What we read, it’s style and its ability to convey authentic, meaningful messages – impacts our democracy.
Newspeak was a restricted, simplistic, fictional language of the Orwell’s totalitarian State Oceania.
The state used language as a tool to restrict the masses’ freedom of thought. Vocabulary was reduced.
‘Think’ became both noun and verb, the word ‘thought’ – no longer required, was abolished.
Spoken in staccato rhythm, the easy to pronounce syllables of Newspeak became automatic and unconscious – thought was short-circuited. By removing the shades of meaning from language, leaving simple polarising concepts -black and white, good and bad, the State was able to enforce its dominance. Shades of meaning, individuality and self-expression were lost as thoughts constructed outside of the party’s language was punished as ‘thought crime. ‘
When writing about communications in a world dominated by global ‘market-speak’, I sometimes I feel like an Orwellian ‘thought criminal’. ‘Content is indeed king’, and in this age of techno-determinism we need to be wary of whose content gets to ‘wear the crown’. Yes, we know that language evolves, but to question the ultimate impact of interconnected digital communication platforms which restrict the transmission of message through algorithmic filtering is now surely reasonable. The online human readability ‘sweet spot’ for content is set at a 12-year old’s comprehension level. What does it’s pervasive use in social media do to our ability to use language in ways which convey a greater depth of meaning and engage people in deliberative communication? Do these platforms restrict truly deliberative democratic dialogue? And is a technologically – constructed form of ‘Newspeak’ becoming our reality?
The heart of this issue is the way technology algorithmically-determines the transmission of written content. Substitute the Orwellian State with Corporate-owned techno giants and we have a ‘technological censoring’ of our capacity to transmit our messages and deliberate meaningfully. Add to this a powerful, influential autocratic leader’s circumventing of the 4th Estate using the Twitter-sphere and a point source of infauxmation with global reach creates a dangerously undemocratic realm of indeterminate ‘truths’. A post-truth world.
Content and context…
Critical to conveying shared-meaning between author and audience, both content and context work together to ‘hook’ an audience. Readability– is about word length and popularity, sentence length and syntax and the aspects of visual presentation such as typeface, spacing and layout which determine a text’s legibility. Sentence length, word length -whether mono or polysyllabic, and the use of potentially confusing prepositional phrases, are all key elements of a text which are measurable and determine the age or grade-level comprehension of its readership.
Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar checks test your document’s Flesch–Kincaid readability – analysing the ease with which the text can be both read and understood. The Flesch Reading Ease, and the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level tests use the same core measures (word length and sentence length), but apply weighting factors in an inverse relationship to each other. A text with a comparatively high score on the Reading Ease test should have a lower score on the Grade-Level comprehension test. The most easily read texts average 5-6 words per sentence and are composed of monosyllabic words. The higher the readability, the higher the score (120 is the maximum) and the lower the educational level required to understand it. Grade 5- 6 or that of a 10-12-year-old is generally considered a ‘sweet spot’ for readability. That is, most people prefer and engage most-readily with text written for this this age level.
‘Voice’ is an attribute of a text which consists of a number of elements mashed-up to give the text it’s style. Who is speaking and from what perspective. How readily and logically the sentences flow, syntax, punctuation, how the pitch and tone imply a position and an emotional state, the use of imagery– whether formal, informal, objective or subjective- all interwoven so that the content matches the author’s intended delivery. So as much as a knowing the readership’s level of educational attainment, you need to know enough about ‘who’ your audience is to pitch it to appeal to their values and interests. Note President Trumps vocabulary and syntax…to whom does it appeal most ?
Appearance also matters. Legibility is about how easily you can actually navigate and literally read through a text. Some rules of thumb for written publications, left hand justified text, dark text on light backgrounds, no fluoro or bright typefaces on dark backgrounds, plenty of balance in the use of white space and the use of bullet points and other visually-orienting devices such as indexes, contents pages, banners, page numbers, things which move the reader through the text.
Importantly there is no right way to write …different audiences want different things and communicate within language communities that vary with culture, educational level, shared values, experience and interests. In the end what’s important is that people engage with your text long enough to read and understand its intended messages. Getting engagement with the message can be achieved by being as varied as the audiences with whom you communicate. The core message must contain shared value with your audience …so, its critical to know your audience. When designing any communication tactic, this is the key to creating relevant content whether publishing on or offline.
Context and medium
Anticipating how, when and where your audience will interact with your communications – whether written, visual, audio, or digital – is critical. The medium through which your message is channelled determines the context in which it is read – at a desk, on the train…whilst watching TV. The reader’s interpretation of a message strongly relates to context. Which media your audience prefers – the channels – determine their reading behaviours when using those media. Do they fully engage with the information; will they actually use it? What will they do with it? – will they keep it, read and discard it or share it with others…and how will they do that?
Much online writing is reduced to short, bite-sized sentences using simple words and phrases. This ensures that the content is able to be read by computer algorithms. Pre-set algorithms (formulae) determine each different channel or platform’s capacity to pick it up and transmit the messages across different reading and viewing contexts. Text situated in one context is readily placed in another because of the interconnectivity and sharability across platforms. The message needs to fit within a variety of different contexts to travel well. Algorithms and search engines are set around the 10-12-year-old reading level. SEO means constructing your message to fit with the algorithmic determinations.
When people say that ‘content is king’ this is part of the understanding they are trying to convey. By appealing to the majority through use of a conversational style using first person active voice – no specialised language – it has ‘mass’ appeal and is readily transmissible. The author has a one on one conversation with the reader within the readability level of a 12-year-old.
Now if you aspire to rule the Western world you’re going to exploit this human preference for simple language and syntax to gain support from ‘the masses’. Your messages will be carefully crafted to transmit simply over interconnected platforms to travel far and ensure uptake of your message. Furthermore, when you factor in peoples’ limited online attention span, the message may not even need to be as coherent as it is repetitive and memorable. Donald Trump uses simple monosyllabic words, and he repeats key words which trigger anxiety and fear in the audience. This motivates support for the guy who says he holds the solutions to these fear-inducing problems. The audience is conditioned through association.
Complex or specialised messages don’t readily transmit across interconnected digital media, their depth and scope is limited by algorithms which determine access and reach across platforms like Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter. Content needs to transmit consistently, independently of its surrounding context (the platform and media attributes) engaging the audience despite their physical interactions with the media. In short, only simple short messages cut through. So, maintaining message integrity in any context, requires that it’s content rules – is ‘king’. But – the king it seems is ideally suited to reign over a constituency with a twelve-year-old’s comprehension.
Adapt Strategic Communications: www.adaptstrategic.com.au
