The Public, The Experts, and The Availability Cascade

Whose opinion is more valid on the issues that society faces? The public or the experts? Should lawmakers and politicians defer to the analysis of the experts or the outcry of the public? And why does this happen?

With the rise of social media, the public (in combination with the news media) has more power than ever to set the agenda. Lawmakers and politicians can be more reactive to what consumes the news feeds rather than proactively setting an agenda based on expert analysis. What issues are most important? What are we morally outraged about today?

For example, single-use plastic straws have been the source of much outcry in the past few years leading to their ban or phase-out by many cities, states, and corporations. Objectively, plastic straws pollute the ocean, end up in drinking water, and harm wildlife. On the flip side, plastic straws only make up less than 1% of the ocean’s pollution (Jordan, 2018). An expert may point out the statistics and suggest that we go after the bigger sources of pollution to have the greatest impact. However, the public sees images of sea turtles with plastic embedded, which strikes fear and emotion, resulting in a national movement. This illustrates how the public coupled with news media outlets can drive the political agenda. But is this a bad thing?

What is the Availability Cascade?
In Daniel Kahneman’s book titled, “Thinking Fast and Slow”, he explains the concept of the “availability cascade”. The availability cascade is a term…