular amongst the young, where not only the substance but the style, tone and orientation of news coverage is significantly different from either the tabloids or broadsheets. Take this recent report from the Press Gazette:
Young people were less likely however, to use offline news sources. While 36% of people aged over 65 said they used print sources for news, this fell to 7% among 18 - 24-year-olds and 6% among 25–34 year-olds. Almost six in ten (58%) of over 65s and 44% of people aged 55 to 64 said they used TV for news, compared to 32% of 18-24 year olds and 13% of 25-34 year-olds.
..In the UK in particular, TikTok continues to grow quickly and Facebook to decline – but Mark Zuckerberg’s network remains the bigger of the two, even among young audiences.
In line with that trend the youngest consumers are more likely to get their news from videos – but text-based news remains more popular still.
As these sources reveal, the curve from old to young describes a radical shift in how we perceive the public space across the generations. Older people are subject to a social imaginary - a shared understanding of what is real - described by a media still wedded to the old and failing socio-economic-political system. Younger people are increasingly linked directly to a new social imaginary, generated by individuals exercising forms of agency never imagined by their parents.
What is on offer in the mental and cultural space of younger people? An unlimited respect for sentience, whereever it appears: animals, plants, intelligences of rare kinds (eg indigenous wisdoms). New forms of what counts as “valued”, beyond strict monetary terms. New kinds of agency, made possible by tech. Imagined communities with extraordinary capacity for communication. Rabbit holes that never end. Possibilities that defy probability.
While most of us having a mixed news diet, we are resolutely no longer in the grip of a single news culture. On an increasing scale, the power of the news media to define the public space - and hence our social imaginary - has gone, probably for good. Ever since the birth of the internet and the rise of social media, everyone with access has grown some ability to make their own reality.
If this is so, should we not also be challenging what is described as the 'social contract' - the host of agreements between state and “society” that define the rights and duties of each? If once upon a time citizens relied upon the state to tax each of us on our earnings in order to take care of our collective needs, what would an updated agreement look like now? This is a question for an age when it has been proven that our political system does not deliver on our collective needs. Or even seem capable of representing more than a small section of the population at any one time - on what is fair, what counts as progress, or what a desirable future looks like.
At the same time, are the citizens themselves happy with the rights and duties assigned to them so many years ago? Are we still happy with the work ethic, birthed in the puritanism of the industrial era - that work is good for the soul, even if the job robs the worker of dignity? Do we still agree to consume endlessly in order to keep the economy growing?
Do we think showing up to any kind of duty five to six days a week is a good life for our health and that of our families? Are we happy to give all the important decisions for the future of our global society and the planet to politicians? Do we consent to being anonymous in the public space - nudged and regulated into behaving in ways that deny our right to a full life? Add your own big questions about the limitations of the social contract today.
But then put it away and start again, from another place. Before you sit with head in hand, or even gather in crowded rooms, Zoom or otherwise, to listen to speakers from the top table, go for a walk and leave your information sources behind. Preferably somewhere that stimulates your curiosity, ideally in nature - because it's alive - or some bustling community activity that you might feel drawn to investigate. Maybe have a dance - whatever it takes for you to let go of your usual sources of authority and remind you of your own vitalism, your drive for life.
Of course this re-alignment is not achieved in a brief aerobic exercise. But the very idea that we might need to reconnect with ourselves and each other in order to re-design a social contract appropriate for today, is core to our ability to survive and thrive. Let's not sell ourselves short for another century, with the idea that we are just minds waiting to be harnessed for productivity. Or bodies waiting to be instructed.
Over this past thirty years or more, we have been gradually freeing ourselves to carve out extraordinary new imaginaries: let's occupy them, mind, body and soul. Let’s open up a new age of response-ability; educating ourselves and our children on how to know ourselves and act collectively. Let’s build new spaces that help us all experience our creativity and exercise our agency. All hands on deck as we face the future, bringing our societies and planet back to life.