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The Worm

Entry 207, on 2005-08-12 at 14:46:47 (Rating 2, News)

A debate has erupted here regarding the media's obligation when presenting political messages from various parties during an election year. A TV channel has been forced by the courts to allow leaders of two minor parties to participate in a televised debate that they were originally going to be excluded from.

The media don't like it, and are saying they see it as too much judicial interference in politics, and the law having undue influence on a private business. On the other hand, most people who have commented seem to think it isn't a bad thing, and that the TV channel should have been more fair when setting up the program.

The second issue is how relevant the debate is anyway. In the previous election TV started using a device called "the worm". This is a graph shown on the screen which is supposed to indicate to the audience response to what the politicians are saying. It is reputed to have been a major reason one small party did well in the previous election. Apparently, favoured parties get better ratings from people (as shown by political polls, and mechanisms like the worm) but also these favourable results feed back to the voters and cause them to rate the party even higher. Its like a positive feedback loop.

This worm, assuming it indicates anything consistent at all, shows the immediate, emotional reaction to statements made by the participants in the debate. So meaningless catch phrases and emotional statements cause a positive response in the worm, where (we would hope) people are more likely to vote based on the big picture, and after careful consideration.

Oh wow, did I really say that? It seems to me that the vast majority of voters don't even understand the issues, and certainly haven't carefully considered them. They vote for one party because they don't like the leader of another, for example. So maybe the worm works, after all!

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