Less honest or better informed?
Posted: Friday 27 January, 2012
Georgina Dunkley
I read an interesting article in the Independent this week, about a study undertaken by the University of Essex which says, as a nation, ‘Britain is facing a boom in dishonesty’! Apparently we are less honest and our trust in government has fallen to an all-time low, meaning we are about to embark on an integrity crisis. Factors which apparently are now more acceptable to us than a decade ago include drink driving, buying stolen goods and having affairs.
Now after reviewing this article a number of times I can’t help but wonder how the authors fathomed that being more accepting of something automatically in turn means someone is less honest. The media landscape over the past 10 years has changed dramatically including the way we consume news, the volume of news we are exposed to and what constitutes a good story; these changing habits and a culture of finding the ins and outs and whys and wherefores of a story at the click of a button would be unrecognisable 10 years ago. I would argue in fact that 10 years ago, when life and news moved at a much slower pace, that the detail on celebrity affairs, bent MPs and drink driving bans was a brief news snippet one day and fish and chip paper the next. Now news is everywhere we turn not just on the traditional mediums of newspapers, terrestrial TV and radio but on social networks, blogs, smartphones, satellite channels and news portals too. The amount of detail contained within a news story seems typically to be more in-depth now and if not penned by the fair hand of the author then by a contributing reader who wants to share their insight. With all of this news at our fingertips then isn’t it acceptable to consider that we can make better informed decisions on why and how things happen? Also hasn’t the UK’s supposed love affair with scandal and celebrity news meant that we are exposed to much more deceit and shock tactics?
Politicians too have never been considered the salt of the earth but the constant critiquing of their failures in the news just means that more people, of all classes, now have an opinion on the government – a practice some may argue was previously reserved for the higher classes?
So does this makes us less honest or just better informed and maybe a little more realistic of how the world actually operates? When questioned whether an affair is good or bad perhaps providing a more sophisticated answer of understanding how it could happen doesn’t mean the same thing as actually being dishonest enough to have one? Perhaps understanding why buying stolen goods has become more acceptable has more to do with the financial pressures being faced by consumers during a difficult recession rather than a willingness to be more dishonest? I surmise that there are a lot of outside factors that have not been considered in this study and that purely branding people ‘less honest’ is in bad taste. My gut also tells me this is a lot of naval-gazing about ‘the good old days!’ Here’s looking forward to 2024’s study…!
