The Overton Window is an idea named after a US political analyst, Joseph Overton. The Overton Window suggests that not everything is up for discussion. Some perspectives are permissible and reside within the window. Other views, outside this window, aren’t acceptable and are considered socially awkward to discuss. A subsequent analyst, Joshua Trevino, offered a range of ratings of ideas, those that were outside Overton’s Window were considered Unthinkable or Radical. Within the window are ideas which are Acceptable, Sensible, Popular, and Policy.
To gain traction on discussing or inviting legislative change on an issue, it must be first within the Overton Window. Some ideas may be “ahead” of their time and need to be nudged into the window prior to being heard. Getting an idea into Overton’s Window isn’t easy and isn’t guaranteed. Lawmakers or citizens on their own are not likely to be able to manage this. The headwinds an idea outside Overton’s Window faces to be heard or legitimized are strong.
Do the powers that be influence what you see? If so, does this impact what you know? What falls within the range of acceptable discourse is determined by some confluence of forces. Our Overton Window is like the wall of shadows seen as reality for Plato’s prisoners in his Allegory of the Cave. The shadows come from the puppet masters behind and unknown to the prisoners. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent in 1988. The core idea is that deception is baked into many aspects of life. That is, those in charge work to shape the narrative that is disseminated to the public. There are puppet masters that are seeking to shine certain views on the walls of our caves.
Censorship in Western countries isn’t obvious and stronghanded like in authoritarian countries but, according to Chomsky and Herman, done covertly. Efforts of the state seek to manage opinion while presenting the illusion of debate. Public opinion is shaped by allowing “dissent” as long as it is within the bounds of what the powers that be deem acceptable. Debates are like professional wrestling in that they look like legitimate conflicts but are really staged and choreographed. They are well done productions we can look at our entire lives and believe that genuine discussion is going on.
Dissent isn’t forbidden, but airtime is limited to a narrow range of views. Much of the process appears unconscious – subtle incentives drive participants to play along without knowing. A slight frown here, an encouragement there, moves a story from outside the edges back into the range of reasonable. Raises, promotions, and awards all encourage the “proper” focus on stories that are within the realm of what’s permissible. These incentives drive the direction of discussion. Chomsky called the feedback people received for stating views outside the range of acceptable as “flak.” When we receive flak, felt as a little push back, we feel out of place socially. Under the burden of grief, we learn the relief of adjusting our perspective to fit the narrative. We’re rewarded for staying in bounds and subtly rebuked for straying outside. These incentives sum to a system of informal social control.
If a dissenting voice slips through, it is diluted by a deluge of repetition of desired perspectives. The Mere Exposure Effect is the core idea behind advertising. That is, repetition works. If we keep hammering people with visual and verbal messages, they will come to believe what is being presented. Sometimes referred to as the “familiarity principle,” the idea suggests that we lean to liking things because we’re familiar with them and we’re familiar with them because we’ve been repeatedly exposed to them. Horace Mann observed, “If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.” This captures the idea that being exposed to the same message relentlessly can’t help but let it leak into our minds shaping our thoughts.
Freedom of the press was considered an important right and a key component to being a check on government. Investigative journalists and pesky reporters asked questions of leaders holding their toes to the fire. News outlets had traditionally been seen as trustworthy where anchors reliably reported on the facts. The companies did this when there were only a few of them because this approach drew large audiences. It was easier to disseminate consistent messaging when only three TV channels existed. With the advance of cable TV, the 24-hour news cycle, and then the internet, the opportunity for a wider range of voices to be heard arose. Additionally, with the extra time to distribute information, drawing attention became harder and harder. Opinions began to take up more time alongside the news. News became entertainment. News became about agitating anger so that people would tune in. Debates drew attention.
Nonetheless, even with what appears to be like infinite choice, most of these “channels” were and are owned by a handful of large, corporate entities. That is, it’s still a few that are controlling the distribution of the range of views heard. Even though the intent was to incent anger and draw attention, the contentious debate and discussion was arranged around a limited range of subjects and perspectives. This type of media caters to a narrowing demographic. It’s the 55 plus crowd that tunes in to what is left of Cable TV. The younger generations are picking up their news from social media sites and other video platforms.
Since 2016, media has overtly given up its role of objectively informing its audience. Now they explicitly state they have a moral duty to opine and shape views. The media considers themselves as obliged to present “approved” perspectives and argue against anything to the contrary. For example, the show “The View” isn’t called “Lots of Views” or “Let’s Learn.” View is singular. There are three hosts that are all-in on a given perspective. I don’t think there’s a single example where the three “main” hosts ever differ. A fourth host seems to rotate regularly and offers the “inclusion” of an “outside” perspective or counterpoint. However, the person playing this role is a tempered version of an opposing perspective and they are barely given airtime. It’s a strong, united three against a tepid and timid individual. It presents as a debate but is just one ambush after another advocating for what has been determined to be the correct perspective. The show “The Five” on Fox News is another example of a similarly, “staged” debate. Diversity of opinion is anything but encouraged.
Our consumption of seemingly infinite news channels is largely controlled by six social media or technology companies. They have the ability to “rig” search results. Approved views can be amplified or boosted, and less desirable ideas can be throttled (made less available to search results), shadow-banned, or outright censored (deplatformed). The result is that what we see and are exposed to continues to be controlled by forces unknown and unseen by us.
In an article for The Free Press, an editor at NPR writes about the collapse of journalistic integrity in favor of conformity narrowing the Overton window of acceptable coverage in this organization. Berliner writes, “Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population.” Berliner notes that as recently as 2011, the audience of NPR was relatively “balanced.” About a quarter of the audience considered itself conservative, another quarter “middle of the road,” and a slightly higher percentage of the audience considered itself liberal at 37%. Over the course of a decade, the balance of the audience shifted substantially. Now, more than two thirds of NPR’s audience considers itself “somewhat or very liberal” while the number of conservatives have dropped. Berliner writes, “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America.” Berliner offers three examples of stories covered where the perspective presented wasn’t done based on an independent investigation into communicating facts but where the coverage offered advocated for a certain set of facts. He then goes on to detail the internal shift from a news organization to one advocating for a particular narrative. Viewpoint diversity once held as a positive value for news organizations was shuffled to the background. It was replaced with an overt commitment to advocating a particular perspective on issues. Berliner notes, “There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed.” He goes on writing, “The mindset prevails in choices about language.” What is permissible involves both what may be talked about and how it may be discussed.
Berliner also notes that the editorial staff of the organization is heavily skewed to a given worldview. Internal records suggest that 87 members of the editorial staff are registered Democrats and zero are Republicans. That “balance” seems anything but diverse. Both the organization and its audience has narrowed the range of views given a voice. He points out that a cost of this paucity in presenting perspectives is reduced audience. Berliner offers that the trust its audience once had has reduced. Only the diehard believers that are part of the choir remain. Declining diversity in opinion isn’t healthy for a news organization.
It’s not just news and the internet where the range of permissible perspectives are presented. It’s also the case in many educational contexts. Post-secondary education in the US is big business. In 2021, its market was almost $1T which is comparable to half of Canada’s entire GDP. Unfortunately, higher education has become less inviting to diverse viewpoints. Speech codes limit what’s acceptable to say. By 2010 only 8 of “top” 346 US colleges did not have a speech code. From speech codes followed administrative roles known as “bias response teams.” Students are encouraged to “report” anonymously on other students or professors that may have breached speech codes. The bias response teams have wide latitude to investigate and impose punishments on offenders.
Moreover, the political orientation of faculty members has shifted heavily to favor Democratic perspectives. Democrats now overwhelm Republicans by a margin of 8.5 to 1 in academia. In The Cancelling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott write, “Ideological homogeneity is self-perpetuating: dominant viewpoints run unchecked, while heterodox voices are viewed as a threat. The result is a conformist campus culture that weeds out dissenters.” In surveys asking students if they “self-censor” in discussions within their classes or with classmates more than 80% say they do.
Further restrictions on speech and ideas have come from the introduction of DEI statements. To get jobs or access funding, people must pledge adherence to a specific ideological view. These are seen as litmus tests nudging participants to sing from the same song sheet. The picture gets bleaker when we see the number of guest speakers who have been disinvited or have had their events heavily protested. Where Universities once prized presenting a variety of perspectives, now a narrower and narrower slice of speakers are permissible. Lukianoff and Schlott write, “If we want a better society that produces better solutions to the problems it faces, we need to be teaching nonconformity at every single level of the education process. And yet our education system is incentivizing conformity and groupthink.” Professional codes of conduct and ethics also include ideological statements that act as fences around what’s considered acceptable in conversations and ideas. These force people into a unified mindset. Diversity of opinion is seen as a weakness not a strength. Conformity is the value prioritized over multiple perspectives.
All these forces result in a reduction of discussion and debate. The powers that be shape what the media focuses our attention on. This is reinforced by tech companies, academia, and other professions resulting in a less wide range of discussion. In the foreword to The Cancelling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt writes, “Show me an organization where people are afraid to speak up, afraid to challenge dominant ideas lest they be destroyed socially, and I’ll show you can organization that has become structurally stupid, unmoored from reality, and unable to achieve its mission.” This is, ultimately, why we should fear narrow Overton windows. To avoid limiting intelligence and compromising our ability to deal with the complexity of the world as it is, we need to open our Overton window wide. We, our organizations, and our society are not better when our Overton window is closed. Open the Overton window and let the fresh air of spirited debate breeze through.
