Interested in stretching your brain this afternoon? Try to wrap your brain around this – Computer modeling (at least in this study) indicates that totalitarian states like the USSR, China, and increasingly W’s America have got it wrong: beyond a certain point, the mighty Wurlitzer of the mass media fails, and actually creates diversity of viewpoints, even if everyone is constantly being bombarded intensely with the same message.
More below the fold…
I guess we’re all “living experimental proof” of that, but if the results hold up, it is a hopeful idea, as it implies that all totalitarian systems (governments, churches, big businesses, etc.) contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. Or, in layperson’s language, Princess Leia got it right and Orwell’s O’Brien in 1984 got it wrong:
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. … We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. … How does one man assert his power over another … By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. … A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. … If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face–for ever.”
Governor Tarkin: You don’t know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your life.
Princess Leia: I’m surprised that you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.
Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.
Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Here’s the abstract; the full paper is short (5 pages, including footnotes), but not for the faint of heart. If you’re into research on nonlinear system, chaos theory and their potential applications to the social sciences you might enjoy it, though.
Nonequilibrium transition induced by mass media in a model for social influence
Authors: J. C. González-Avella, M. G. Cosenza, K. Tucci
We study the effect of mass media, modeled as an applied external field, on a social system based on Axelrod’s model for the dissemination of culture. The numerical simulations show that the system undergoes a nonequilibrium phase transition between an ordered phase (homogeneous culture) specified by the mass media and a disordered (culturally fragmented) one. The critical boundary separating these phases is calculated on the parameter space of the system, given by the intensity of the mass media influence and the number of options per cultural attribute. Counterintuitively, mass media can induce cultural diversity when its intensity is above some threshold value. The nature of the phase transition changes from continuous to discontinuous at some critical value of the number of options.
