Alvin Rabushka, David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, compares public policy dissemination between the time he got in the business in 1969 and now. It's easier; it's more vast--but is it better?
Rabushka's not sure.
Citing the relatively large numbers of Twitter and Facebook followers he writes:
...numbers show that a handful of political personalities can overwhelm the think tanks in communicating with the policy-interested public. Should think tanks try to embed their research into these communication networks to reach a larger audience?. Not clear. There is a danger that the scholarly-based policy work emanating from think tanks embedded in the networks of prominent personalities would be instantly politicized and rejected out of hand by the broader public as biased or tainted.
What then becomes the business model of the research-based think tank? The pre-high tech model of transmitting a clear signal through static, itself difficult. has been replaced by pointing decision makers in the direction of finding diamonds in mountains of ore. Much harder. Moreover, in the next five to ten years, new technologies will be developed that further clog the arena of ideas. Much as the Internet helped elect Barack Obama as president, the fleet afoot will have a disproportionate influence on policy, while those clinging to the old approach will languish.
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