“Media needs to provide accurate information for a voter to make an informed choice”

In an interview with BIZWEEK, U.S. Professor Susanna Wing stated that the media needs to be very objective and clear in terms of the information it shares to allow voters to make an informed choice. “How can a voter make a real choice if there’s too much biased or inaccurate information,” she asks. 

For Professor Susanna Wing, democracy requires voting. “We want our voters to be informed. Information is coming from different sources, but we need voters to be able to evaluate the information they receive, and that’s where media literacy comes in, in terms of understanding where disinformation, misinformation might be coming from. As consumers of information, the voters will make a choice on what they understand, and the information that they have. So, they need to have the tools to question the information that they receive right before they make a choice about who they’re going to vote for. Their voting should be dependent on what they understand of political programs and projects of the candidates or the political parties that they are choosing between,” she said. 

She concluded that democracy should not only be about the majority. It’s about providing space for the minority to have its voice heard. You have to protect all voices in a democracy, and everybody needs to be able to hear a wide array of voices. You’re in trouble when freedom of expression or freedom of association are clamped down on and constricted by the state or a particular population.

Professor Susanna Wing had a workshop with members of the media in Mauritius last Thursday. This initiative was a joint collaboration between the U.S. Embassy in Mauritius and the Media Trust. 

You woke up this morning (last Thursday) in Mauritius and read the New York Times. And you said that you were very happy about this…

It’s amazing to wake up in Mauritius, and the first thing I do is have a cup of tea and open the New York Times, and learn what’s going on. Today, there was an article about the kind of explosion of fake news in the U.S. and on social media, in particular around this sort of sudden proposal that Kamala Harris will be the Democratic presidential nominee, which she won’t be until after the Democratic National Convention, where they have to decide who’s actually the nominee. 

There have been moments in these last few weeks where social media has spiked in terms of participation, after the assassination attempt on candidate Trump, and after the presidential debates. Following President Biden stepping back, we’ve had an explosion on social media of users going to certain sites, and there’s also been an explosion of false information.

The New York Times argues that there’s been increasing racism since Kamala Harris has made the statement that she’s running to be the candidate of the Democratic Party. 

Which leads us to your conclusion that it’s sometimes a terrible idea to have just one source. 

Exactly! I woke up and it was easy for me to read the New York Times. If I was being fair, I might have looked at Fox News or at an alternative source of news, in which I might have found out they were reporting the information right. It’s in terms of the issues being talked about in politics, now, in the United States. We all do this. The U.S. has a very polarized media, and I, myself, who’s fully aware of the information, can easily go to a source that I feel is trustworthy.  

We should never underestimate the audience that we’re speaking to. We may need to know and understand our audience so that we can translate complex ideas, complex information, so that anybody can listen and understand. If one says, well, the audience doesn’t want to hear about the nitty-gritty of party politics, maybe they want you to explain it in a way which they can understand, in a way that matters for them. 

As consumers of information, the voters will make a choice on what they understand, and the information that they have

In your presentation to the press, you stated that “democracy is never promised”. Could you elaborate on this? 

I like to say that democracy is a very fragile institution, and oftentimes, countries that have been democratic for some time can rest on their laurels and believe that democracy is guaranteed, and will continue as long as you continue having elections. Democracy is much more than that in reality, and can roll back rather quickly and easily. I believe countries that are established democracies may forget the fact that there can be a rollback.  

You also mentioned that the media in the U.S. is very polarized. Could you tell us more about this?

In the U.S, we have a polarized media in which there are news outlets that are operating from very different sides, and their audience, their listeners, are sort of having their own perspectives reinforced by listening to just one side of an issue through these media outlets. What happens is that through the polarized media, we end up reinforcing bubbles of information and sort of not talking across differences and sharing information across differences, but rather sitting in our polarized positions.

You highlighted that voters usually make their choice, and the information that they have…

Democracy requires voting. We want our voters to be informed. Information is coming from different sources, but we need voters to be able to evaluate the information they receive, and that’s where media literacy comes in, in terms of understanding where disinformation, misinformation might be coming from. As consumers of information, the voters will make a choice on what they understand, and the information that they have. So, they need to have the tools to question the information that they receive right before they make a choice about who they’re going to vote for. Their voting should be dependent on what they understand of political programs and projects of the candidates or the political parties that they are choosing between.

Basically, the media should help voters make informed choices, and the pillars of the media are integrity, accuracy, fairness, objectivity and accountability…  

In order for a voter to make an informed choice, the media needs to provide accurate information. It needs to be very objective and clear in terms of the information it is sharing. How can a voter make a real choice if there’s too much biased or inaccurate information?

With regards to disinformation and democratic backsliding, we understood, from your presentation, that Mauritius does not currently have to face this state of things as compared to Hungary, for example. Could you enlighten us more on this?

As I showed in my talk, countries like Hungary have a great deal of disinformation, but I think that any country needs to question the information that is available to the people. The voters should therefore be informed. Mauritius has democratic institutions. It has a long history of these institutions. Democracy is however always fragile. The shifting of the media environment in which we now have deep fakes, fake news and disinformation is a global issue. The accuracy in the media and the ability for voters to make choices are really critical, no matter where you are.

Media should be balanced and unbiased. Media should be asking questions that are not simply parroting whatever they hear from whoever is speaking, but rather asking very specific and deliberate questions about programs and policies, outcomes and direction. You need voters to make informed decisions to keep the democratic train functioning.

On social media, you underscored the fact that Facebook has a policy of allowing less and less political content. 

Yes. What they’re doing, now, is if something is posted that is very political and potentially inaccurate, they will flag it, saying this information may not be accurate or this information has been evaluated to be inaccurate. They may allow posting to go forward, but they do have a policy, now, that is trying to address the issue of fake news and disinformation, which can really mislead people.

“Effective reporting requires confidence, but without being rude” is a sentence which has caught our attention. What do you mean by this? 

Well, this is a cultural issue. I’ve seen this in other countries that I’ve visited, where reporters ask questions by being confident and rigorous. Sometimes, the response can be “You’re just being rude. I’m not going to answer you.” I think that the consumers of the information should understand why somebody is being defensive to a reporter who is trying to ask questions and get real answers to share with their audience. Reporters should always be respectful, and they should be confident, but they should also ask hard questions. 

Speaking about democracy, you said that it gave birth to a number of institutions which, in the U.S, have existed for 200 years. Shouldn’t legislations evolve in some cases, or is it right to keep them as they are?

That’s a great question. Laws have to evolve as the world around us changes. We have this debate all the time in the United States. “Are there principles that should always be retained and never changed?” There’s a lot of debate around our Second Amendment, which has to do with the right to bear arms, which is a critical one. One needs to respect the institutions of democracy, but at the same time, those institutions and laws may need to change as the world around us changes. Hopefully, in a democracy, people should have a voice in how they feel about what changes might be made. That’s a kind of accountability in governing. It is important to hear the concerns of the people, and then to make decisions based on the best interests and how the people feel. The point is that there needs to be information sharing, accountability, transparency, and that’s how you keep a democracy functioning. 

We learned, today, in respect to the behaviour of voters in the U.S., that there is a family legacy of voting for one particular party. 

Absolutely. There are legacies in families, where one grows up in a family that talks about one particular party. The point, of course, is that you, as a voter, should make your own decision based on what you think the party will do for you and your country, and what is best for the country. Sometimes, you’ll have what we would call a black sheep in the family, because they’re not voting the party line, and there can be family tensions over this of course. We see this all the time, but the point is that the individual makes the choice based on his/her information about which party is going to be effective.

We have a closing question. You referred to the recent elections in France. We have seen the far right rising, and all parties uniting to fight the far right. The first pages of newspapers were saying “Don’t vote for him” when referring to the far right candidate. Do we have to understand that, at the end of the day, the democratic process is a question of numbers, of the voice of the majority?

Democracy should not only be about the majority. It’s about providing space for the minority to have its voices heard. You have to protect all voices in a democracy, and everybody needs to be able to hear a wide array of voices. You’re in trouble when freedom of expression or freedom of association are clamped down on and constricted by the state or a particular population. A minority may be targeted by the state for a particular reason, right? That’s when democracy can very much be in danger. The point is not that it’s a majority rule, but it’s a majority rule with respect for all minorities and all people and ideas associated with them. The fundamental principle here is that we should be protecting the freedoms of all people, in terms of expression and association, and the institutions of democracy. That’s what’s critical. 

What are you taking back home from this mission in Mauritius?

This has been such an amazing opportunity to meet people, and I learned so much about Mauritius, the Mauritian society, and the traditions of democracy here in a beautiful country. It’s been wonderful!