評論
打印
Technology and politics
科技和政治
The signal and the noise
信號和噪音
Ever easier communications and ever-growing data mountains are transforming politics in unexpected ways, says Ludwig Siegele. What will that do to democracy?
交流變得越來越容易，海量的數(shù)據(jù)積累正在以不可預知的方式改變著政治，Ludwig Siegele如是說。這樣的技術會給民主帶來什么？
DONALD TRUMP, THE Republican front-runner for the American presdency, is clearly riding a wave of anger—but he is also wielding a huge virtual megaphone to spread his populist messages. “@realDonaldTrump”, the Twitter account of the property magnate turned politician, has more than 7m followers and the number is rising by about 50,000 every day. Moreover, since each of his tweets is re-tweeted thousands of times and often quoted in mainstream media, his real audience is much bigger. And if he does win the Republican nomination, it will be hard to tune him out. “How do you fight millions of dollars of fraudulent commercials pushing for crooked politicians?” he tweeted in early March. “I will be using Facebook & Twitter. Watch!”
重點詞匯：
1 wield 擁有，運用，行使，支配（權(quán)力等）
2 megaphone 擴音器；喇叭筒；傳聲筒
3 property 不動產(chǎn)；房地產(chǎn)
4 magnate 權(quán)貴；要人；富豪；（尤指）產(chǎn)業(yè)大亨. property magnate 地產(chǎn)大亨
5 tune sb out 不理睬某人
6 fraudulent 欺騙的；欺詐的
7 crooked dishonest 不誠實的；欺詐的
聽力原文:
If Ted Cruz, his fellow Republican, were to clinch the nomination, the campaign for America’s presidency would be quieter—but no less digital. Mr Cruz’s victory in the Iowa primaries was based on effective number-crunching. He bombarded potential supporters with highly targeted ads on Facebook, and used algorithms to label voters as “stoic traditionalists”, “temperamental conservatives” or “true believers” to give campaign volunteers something to go on. He also sent official-looking “shaming” letters to potential supporters who had previously abstained from voting. Under the headline “Voting Violation”, the letters reminded recipients of their failure to do their civic duty at the polls and compared their voting records with those of their neighbours.
重點詞匯：
1 clinch 成功取得；贏得
2 number-crunching基于大數(shù)據(jù)計算
3 bombard 轟炸；轟擊
4 algorithm 算法；計算程序
5 stoic n 堅忍克己的人;禁欲主義者，恬淡寡欲的人，不以苦樂為意的人; adj. 堅忍的，苦修的;
6 abstain （投票時）棄權(quán)
7 recipient 受方；接受者
8 civic 公民的;市民的
聽力原文:
The way these candidates are fighting their campaigns, each in his own way, is proof that politics as usual is no longer an option. The internet and the availability of huge piles of data on everyone and everything are transforming the democratic process, just as they are upending many industries. They are becoming a force in all kinds of things, from running election campaigns and organising protest movements to improving public policy and the delivery of services. This special report will argue that, as a result, the relationship between citizens and those who govern them is changing fundamentally.
重點詞匯：
1 upend 顛倒，放倒
例句：We’ll have to upend the sofa to get it through the door.
我們得把沙發(fā)倒過來才能抬過這門.
If successful, we will upend our main competitors.
如果成功, 我們將擊敗我們的主要競爭對手.
聽力原文:
Incongruous though it may seem, the forces that are now powering the campaign of Mr Trump—as well as that of Bernie Sanders, the surprise candidate on the Democratic side (Hillary Clinton is less of a success online)—were first seen in full cry during the Arab spring in 2011. The revolution in Egypt and other Arab countries was not instigated by Twitter, Facebook and other social-media services, but they certainly helped it gain momentum. “The internet is an intensifier,” says Marc Lynch of George Washington University, a noted scholar of the protest movements in the region.
重點詞匯：
1 incongruous 不合適的；不相稱的；不協(xié)調(diào)的
2 in full cry 激情吶喊；大聲疾呼
3 instigate 煽動；唆使；鼓動
4 momentum 推進力；動力；勢頭
5 intensifier 強調(diào)成分，強化詞（尤指形容詞或副詞，如so或very）
6 noted（以…）見稱，聞名，著名
7 scholar 學者
聽力原文:
In the course of just a few years digital technology has become an essential ingredient in any protest movement. The Arab spring is just one example of how the internet has facilitated political mobilisation. Others include the civil unrest in Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park, the Maidan protests in Ukraine and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, all in 2013 or 2014. In America the main instances have been Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and more recently Black Lives Matter, a campaign drawing attention to violence against African-Americans. In Europe, Spain’s Indignados, an anti-austerity coalition, in 2011 became the first big protest movement to make extensive use of social media. Even Islamic State relies on its online propaganda and messaging apps, which allow the self-styled caliphate to recruit new fighters and keep in touch with those on the ground
重點詞匯：
1 In the course of 在…期間，在…過程中;
2 ingredient （成功的）因素，要素
3 political mobilisation 政治動員
4 unrest 動蕩；動亂；騷動
5 maidan （南亞城鎮(zhèn)中或近郊的）草地，廣場，空地
6 instance 例子；事例；實例
However, this special report will argue that, in the longer term, online crusading and organising will turn out to matter less to politics in the digital age than harnessing those ever-growing piles of data. The internet and related technologies, such as smartphones and cloud computing, make it cheap and easy not only to communicate but also to collect, store and analyse immense quantities of information. This is becoming ever more important in influencing political outcomes.
重點詞匯：
1 crusade （長期堅定不移的）斗爭，運動
2 harness 控制，利用（以產(chǎn)生能量等）
聽力原文:
America’s elections are a case in point. Mr Cruz with his data savvy is merely following in the footsteps of Barack Obama, who won his first presidential term with the clever application of digital know-how. Campaigners are hoovering up more and more digital information about every voting-age citizen and stashing it away in enormous databases. With the aid of complex algorithms, these data allow campaigners to decide, say, who needs to be reminded to make the trip to the polling station and who may be persuaded to vote for a particular candidate.
重點詞匯：
2 hoover up 獲得大量的（某物）
2 hoover 用真空吸塵器清掃（地毯、地板等）
3 stash 存放；貯藏；隱藏
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