With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

An exploration of the consequences of this dynamic relationship on communication in the 21st century.

The topic of wielding of power is one that has remained, and continues to remain pertinent through the ages. Particularly, its meaning and nature relevant to various stakeholders in society, and influence on decision-making in general has taken centre stage in political, social and economic rhetoric. One possible reason that underlies a keen interest in the idea of power is its continuous transformation over the millennia.

If one were to rewind to seek an understanding of power in ancient societies, Kautilya’s Arthashatra, a treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy penned somewhere between 350–283 BC, provides a window to understand the idea of power relevant to a sophisticated ancient society. Although the manuscript describes a state ruled by a king who has been given extensive powers, Kautilya enumerated seven Prakritis or organs of a state that were essential for its overall functioning and prosperity. The organs included the Amatya (Minister) and the Janapada (Population) among other entities. The composition of each entity and its respective responsibilities towards the king and the state was clearly outlined. What is particularly of interest to note is that these entities were also entrusted with the responsibility to keep the king in check – a mechanism that is also reflected in a number of monarchies in Western history where a ruler could not act in isolation or solely of his own volition. Thus, independent of context, the definition of power inherently involves a description of how the power in question is structured, its limits, the entities that enable its sustenance, and the responsibility of the numerous entities that partake in the ecosystem that seek to benefit from the efficient and just use of this power.

Much like the transformation of the meaning of power over the generations which shall be addressed in later paragraphs, the idea of responsibility, too, has seen its own parallel transformation over the years. If one were to borrow from the political rhetoric in the United States from the time of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, the idea of responsibility could be viewed as a duty one had towards another entity (person, institution, state). This idea of responsibility closely resonates with the idea of power elaborated in the aforementioned paragraphs. In the time of Kautilya, a citizen, for instance, was responsible or a had a duty towards his/her king. Additionally, the exact nature and the extent of this responsibility was defined, along with the positive consequences of fulfilling said responsibility to the best of one’s abilities. This in turn imbued a positive sense of agency in a citizen, and a descriptive social norm to fulfil one’s responsibility.

If we fast forward to today, the 21st century, the story is significantly different. In his book ‘The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn't What It Used to Be’, Moisés Naím theorises that power has become easier to acquire, harder and more difficult to use and, faster and easier to lose. The fleeting and less secure nature of power is not only visible in nation states but also in politics, business, religion and labor unions and in any domain that witnesses organised human activity and undertakings. While governments, companies and other large institutions are still not designed to act alone, what Naím describes as the ‘More’, ‘Mobility’ and ‘Mentality’ revolution has contributed to the inability to structure the nature or bounds of this power as strictly as before. Simultaneously, there is a general dispersal of power today from concentrated entities like the king to networks like the Al-Qaeda and to individuals who exert their power via social media platforms. This dispersal feeds off the lack of a tight structure, leading to an uncontrolled and unchecked spread of power with little knowledge on how it should be used most efficiently.

Concurrently, the idea of responsibility too has undergone a transformation of a different kind over the years. While its previous counterpart was synonymous to the idea of ‘duty’ towards the state, the meaning today is closer to the idea of accountability. In his book, ‘The Age of Responsibility’, Yascha Mounk describes various mechanisms that highlight the aspect of conditionality in today’s welfare state. For instance, to reap the benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit mechanism in the United States, one has to ‘Earn it! Keep it! save it!’. Thus, citizens are held accountable for their actions with regards to benefits they may want to avail at a later stage. Mounk uses this conditionality to point to the rise of responsibility tracking – which ties receiving a particular benefit to exhibiting a context specific sense of responsibility. From the lens of experimental economics, responsibility tracking can be viewed as establishing an incentive mechanism in place that stands to reward a certain type of behavior.

However, as any robust experiment requires a detailed set of instructions that allow for a thorough understanding of what is needed of the participants to maximise their rewards, efficient fulfilling of one’s responsibilities today requires a thorough understanding of how one is responsible (or accountable), and in what way. While this is satisfied for specific governmental and financial domains outlined by Mounk that inherently rely on structure for their survival (pensions, earned income tax credit, social security), there is a lack of an equivalent sense of awareness, structure and a tracking mechanism for responsibility within a domain like communication in a world that is rapidly digitising. Coupled with the dispersion and dilution of power that trickles down to wide networks or for that matter, to individuals with a twitter account, the lack of the awareness and related aspects of responsibility outlined above could have far reaching negative consequences that hinder the efficient functioning of institutions in domains that range from religion to finance.

Thus, in a world where there is a trickle down of power, and where responsibility inherently implies making people accountable for their actions, it is safe to assume that if an individual or if a node within a network communicates a) without being aware of his/her responsibility, b) without dictates on what qualifies as communicating responsibly, c) without the knowledge or existence of the benefits to be gained from responsible communication, the end result is unlikely to align with positive consequence that was supposed to result from such a dynamic.

Popular culture today has often seen a use of the phrase, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ which succinctly reinforces the idea of a high correlation between the amount of power and the degree of responsibility. However, seeing as both parties of this relationship are seen as having undergone rapid transformations over the years, further enquiry into the nature of this relationship in relevant domains makes for an interesting and valid extension of existing research in the fields.

In light of arguments presented above, the increase in the amount of power in the hands of individuals or nodes within a network necessitates the need for a clear provision of what responsible behaviour entails. This is of greater importance in domains where the individual or node does not seek to receive a direct financial or welfare benefit. Coupled with the fact that the pen (or keyboard) is mightier than the sword today, communication makes for an interesting testing ground that is an integral, seemingly low consequence activity an individual partakes in, but over time, has shown to have significant consequences for the efficient functioning of various ecosystems.

While the idea of responsibility is one that lends itself to testing in a number of key domains of consequence of modern society, communication makes for an especially pertinent testing ground seeing its widespread influence in decision-making today. In addition to the wave of digitisation that the world is currently witnessing, communication is applicable and relevant to both, individuals and networks (and nodes within a network). Whether it is the power of a negative Facebook review that has the ability to shake the foundation of multinational FMCG or service-led companies, or the necessity of a synchronisation of communication that fuels the power of terror organisations of the Al-Qaeda and ISIS (or the lack of which leads to the failure of a movement like the Occupy Wall Street movement), communication is a key aspect of existence today and is, in a certain sense, how we exert our power or influence over the world. In more recent times, communication has been a key contributor to the downfall of the seemingly highly probably Clinton presidency, while simultaneously exposing the incompetence of the current President of the United States owing to the

flippant use of his twitter handle.

The importance of communication, and its subsequent influence is something that corporations today are increasingly acknowledging, and trying to use to their respective benefits. For instance, influential YouTube or Instagram fashion/lifestyle vloggers are often approached by beauty products companies with requests to ‘push’ their products in their videos or photographs. Moreover, in addition to this acknowledgement, there are also a number of responsibility tracking mechanisms in place that encourage communication of a specific type. For instance, vloggers are often reimbursed in a manner commensurate to the degree of their influence and extent of product showcase in their videos.

Responsibility tracking mechanisms sometimes also use reputational reasons or positive social norms to encourage communication of a specific nature. Figure 1 below introduces the concept of a ‘local guide’ introduced by Google which attempts to encourage purposeful communication that the company incentivises in a manner that correlates with degrees of involvement and relevance of the review. As seen below, the ‘Make an impact’ phrase instantly imbues a sense of agency, and attaches a positive social connotation to behaviour that is already showcased by a large number of people (eg: posting photographs to social media, writing a review for a local restaurant). In Figure 2, the idea of imbuing a sense of agency and responsibility is furthered by Zomato in its assignment of an ‘Expert’ tag to individuals who surpass certain minimum thresholds for restaurant reviews.

Both examples indicate a certain acknowledgement of the power in the hands of individuals, make a certain idea of responsibility salient, define what qualifies as responsible or ideal behaviour and finally, incentivise this behaviour by establishing a non-punitive responsibility tracking mechanism that is based on a combination of reputational and monetary benefits.

Figure 1: Google imbuing a sense of agency

Figure 2: Becoming an expert

In closing, I leave you with one possible research question:

Given a certain divide or structure of power in an ecosystem, does awareness, definition and tracking responsible communication increase the degree of responsible behaviour and the overall welfare of that ecosystem?