Abstract
Digital Fever is the English translation and apparently (though not noted) somewhat updated version of a book published in German in 2018 under the title Die große Gereiztheit. Wege aus der kollektiven Erregung, which could be translated as The Great Irritability: Ways out of the Collective Arousal. Beyond the flashy book titles, the subtitles are more indicative of Poerksen's concern, which is to assess the changes in the public sphere through digital media, how they contribute to the spread of disinformation and to the scandalization and public pillorying of individuals, and finally to offer suggestions on how to bring down the “fever.” As the author acknowledges, the ideas collected here have largely emerged in the context of and on the basis of his contributions to various print and broadcast media. To get to the bottom of the spreading digital fever, he can also build on his earlier work on the unleashing of scandals in the wake of individual loss of control in networked communication.
The great irritability and digital fever set in with and as a consequence of the restructuring of power relations in the media market and the change in what we call the public sphere. This change has been brought about and is still taking place by the pervasive spread of social networks which give everyone a voice and thus the opportunity to contribute to raising the fever pitch. Traditional journalism is thus confronted with “the fifth power of the networked Many” (p. xii), to the effect that “The time of gatekeeper complacency is over,” as the heading for the author's note on this edition reads. The great irritability is also fueled by the emergence of digital giants, who abandon the classic journalistic relevance criteria and instead prefer to focus on emotionalization, which secures the attention of users and provides the companies with data that promises lucrative business with the advertising industry. Considering the significant overheating of the societal communication climate, Poerksen identifies a “question of the moment”: “How can we implement techniques of cooling down?” (p. xiii).
Before finally presenting his vision of how to reduce the fever in the seventh chapter, Poerksen first reviews the changes that are still unfolding in the public sphere. In the first step, he characterizes our age as that of indiscreet media. On the one hand, these encroach on the previous protective zones of invisibility and, on the other hand, cause a continuous clash of codes. The clash results from the constant and direct confrontation and immediate comparability of different perceptions of otherwise situation- and location-independent, contextless content. This evokes a state of permanent irritability, which Poerksen analyzes in the form of five crisis diagnoses.
First, there is a crisis of truth, because old certainties no longer apply and informational uncertainty has spread, accompanied by a constant suspicion of manipulation. The transition from media democracy to outrage democracy, in which traditional journalism has lost its influence and everyone can disseminate their views unfiltered, has also led to a crisis of discourse. In view of the aggressiveness and uncivilized nature of the discourse on the Net, this discourse crisis has now also given rise to a discourse about discourse.
As a consequence of the new visibility brought about by the indiscreet media, a crisis of authority has emerged, which the author characterizes using the example of politicians. The crisis of complacency arises from a filter clash, which Poerksen pits against Eli Pariser's notion of the filter bubble: In the networked world, Poerksen argues, it is hardly possible to seal oneself off in a bubble. Rather, the ubiquitous availability of all kinds of news means that different real-life worlds are constantly colliding with one another. Finally, the crisis of reputation emerges from the omnipresence of scandals that follow from attention excesses with a dynamic and drama peculiar to the network.
Even though the talk of irritability, fever, and crises suggests a pessimistic prospect, the book does not engage in a blanket condemnation of the social changes that have taken place and been promoted by social networks. True to his dictum that “Nothing is without alternative” (p. 13), Poerksen provides arguments and counter-arguments, pointing in each case not only to the diagnoses of crisis but also to the opportunities that digital media offer each individual to become involved in the public sphere. In each chapter, he develops his approach by presenting instructive case studies that demonstrate how the fever spikes again and again, driving society into a state of great irritability.
The organization of the book's content according to crises nevertheless demonstrates the author's concern in view of society's rising temperatures. To counter this, he outlines a utopia of an editorial society: Based on seven principles of an ideal journalistic practice, he devises a program that should be taught above all in schools and, moreover, in universities and, of course, in journalism education, and should be heeded by all those involved in networked communication. Besides the adoption of classical norms and principles such as truth orientation, a general skepticism, transparency, criticism, and control, a sense of relevance and proportionality, Poerksen calls for an ethical-moral assessment as well as an understanding and discourse orientation with the ability to compromise and a plurality of perspectives. These proposals are somewhat reminiscent of decades of discussions about media ethics and media literacy. Their success or failure could be an indicator of the chances of success of Poerksen's vision of the editorial society. Thus, five years after the publication of the German edition of the book, numerous real and alleged scandals, disinformation campaigns, and ambitious attempts to tame the platform operators, the author may be asked whether he has kept his optimism and the hope that his utopia of editorial society could become reality—and when.
It is due to the format of an essay and the goal of reaching an audience beyond academia with the book that the bibliographical references and notes are relegated to a list of more than 260 annotations. This arrangement compels the interested reader to constantly flip back and forth, which interrupts the flow of reading. The annotations not only reflect the impressive diversity of the author's sources, but above all point to his theoretical background, which leads one to get hooked here all the more. The translation, which closely follows the characteristic style of the German language with its idiosyncrasies of compound nouns and convoluted sentence structure, loses some of the author's precise and elegant diction of the German edition.