Skyful of Lies and Black Swans

Monday 7 December 2009 at 7.00pm
International Politics Building

Nik Gowing, main presenter for BBC World News, gives an illustrated presentation of his new analysis of how in moments of major, unexpected crisis the institutions of power - whether political, governmental, military or corporate – face a new, acute vulnerability of both their influence and effectiveness.  The study is having enormous impact at the highest executive levels of institutional power. "Spot on, I am sad to say" wrote one very senior government official.

Nik's study for the Reuters Institute at Oxford University analyses the new fragility and brittleness of the institutions of power, and the profound impact upon them from a fast proliferating and almost ubiquitous breed of ‘information doers' and 'social media'. Empowered by current, cheap lightweight, ‘go anywhere' technologies available to all, they have an unprecedented mass ability to bear witness. The result is a new matrix of real-time information flows and transparency that challenges mercilessly the inadequacy of the structures of power to respond both with effective impact and in a timely way.
 
The recent protests in Iran and China are merely the latest confirmation of the phenomenon Nik has identified. Exponential technological changes are redefining, broadening and fragmenting the media landscape in dramatic ways. They impact directly and profoundly by way of two new realities. Firstly on long standing assumptions in the institutions of political, security and corporate power about the nature of the media in a crisis. Secondly -  and even more fundamentally - on the nature of power because the effectiveness of existing structures and their relations with the public is perceived as inadequate. 

The relentless and unforgiving trend towards an ever greater information transparency is subverting the effectiveness of traditional structures of power. It also calls into question institutional assumptions that as organs of power they will function efficiently and with public confidence in a sudden, major crisis that catches them off guard.

These dramatic changes in the information dynamic have created what 'Skyful of Lies' characterizes as not just a Tyranny of Real Time but a Tyranny of the Time Line.