Lies we tell ourselves
We don't need to educate our audiences to fit our needs. We need to educate ourselves to fit our audiences.
What struck me about Damon Kiesow’s summary of the myths journalism tells itself is how similar it is to the myths open source software projects tell themselves.
“Yes, our own claims are rhetorical (not technological) determinism. But the logic is the same: we know what is best for our communities, and “best” reliably aligns with our existing professional practices, interests, and profit motives. By doing so, we try to reframe long-term economic and cultural changes as questions of individual behavior. "Things would be better if only readers would act correctly.””
Things would be better if only readers would act correctly. Substitute users for readers and that would sound like so many open social web projects.
“What we really need is to teach high school students to be more discerning consumers of information.”
”We just need to educate users.”
No, we don’t. We need to educate ourselves about the people we hope to help: what do their lives look like, what are their needs, and what is actually important to them? If we’re in the business of being of service, we need to adjust ourselves to them, not the other way around.
But of course, that means getting to know them, and worse than that, putting our own assumptions to the test. When we have lofty ideals, learning that they don’t match what’s actually needed doesn’t feel good. It hurts our egos. But if we care about service, that’s what we need to do.
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