Designers have the role of forming language at a visual level and so a social responsibility for that content. This responsibility is compounded by the free access to media enables by everyone. The example given by the group was that we all have access to ‘Meine Kampf’. The question was should we have access to it and if so does it assume, should it assume that we are responsible in our consumption of it?
Therefore I would conclude that consumers have a responsibility to be discerning and to seek education in order to understand the content in context and not to simply absorb as ‘stand-alone’ messages devoid of context. But of course the real responsibility lies with the designer or more accurately, the visual communicators. Who does that really include? Is it the designer/advertising exec/client/corporation/user/customer? How is this weighted?
Tabloid news comes to mind as the most obvious way in which people are influenced in a highly negative way with complete ignorance. To the undiscerning eye the ‘news’ appears as such, a sequence of facts nicely packaged with relating imagery and in a format that is easily consumed. When the fact is that it is manipulatively (often clumsily) constructed in order to draw the reader to draw erroneous conclusions. Sensational and colourful stories are consumed and lazily used as markers in place of any real knowledge as to what to expect from the world. Stereotypes, clichés and ignorance are bred this way and continues to do so as the web carries the baton.
Statistics and metrics distorting the facts, was one area raised in the discussion as a quantifiable method of persuasion. ‘Bad Science’ was mentioned. Is there a way of extracting facts from journalistic lean and then presenting them without bias?