Chapter 7: Media Influence and the Political World. American culture is politically divided: Conserv

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Chapter 7 Media Influence and the Political
World. American culture is politically divided
Conservative vs. Liberal

• Conformity, law and order
• Bible emphasis
• Hawkish war policies
• Strict, limited govt
• Traditional values that emphasize conformity
• Laissez faire capitalism

• Freedom of expression
• Bill of Rights
• Dovish
• Welfare govt
• Modern values that emphasize diversity/pluralism
• Liberal/regulatory capitalism

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Media and Politics

• Over the last 50 years, the media have
  fundamentally changed the way Americans do
  politics.
  
• Today politicians rely on the commercial mass
  media to get the word out.
  
• Given the capitalist nature of the commercial
  media, politicians must garner massive amounts of
  money to purchase media space.
  
• Much of this money comes from Big Media and other
  large corporations, who expect special favors
  in exchange for these donations.

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Media and Politics

• Aside from incumbency, one of the best predictors
  of which politician will get elected involves
  which candidate raises the most money to spend on
  media ads.
• Corporations give about 2/3rds of their donations
  to friendly incumbents mostly Republicans.
  But after the 2006 elections in which Democrats
  gained control of Congress - they increased their
  donations for Democrats. Both parties accept
  these bribes.
• Most large corporations hedge their bets. They
  give to both sides, but most favor the
  Republicans for their economic conservative
  platform.

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Media and Politics

• Large media corporations like Time Warner and
  Rupert Murdocks Fox typically lobby for
  friendly government policies that do not
  regulate or tax them much while allowing them to
  continue on their path toward oligopoly.
• The 1996 Telecom Act was largely drafted by Big
  Media, handed to politicians and ultimately
  signed into law. This cozy relationship is
  typical today.
• Today about half of all laws passed by Congress
  are drafted not by politicians but by private
  corporations who give their drafts to politicians
  to edit and ultimately enact.

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Media and Politics

• The media also play an indirect role in
  influencing American politics. The news media,
  for example, helps set the agenda of modern
  debates and issues.
• For example, the corporate news media typically
  over-plays personal scandals (ie Bill Clinton and
  Monica Lewinsky) while under-playing corporate
  scandals (ie Enron).
• Fox News is the most notorious. It deliberately
  scandalizes left-wing politicians while ignoring
  or even defending the transgressions of
  right-wing politicians.

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Media and Political Elites

• The most profound and direct influence of the
  commercial media on politics involves which
  politicians are covered by the mainstream media.
  
• The commercial media selects which politicians to
  cover and which to ignore. Those politicians
  most likely to get media attention are the
  insiders those already in power and those
  with the most money to purchase commercial time.
  
• In both cases the direction of media favoritism
  is toward the political elites who are almost
  all wealthy and supportive of the status quo.

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Form over Substance

• The commercial media tend to emphasize form over
  substance in their political coverage.
  
• This is partly due to the nature of television
  itself, with its emphasis on the image.
  
• Richard Nixon learned this the hard way in his
  1960 televised debate with John Kennedy. JFK
  presented an image of poise and calm, while Nixon
  presented an image of nervousness. TV viewers
  gave JFK the advantage while radio listeners gave
  Nixon the advantage.
• Similarly, the 1991 Gulf War provided an
  excellent example of how the commercial media
  favors form over substance, with its video game
  style coverage of the war.

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Form over Substance

• Similarly, the American invasion of Iraq has been
  covered in a shallow manner by the corporate
  media. There are many relevant aspects of this
  invasion that have been largely censored or
  played down, including
• 1. The building of 4 permanent American military
  bases in Iraq (despite promises of leaving)
  
• 2. The relationship of terrorism to the
  Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the pro-Israeli
  policies of the U.S. that exacerbate this
  conflict
• 3. U.S. economic and cultural imperialism in the
  region as the backdrop to rising anger against
  Americans.

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Form over Substance

• Of course, the problem with the commercial media
  emphasis on looks and style over substance is
  that responsible social policy requires
  substance, and citizens need to be informed about
  the substance of American foreign and domestic
  policy.
• Currently, most Americans remain woefully
  ignorant of social policy, largely because the
  commercial media refuses to provide substantive
  coverage of events as important as the American
  invasion of Iraq.
• It is not profitable to provide in-depth
  coverage, so they resort to shallow news bites.

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Form over Substance

• In effect, the commercial media have chosen to
  censor substantive issues of national importance
  in order to provide more escapist entertainment
  for the masses and in order to maximize
  corporate profits.
• It is the entertainment value rather than the
  substantive value that matters most to media
  corporations.

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Form over Substance

• This blurring of tabloid coverage with social
  relevance reflects one of the contradictions of
  the post-modern commercial media.
  
• The public becomes unable to separate fact from
  fiction, which is a special problem for loyal Fox
  News viewers.
  
• The average sound bite on network TV has shrunk
  over the years to just a few seconds. Today we
  live in a media culture saturated with
  infomercials where the line between truth and
  fiction has been deliberately blurred.

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Form over Substance

• Politicians understand what has happened. They
  have been forced to play into the corporate
  medias image-emphasis system because the
  corporate media are unwilling to give more time
  to cover political issues beyond shallow
  coverage.
• Plus, the death of the Fairness Doctrine
  guaranteed that corporations like Fox News and
  Clear Channel would no longer need to be fair to
  both sides when they covered the issues.
• Consequently, politicians have resorted to
  simplistic slogans and image-based campaigns,
  along with manipulative, emotionalized
  advertisements that utilize pecuniary
  pseudotruths to get elected.

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Form over Substance

• Relying on TV ads to present their platform gives
  politicians complete control over the spin, but
  their use of pecuniary pseudotruths and shallow
  appeals increases voter cynicism about politics.
• Voters know they are being spun, and both parties
  regularly do it. It has become a part of the
  system.
  
• As a consequence, voter turnout has declined in
  this age of voter cynicism, and American
  democracy is in real trouble.
  
• One solution to this involves campaign finance
  reform, where politicians are no longer beholden
  to wealthy benefactors to get elected.
  Unfortunately, while voters are receptive to this
  reform, neither the Republican nor Democratic
  party seems to embrace it. So much for
  representative politics.

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Form over Substance

• As the mass media have become more important in
  political campaigns, political party
  organizations have become less important. Parties
  used to rely on grass roots organization which
  pulled people into the political system.
• The decline of party structure has also been
  accompanied by a decline in party affiliation.
  Voters sense they are not being well represented
  by either party - and they are right.
• Conclusion Candidates rely mostly on TV ads to
  sell their agenda, and the political system has
  been greatly cheapened.

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The Effects of Media on Individual Citizens

• Citizens in any democracy require adequate
  information to make informed decisions. There are
  four theoretical models of media influence
  
• 1. The hypodermic model.
• 2. Mass society model.
• 3. Minimal effects, or resonance, model.
• 4. Agenda setting model.

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The Hypodermic Model

• Early models of media effects on citizen
  attitudes suggested that the media injected
  their agenda into the public mind and literally
  told the public what to think.
• However, this model was too simplistic and
  underestimated the publics intelligence.

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Mass Society Theory

• This theory argues that the emerging mass society
  brought alienating effects, making people more
  susceptible to manipulative media messages.
  
• The basic fear was that the rise of mass society
  and mass media would contribute to rising
  totalitarianism.
  
• These fears grew out of the German Nazi use of
  the capitalist mass media to successfully promote
  their Nazi agenda.
  
• Here the audience is seen as having few filters
  to withstand the powerful influence of mass
  advertising and other media propaganda.
  
• This model is still popular, but many argue that
  the public is less susceptible to propaganda as
  this model suggests.

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Minimal Effects Model

• The belief in an all-powerful media did not hold
  up under empirical research. Studies suggested
  that the medias effect on people is less direct
  and more subtle.
• This model argues that media messages act to
  reinforce existing beliefs rather than change
  opinions in a directly manipulative manner.
  
• This model gives more agency to people to select
  and filter out material they are not interested
  in. It was a popular model until the late 1960s.

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Agenda Setting Model

• This model emerged in the late 1960s. It argues
  that the media, while not so successful in
  telling people exactly what to think, are
  successful in telling people what to think
  about.
• The media set the agenda for discussion of public
  issues and debates by directing peoples
  attention to some issues while censoring other
  issues.
• For example the commercial medias coverage of
  crime has been exaggerated, and this causes
  people to overestimate the amount of real crime
  while thinking about crime a lot every day.
• Rather than a minimal effect, this model
  emphasizes that the media produces limited
  effects.

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Current Research on Media Effects

• 1. Readers are very active in interpreting
  information and use more than the media to
  understand reality.
  
• 2. Media influence varies by the characteristics
  of the reader, as well as exposure to the media.
  
• For example, adolescents are more influenced by
  media messages than adults.
  
• 3. George Gerbner and others have found that
  years of exposure to the mass media results in
  the development of generalized attitudes which
  reflect media content.
• Heavy immersion in mass media produces a
  mainstreaming effect where audiences develop
  world views that reflect dominant ideologies.

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Conclusion

• The media influence what people think about, and
  to a lesser extent what people think, depending
  on peoples characteristics and level of media
  exposure.
• Media influence on perception is dependent on
  cumulative exposure more than on specific
  television events.
  
• The mass media set the agenda for what the public
  tends to think and talk about every day.
  
• However, the influence is not blatant. The media
  is most influential on long term heavy viewers.
  
• Finally, audiences bring their own filters with
  them when they process media information.

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Conclusion

• With respect to viewer characteristics, there
  are some traits that are likely to be associated
  with increased media influence. Here is a partial
  list
• 1. Adolescents and children are more influenced
  by media content.
  
• 2. Heavy viewers of media.
• 3. Those who are less mature.
• 4. Conformists, especially those who take their
  cues from media like MTV, Fox News, and other
  commercial trend setters.
  
• 5. Socially alienated people with low self
  esteem.
  

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Audience filters matter

• When researchers study the effects of TV messages
  on viewers, they find it is somewhat
  complicated.
  
• The content of the media does matter, but so do
  the filters that audiences bring to interpret the
  content.
  
• Different audiences bring their own filters, or
  preconceptions, when they watch TV shows.
  
• Note this point is essential for grasping John
  Fiskes model of popular culture and is addressed
  in detail in Chapter 8 of Croteau Hoynes.

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Case example Married with Children

• Married With Children appeals to different
  audiences for this reason. This show was highly
  polysemic It offers many possible
  interpretations.
• Some audiences like to watch the show for its
  celebration of fabulous babes like Kelly Bundy.
  
• Others like to watch it for its witty dialogue.
• Still others like to watch it for its parody of
  the myth of suburbia and the feminine mystique.
  
• Others like to watch it for the goofball, Al
  Bundy.
  
• And others watch it for other reasons, or some
  combination of reasons already mentioned.
  

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Commercial media likes polysemy

• Entertainment shows are usually designed to be
  somewhat polysemic, because sponsors desire the
  widest array of possible audiences.
  
• This is partly why the Simpsons and other hit
  shows are successful. Their polysemy, or openness
  of interpretation, allows audiences to read what
  they want into the content and thus find the
  material relevant.
• In the commercial media, overtly political
  content or any content that has only one basic
  meaning - is less profitable than content that
  is polysemic.
• This helps explain why we rarely get direct
  political commentary in entertainment television.

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Commercial Music

• Like television, music is generally a commercial
  product. Producers of musical content must be
  cautious about promoting messages that alienate
  too many potential consumers.
• Mainstream radio hits, therefore, are full of
  clichés and platitudes about love, and little
  else. Love songs are safe unless they are
  same-sex love songs.
• Today, about half of all commercial radio songs
  are love songs. What is missing are the heavier
  songs about society, politics, or any other
  controversial subject matter.

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Commercial Music

• There are exemptions to this general pattern, but
  they do not apply to mainstream radio as much.
  
• There are some genres of music that are appealing
  simply because they dare to take a political
  stand.
  
• Grunge, heavy metal, some forms of rap music, and
  other styles directly challenge the status quo.
  This music is not intended to appeal to a wide
  audience. It is aimed at niche audiences that
  share similar values. Given the general
  anti-authority nature of youth culture, much of
  this music is appealing and potentially lucrative.

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Commercial Music

• Corporate producers of music are most interested
  in profit. They prioritize the instrumental
  aspect of making money over the expressive aspect
  of the music itself.
• But people who buy the music think the other way
  around. They are interested in the expressive
  nature of the music.
  
• A popular song evokes certain values and meanings
  that are popular within certain subcultures, or
  taste cultures.
  
• If the subculture is radical or extreme, it is
  difficult to market the music of that subculture
  unless that music is co-opted or watered down
  to appeal to wider audiences. Hence, commercial
  rock and rap.

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Example of Cooptation punk music

• Punk music emerged from radical working-class
  urban youths in England with themes of youth
  rebellion, nihilism, and working class cynical
  despair toward the future and the
  over-rationalized, over-commercial culture. Punk
  musicians thumbed their noses at commercial
  slickness, preferring raw and simple
  authenticity.
• But as punk rock was subjected to the forces of
  commercialization, it was co-opted. It was
  smoothed out and repackaged. By the 1980s a
  variant of punk music was new wave, which was
  safer and more commercially viable. In just a few
  short years, the music industry transformed the
  voice of rebellion into a highly marketable
  commodity.

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Cooptation of Musical Forms

• Today (thanks to Michael Jackson, who bought the
  rights to many Beatles songs) a radical Beatles
  song may appear in a car commercial, thereby
  robbing the song of its original intended message
  of rebellion.
• Yet countercultures resist when their music
  becomes contained or co-opted by the mainstream
  culture, and they push on.
  
• One of the prime forces behind the music industry
  lies in the creative energies of certain sub- and
  countercultures to develop new forms of
  expression which reject mainstream rules and
  bring innovation to the system. Corporations are
  always looking for the next big thing.

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Commercial Music

• It is important to remember that audiences
  appropriate music for their own purposes,
  regardless of how the music is marketed.
  
• Audiences bring the own filters when they select
  music, and even though industry constantly tries
  to tweak these filters, industry is never fully
  successful.
• The music industry is less interested in why
  music sells, so long as it sells.
  
• Alternative music is not generally nourished by
  the commercial media, but it is nourished by
  local and nonprofit institutions, and it is often
  supported by subcultures that industry seeks to
  market to.

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• The emergence of a global media has been
  controversial. This is because some people fear
  that the media products of the West will become
  the dominant products of the rest of the world,
  thus robbing the world of its diversity.
• This is the problem of McCulture, where
  everywhere one goes there are the same chain
  stores with the same standardized products.
  
• Their concern involves the issue of cultural
  imperialism the imposition of a dominant culture
  and its cultural forms upon a weaker culture.

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• In recent years, American products have made up
  40 of the European film market.
  
• American corporations also control 60 of the
  film distribution networks in Europe.
  
• The basic argument is that Western media products
  introduced to other nations, especially
  developing nations, contribute to a decline in
  the local values, traditions, and cultures of
  these societies.

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The Case of MTV

• MTV provides an example of this concern. MTV
  started out as a regional cable music program
  that spread across the U.S. and eventually
  saturated the U.S. market. It ultimately became a
  hit program.
• By the late 1980s it narrowed its content to
  commercial pop, with emphasis on American and
  British acts. Today MTV plays commercial pop and
  hip hop music , but its main emphasis is on the
  lifestyle of consumerism more than music.
• The basic message of MTV is for young people to
  join MTVs commercial version of youth culture
  and become hip status-conscious consumers who
  listen to Western music while enjoying Western
  goods and Western values.
• The only rebellious part of MTV is its support
  for the generation gap young is good providing
  you are a dutiful consumer - and old is bad. MTV
  does not support an authentic empowerment
  revolution with political consequences that will
  affect multinational giant corporations like
  Viacom.

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The Case of MTV

• Having saturated the American market, MTV aimed
  for other markets, beginning with Europe.
  
• Then, having saturated Europe with the same basic
  content American and British culture and music
  MTV colonized other regions of the globe,
  including Asia and recently Africa.
• As of a few years ago, MTV-Asia consisted of
  roughly 85 American and British commercial pop
  and hip hop music, with the emphasis on Asian
  youth becoming hip status conscious consumers
  of Western values.
• Only 15 of MTV-Asia consisted of indigenous
  Asian music. The hidden message was that their
  indigenous culture was to be shoved aside for a
  globalized commercial version of Western youth
  culture. Is MTV a Trojan Horse?
• MTV is controversial wherever it goes.

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• At the larger level, MTV is part of a larger
  conglomerate whose desire is to globalize mass
  culture for pecuniary purposes.
  
• Their agenda is colonization in a cultural and
  economic sense rather than a military sense.
  
• A global mass culture poses a threat to cultural
  diversity because it undermines and erodes
  indigenous cultures and substitutes a mass
  standardized version of McCulture in its
  place.
• The main trick is to indoctrinate the youth of
  other cultures into Western-style fashion and
  culture and to promote and exploit a generation
  gap between old (indigenous traditionalists) and
  young (hip modernists open to Western
  consumerism).

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• Today, thanks to corporations like Viacom, Asian
  youth learn to want Nike, Coke, Lee jeans, Mickey
  Mouse, and Barbie Dolls, along with their MTV.
  
• Their musical heroes are Western rock/rap stars
  like Snoop Dog or 50 Cent, with hits like Get
  Rich or Die Tryin (an ode to consumer
  materialism).

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• Most students of culture believe that cultural
  diversity and the support of indigenous cultures
  throughout the world is imperative because
  diversity and freedom go hand in hand.
• Freedom means the freedom to choose which types
  of music you listen to, and not have these
  choices dictated to you by commercial interests.
  
• In countries that cannot afford to feed their
  populations, it is unethical to promote
  unattainable consumerist fantasies. This creates
  social conflicts.
• It is also unethical to teach children that their
  parents are squares and that only young people
  who are status-conscious (and a bit greedy) are
  cool.

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The Cultural Imperialism Thesis

• The response to MTV across the globe varies by
  the strength of the local culture to resist MTVs
  version of globalization.
  
• In Canada, France, and Jamaica, where local
  culture is strong and prideful, laws have been
  passed to regulate the content of MTV in order to
  assure that up to 30 of the music on MTV
  features indigenous artists.
• Whether this is sufficient to protect local
  culture remains to be seen.
  
• But it is also clear that people everywhere
  appropriate only those elements of Western
  culture that they like. Non-Western people do not
  swallow Western values hook, line and sinker.

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Conclusion

• Perhaps more significant is that MTV and other
  Western style corporations engaging in
  globalization may be unwittingly helping to fuel
  reactionary backlash movements that strike back
  against what they see as a threat to their
  indigenous cultures.
• MTV is certainly incompatible with traditional,
  conservative-style Islam. For MTV to colonize the
  Middle East it would have to tone down its
  commercial hip hop dramatically (which it would
  gladly do as long as consumerism is promoted).
• The terrorist Bin Laden has made it clear that it
  is time to rise up and fight the Western
  imperialists and he doesnt mean just the
  military imperialists.

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End