The word "Muzak" has existed
since at least 1954 when it was registered as a trademark in the USA. In a
similar manner to the way the name "Hoover" became a generic word for
vacuum cleaner, the word "muzak" became generalised too.
Muzak now variously refers to the range
of background music played in shops, waiting rooms, during telephone calls when
on hold, during breaks in television programme transmission, and so
on. The purpose of muzak seems to be to create a calming effect, to create
a desired ambience or to fill in problematic gaps
I have coined the term
"infozak" to refer to the information equivalent of muzak. The
purpose of infozak seems to be to create a calming effect, to create a desired
ambience or to fill in problematic gaps.
When presented with a long report
replete with tables of data and eye-catching graphs, the prospective reader may
immediately gain a sense of calm. Whatever the report is recommending is bound
to be the result of a detailed and robust analysis. We can rest easy.
Those involved in
the production of the report may know otherwise. How
often are reports written "back to front" in the sense that
the conclusions are arrived at first and the data and graphs are added later? The
information component of such reports may be selected carefully (i.e. with
conscious bias) to attempt to give credibility to proposals arrived
at by other methods. Worse still, and common,
the information component may be largely decorative, arrived at out
of a sense that this type of document "needs a few graphs".
Once you understand the concept of
"infozak" you start to recognise it everywhere.
The art of misinformation using
"statistics" is at least as old as the profession
of politics. Disraeli is famously attributed as saying "There
are lies, damn lies and statistics". Ironically, this attribution itself
may not be true, but the activities of modern
day political campaigning produce no shortage of examples.
Fortunately we are largely tuned in to expect manipulation of information in
such arenas.
It is the
accidental production of infozak that is the greater concern. Due to
the increasing ease of production and dissemination, infozak is everywhere.
Bill Gates must take his share of responsibility for the infozak
pandemic.
Many years ago, when my oldest daughter
was four, she decided to entertain herself (without authorisation) using
Micosoft Access which she had discovered on my computer. In a matter of minutes
she had set up a CD collection database system. At the time, as far
as I know, she had received no training in database development
and design. She was simply making largely arbitrary choices from
the easy-to-use "wizard" in Mr.Gates's software.
She produced something about which she had little understanding but
which was very pleasing to her.
Microsoft Excel is equally easy to use.
Many grown-ups can produce, in a matter of minutes, a raft of visually pleasing
tables and graphs from any given selection of unprocessed data. It is
possible to produce a time series bar chart of monthly totals in about 80
seconds. With one more click a trend line can be added. Ten
more seconds to embed or paste the results into a
Word document or Powerpoint presentation. From raw data
to information wallpaper in less than two minutes. Beautiful!
The trouble is that a cursory
inspection may not easily distinguish infozak from true information. In fact
infozak may look more like information than information does itself. Good
information will be seeking to communicate. It will therefore make sparing use
of graphical devices. The message may stand out but the medium should
blend into the background. Infozak does the reverse.
There may well be no clear message at all. The intention is to
impress. Graphical devices are used to the full. It looks
fantastic. It conveys almost no meaning.
What creates the pandemic is the highly
contagious nature of infozak. Once normally rational people are exposed to even
a small piece of beatiful infozak they suddenly
develop irresistible cravings to start producing infozak themselves.
It quickly spreads everywhere. There seems to be no cure.
References
Disraeli quotation
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