When almost everybody within the US was being requested to shelter in place in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in April 2020, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis held a press convention to handle what he perceived to be a major problem: the dearth of recent content material. “Folks have been starved for content material,” he mentioned. “We haven’t had numerous new content material because the starting of March … we have to help content material, particularly sports activities.” On this foundation, DeSantis declared that alongside medical personnel and staff working at pharmacies and grocery shops, staff {of professional} sports activities and media manufacturing corporations might return to work.
To rationalize his positioning of content material as a necessary service, DeSantis appealed to each historical past and psychology. First, he noticed, “We’ve by no means had a interval like this in fashionable American historical past the place you’ve had such little new content material, significantly within the sporting realm. I imply, persons are watching, we’re watching, like, reruns from the early 2000s, watching Tom Brady do the Tremendous Bowl then.” Second, he speculated, content material would possibly ease the ache of people who find themselves “chomping on the bit,” and also have a optimistic psychological affect: “To have the ability to have some mild on the finish of the tunnel … see that issues could get again on a greater course—I feel from only a psychological perspective I feel is an effective factor.” DeSantis’s press convention garnered appreciable consideration, however his claims provoked many questions.
DeSantis didn’t outline “fashionable American historical past,” however even when he have been referencing a comparatively quick interval—let’s say, 2010 to 2020—his assertion in regards to the unprecedented lack of content material within the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown was actually false. From all accounts, we’re producing a lot extra content material now than only a few years in the past, even a major disruption can be unlikely to go away us with much less new content material than at every other time.
In the course of the COVID-19 lockdown, content material manufacturing didn’t lower—fairly the alternative. As billions of individuals all over the world discovered themselves stranded at dwelling, the manufacturing of content material surged alongside the demand for it. On the one hand, established websites from Fb to YouTube noticed important spikes in visitors because the lockdown was imposed. A number of newer and fewer well-known content material suppliers and platforms additionally skilled development throughout this era, as individuals who usually do their work in particular person (e.g., yoga instructors, historical past professors, skilled musicians, and so forth) looked for viable methods to provide and share content material on-line.
Nonetheless, DeSantis didn’t merely declare that we have been witnessing an unprecedented decline in content material. He additionally claimed that creating content material must be seen as a necessary service—one thing very important to Floridians’ well being and wellness—for psychological causes. Not less than some Florida residents and companies appeared to agree. Even the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which information its Monday Night time Uncooked applications from a studio in Orlando, echoed the governor’s suggestion. As one WWF spokesperson declared, “WWF and its Superstars convey households collectively and ship a way of hope, dedication and perseverance.” Nonetheless, many onlookers have been left questioning why content material, together with the kind of content material produced by the WWF, was being thought of important throughout a pandemic. In any case, no proof means that new content material essentially promotes hope or resilience. In actual fact, no less than some proof means that extreme display time, which usually contains consumption of recent content material, could have detrimental results.
As somebody who occurred to be ending writing a book about content on the time of DeSantis’s press convention, I used to be additionally left with a couple of extra questions. How might DeSantis declare that we’d by no means earlier than had a interval of contemporary historical past with so little content material when the idea of content material is itself comparatively current? What flip of occasions had led an elected authorities official to view content material manufacturing as important—one thing to be prioritized alongside entry to meals or well being companies? And the way might one thing so ambiguously outlined and misunderstood be positioned as very important to our means to hold on within the face of adversity?
DeSantis’s press convention could have been one of many extra absurd episodes to unfold on the political stage throughout the COVID-19 disaster, however for the needs of my e-book, Content material, it’s under no circumstances insignificant. The governor was actually mistaken to conclude that “we’ve by no means had a interval like this in fashionable American historical past” and sure mistaken to argue a optimistic correlation between new content material and psychological well-being. Even so, he could have gotten one factor proper: there no less than seems to be a relentless demand for brand new content material.
We not dwell in a world the place newspapers arrive on our doorstep as soon as a day. Many individuals now count on information updates all day lengthy. Likewise, tv isn’t one thing we tune in to on sure days of the week at sure occasions to observe sure episodes. Many individuals count on to have fixed entry to new content material on streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu. The identical holds true for the content material we produce ourselves. Think about how disconcerted we might be to get up and go browsing to Fb, Twitter, or Instagram and discover not a single new replace. In any case, however a very apocalyptic occasion, when would that ever occur on social media? Prefer it or not, content material has change into an integral a part of our lives. Many individuals even count on new content material 24/7 and twelve months of the 12 months.
However what precisely is content material? Who produces it? Why and the way did it come to be seen as “important”? And the way will content material proceed to construction our financial system, tradition, politics, and on a regular basis lives sooner or later?
Content material isn’t essentially information, even when the 2 phrases are incessantly used interchangeably. Some argue that it’s because content material is contextualized data and information isn’t. Others argue that whereas content material conveys a message (in phrases or pictures or sound), information doesn’t. But, there are a lot of examples of content material (for instance, the Instagram egg: a inventory picture that was posted on Instagram with no objective apart from to change into probably the most broadly circulated picture on the platform) that convey no apparent message in any respect.
Given such vexing issues, makes an attempt to outline content material appear to result in solely probably the most imperfect operational definitions—for instance, “all of the stuff that circulates on-line”—however this too isn’t fairly proper. Does a traditional movie streamed on-line reasonably than projected in a movie show change into content material merely due to the context? It appears that evidently content material isn’t simply context particular but in addition topic to the attention of the beholder. A movie research scholar would probably not confer with French New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda’s huge trove of movies as content material, however I think many executives at Netflix and Amazon Prime would.
Put merely, whereas numerous content material is produced merely to flow into (e.g., an article written for an internet site constructed solely to generate income from ads), the content material trade can also be adept at appropriating current texts, pictures, shifting pictures, and recordings. That is additionally what makes content material probably harmful. Many classifications now we have lengthy taken with no consideration—for instance, these used to grasp genres and codecs—are rapidly coming undone. Maybe most troubling, nonetheless, is the extent to which the all-encompassing idea of content material can also be dismantling the much more vital boundary between reality and fiction, data and disinformation, and what’s true and pretend. To understand the far-reaching impacts of this shift, one want solely take into account how the rise of content material has already affected journalism, and by extension, the media sphere that helps any functioning democracy.
As print journalism has gone into decline (between 2004 and 2018, the US misplaced over 1,800 day by day and weekly newspapers), on-line information venues have flourished. Though many are digital variations of current printed publications, this doesn’t imply they merely mirror their printed counterparts.
What precisely is content material? How will content material proceed to construction our financial system, tradition, politics, and on a regular basis lives sooner or later?
Between 2010 and 2016, for instance, the variety of tales, graphics, interactives, and weblog posts revealed within the New York Occasions spiked 35 %. The reason being easy: on-line publications are anticipated to publish way more content material. Turning out extra content material, sometimes with fewer assets and employees, nonetheless, isn’t straightforward. So even respected newspapers now publish extra opinion items, and whereas some are written by skilled journalists, many are usually not. Arduous information—that’s, severe, fact-based reporting on politics, overseas affairs, and so forth—nonetheless exists, however it’s not the default, even in one of the best publications. As Victor Pickard observes in Democracy with out Journalism?, the worth of the present US media system (and, one would possibly argue, the present media system all over the world) is now “largely decided by rankings, clicks, and profitability.” Mentioned otherwise, for respected information venues to outlive, they should perform like clickbait websites: to have the ability to generate a excessive variety of views, clicks, and by extension, advertising-based income. However this isn’t the one means content material is affecting journalism and, in flip, politics.
As turned obvious throughout the 2016 US Presidential election, on-line posts that look like information however are solely partially or in no way true have additionally change into a good way to generate income. This explains why no less than a few of the pretend information produced throughout the 2016 election was circulated by particular person entrepreneurs, together with an enterprising group of Macedonian youngsters who barely spoke any English and weren’t even within the election’s consequence.
In brief, because the rise of the content material trade, established journalistic establishments have struggled to outlive and been pressured to provide information that capabilities like content material. On the identical time, materials that holds the looks of reports however usually accommodates no newsworthy data has supplied a means for on-line entrepreneurs to generate earnings (in a way, propaganda is now additionally extremely worthwhile). Unsurprisingly, the content material trade’s position in blurring the road between reality and fiction and data and disinformation can also be influencing democracy.
If everybody have been extremely media literate, the present scenario may not be a disaster. However sadly, this isn’t the case. In accordance with a 2018 Pew Research Study, most grownup readers within the US wrestle to persistently separate opinion from reality. This discovering doesn’t supply a lot hope that most of the people, which now accesses a lot of its information by way of social media feeds, is essentially capable of simply distinguish between respected fact-based articles and disinformation. If there may be any doubt that that is already having penalties for democracy, take into account what Governor Ron DeSantis is thus far.
Two years after DeSantis held the press convention to declare content material and content material producers important, he held one other notable press convention. This time, nonetheless, it was to have a good time his new “Don’t say homosexual” invoice, which bans utilizing the phrase “homosexual” in Florida colleges. The ban owes a lot to the rise of the content material trade.
There may be nothing new in regards to the perception that speaking about gays results in an uptick within the conversion of harmless kids to the gay way of life (such vitriol has been round for a few years). Nonetheless, the success of DeSantis’s not too long ago handed regulation could have much less to do with homophobic legacies than it does with the current improve in disinformation. In early March 2022, DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw posted an announcement on her Twitter account that appeared to straight echo a idea additionally being broadly circulated on QAnon boards and different right-wing websites. “If you happen to’re in opposition to the Anti-Grooming Invoice,” she wrote, “you’re in all probability a groomer or no less than you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 12 months previous kids. Silence is complicity.” The declare that anybody who fails to help DeSantis’s “Don’t say homosexual” regulation primarily is a pedophile could sound like a fringe declaration (and it’s), however in an age of content material, such claims are under no circumstances destined to stay on the margins of the net.
In a nation the place a surprisingly excessive variety of adults wrestle to separate opinion from reality and anybody can simply recirculate even probably the most absurd content material on a number of digital media channels 24/7, the wall between reality and fiction has change into dangerously porous. And that is the true drawback with content material and the content material trade. Most of what’s labeled as content material is unproblematic. Sadly, when all the pieces holds the potential to be lumped collectively and labeled that means, the tendency to simply accept disinformation and misinformation as information, reality, and fact can also be dangerously amplified.
This essay has been excerpted and tailored from Content, MIT Press, 2022. 
