|
Sound-bite
Themepark TV-dinner
Media Mischief & Language
A
vibrant media culture, also known as a Free Press, is vital to
the full and healthy functioning of a democracy. But in the zeal
to push boundaries, much is being done to undermine both the value
of the media and the value of language as the fundamental medium
of free expression. Our media environment is flooded not only
with the jargon of the experts and the specialists, but also with
the jargon of the ignorant. The same media slant that makes corporate
slogans into household proverbs also has the effect of deadening
the expressive capacity of both individuals and the press itself.
The
endless caprice of the ever-expanding "advertising market"
(the term now most commonly applied to what used to be our Free
Press) has replaced the concept of a press designed to first serve
the public interest by providing the service of information. The
advertising-market media scheme instead embraces the paradigm
of a ruthlessly competitive market system in which it is assumed
by all that some mystical essence within market dynamics (regardless
of concentrations of power) will automatically embrace and promote
the First Amendment. This mystical essence (the mythic "invisible
hand") thus is thought to keep important information flowing,
increase transparency at all levels and serve the public interest.
Clearly, it depends on context: in a society beset by tyrants,
this appears to be the case, but in an established democracy,
such forces can have the opposite effect, creating incentives
for distortion and hyperbole.
This
caprice of the ad market (which openly pursues the supplanting
of serious news programming with variety shows, vapid comedy and
24-hour soaps and infomercials) not only hampers discussion; it
erodes the quality of language being used. The reason for this
is simple: the lust to capitalize on what is perceived as the
efficiency of the soundbite reduces the majority of all televised
information to the breadth and depth of the newspaper headline.
If anything follows the headline, it is usually a quote (another
soundbite), and so the pervasive brevity of news delivery comes
to require a sort of witty impertinence which excludes complex
language or reasoning. What is left is a sort of journalistic
dadaism, in which what is said is less important than that it
be said in a novel or ear-catching way. This almost invites the
mangling of language usage, as well as the deliberate use of misleading
trains of thought (shocking or confusing enough to inspire momentary
curiosity, through which to gather "sticky eyes" to
one's channel).
This
of course is the logic of the TV-dinner: a utility designed to
serve the time-constraints of scattered minds. Obviously, the
TV-dinner is a necessary evil of the industrialized, media-saturated
society, its usefulness able to assist any individual or small
group in a moment of need, without the least discrimination. It
is, in this way, very democratic in and of itself, but it is also
part of a larger phenomenon which, through thoughtless patterns
of repetition, boxes out the opportunity to find deeper human
meaning in the human world. One might ask, for instance, what
good is an advanced economic system in which most or all of the
participants never have ample time for a home-cooked meal? Is
that a democracy at all? If most people are deprived of even the
hint of real human enjoyment? We are not there yet, but fast food
(a doubly false duologism) is still gaining ground against more
time-consuming culinary arts.
It
is the bad English of terms like TV-dinner that points to the
problem: we consume nutrient-delivery-vehicles increasingly devoid
of any human touch; we gravitate toward media sources increasingly
devoid of any human touch; we embark upon a cultural transformation
in which complex reasoning is as suspect as haute cuisine; truth
and its expression, or even the quest for it, are folded into
the current of fashion trends. People divorce themselves from
thought, language and sincerity, in favor of more comfortable,
less time-consuming alternatives, the way people lose themselves
in theme-parks designed to stimulate feelings of indulgence and
comfort without stimulating serious thought or discovery. So,
our media has become a landscape of competing themeparks.
During
the war in Iraq, each of the three major cable news networks adopted
a posture of military celebration, adding music, graphics and
military jargon to their highly filtered reporting, almost to
the exclusion of any other news whatsoever. Even before the war
began this was the case, arguably in the midst of an absence
of news on the subject. It was as if they believed that the
primary goal of all news organizations should be to convince the
public of their patriotism, when in fact their profession is uniquely
cited in the First Amendment as having a vital role in the democratic
system, thus rendering them virtually patriotic in their essence,
infallibly so, as long as they remain committed to truth-seeking.
One
station even titled a daily program "Countdown: Iraq",
as if they knew all along that nothing could stop the push to
war, or else as if they themselves were in the business of promoting
it. Some critics have argued that conflict attracts viewers, and
the prospect of increased ad revenue thus leads quite naturally
to an affinity for headlines and images that hint at war. That
would seem to be an almost mystical assertion, in the absence
of hard evidence of such plotting, and so in fairness, it is but
a suggestion. What is clear is that the relentless push to commercialize
any and all communications media has coincided with what appears
to be the apotheosis of an enterprise which was formerly dismissed
as "yellow journalism".
At
other times, we've been graced with twenty-four-hour coverage
of celebrity scandals, entertainment industry news and a general
rumor-mill in which hard reporting seems almost totally taboo.
Instead, it is the product that can be dressed up in its own color-scheme,
a virtual architecture that can set for itself the terms (the
limits) of a narrow debate, the themepark or the TV-dinner culture
that is actively sought. There is also a danger in the very thematizing,
or branding, of news stories, or issues: that is, that it becomes
less permissible to report or to say things which break the mold...
perspectives outside the aesthetics of the them become less attractive,
even where more true or more meaningful... even where more viscerally
shocking.
In
this atmosphere, where the maintaining of popular themes and brands
is considered conducive to prolonged visibility for a news source,
or for its sponsors, there is little room left for the tough but
necessary choices with which editors safeguard the authenticity
of their publications. It is not advertising that causes the conflict:
it is the linking of advertisement to content. That is
a direct affront against the real freedom of the press. Because,
it is a distorted view of who works for whom. The media work not
for advertisers, but for the viewers; it is their money
that advertisers deliver into the suit-pockets of big media. Advertisers
are purchasing a secondary service, but the primary responsibility
of the media is always to its audience.
It
is in this service to the people that the press gains its freedom.
Once the press turns its back on this fundamental liberty, the
scope of what is delivered can only narrow. And it is in that
narrowing of the lens, in that constriction of the landscape,
that access to information is undermined, language is overtaken
by the perceived efficiency of sound-bites, and so by the urge
to corrupt the use of language as a medium for free and thoughtful
expression.
What
is the meaning of all this criticism? Should we censor the "advertising
market"? Should the government dictate in strict terms what
the "public interest" is? I think not, at least not
in a way that violates the First Amendment promise of a Free Press.
But in some severe instances, standards might be applied, in the
interests of encouraging the press to fulfill its obligation to
provide a public service. For instance: the time-honored standard
of a minimum amount of news programming for broadcast networks,
or, more proactively: a requirement to provide a certain amount
of unbiased, free political coverage of a certain minimum number
of parties (more than two) during election season. Or, consider
a requirement to publicly correct erroneous reporting at least
one level higher than initially reported by the responsible source.
Perhaps
these are too severe; perhaps it is more democratic to urge the
viewers to choose by opting out of the sound-bite market, by not
watching networks that err on the side of perceived "commercial
viability", or on the side of the more simplistic, more easily
digestible version of an important issue. But who will advertise
this campaign for a devoted press?
Is
it possible that some major commercial entity will take it upon
itself to adopt the long-term view that being associated with
a truly free and independent press would be good public
relations? It could happen. It is, one might suppose, a question
of viewership. Can such a media source survive without ample commercial
funding? As argued above, commercial money seeks the witty dadaism
of the recipient press, the non-proactive, non-investigative,
sound-bite-spiced TV-dinner-styled rumor-mill media environment.
So
maybe the answer lies in language. Language is still the basic
and necessary medium around which all other media are erected.
Maybe it is incumbent upon each individual mind to defend its
right to know, defend its right to enquire, defend its right to
benefit from and even partake of a free press, by using language
as well as possible, by building up a repertoire of incisive
conceptual language, and by exercising these assets in
the human environment, in the natural subtext (which some call
"real life") to the media ecology. And from there, maybe
language leads to more language, asking to knowing, effort to
information.
|
