Sociology & Media: What About The Public?

Grievances with the mainstream media are often framed in terms of the supply rather than the demand. Most analyses focus either on the field of journalism, corporate ownership, commercialization or government regulation.

But what about our culture that demands to see mindless infotainment?

I would like The Echo Chamber documentary to provide a catalyst for the process of cultural evolution based upon the insights of the dynamic nature of our culture and various theories of human development.

The following sections explore the question of how ‘the public institution’ interacts with other institutional powers of influence...

FRAMING OF MEDIA CRITICISM
SOCIOLOGY EXPANDS POLITICAL FRAMING
THE MORAL FACTOR
PUBLIC AS AN ISTITUTION
CULTURAL EVOLUTION
THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
MEDIA & PUBLIC
CORPORATE OWNERSHIP & PUBLIC
GOVERNMENT REGULATION & PUBLIC
CONSUMER-BASED SOLUTION

FRAMING OF MEDIA CRITICISM
There is a broad range of groups who have grievances with the mainstream news media. As with any complex issue, each perspective has a portion of the truth, but no one group has an absolute grasp of what’s wrong and how to fix it.

Some see government regulation of the media via the Federal Communications Commission as the best solution. Others view the application of direct pressure to journalists as the most viable way to bring about change.

Some think that an increase in the number of media owners will create more competition and expand the diversity of perspectives. While others think that objectivity standard of the mainstream media should be abandoned in favor of a more advocacy and partisan press.

There are people on both sides of the aisle who see the best way out as building an independent media system outside the normal constraints of corporate profit.

Some sort combination of all of the above would probably provide a reasonable short-term solution. But a long-term perspective that is often ignored is the role of the society as the audience of the mainstream media.

SOCIOLOGY EXPANDS POLITICAL FRAMING
Communications scholar Michael Schudson who was recruited to edit an issue of the Political Communication journal in order to investigate "The Place of Sociology in the Study of Political Communication"

Schudson talks about how the field of sociology has expanded the boundaries of political communications. Specifically, the field of political communication has traditionally limited itself to the communications strategies of the two major political parties. Since the Republicans and Democrats are mainly interested in gaining and maintaining political power, then the they have both traditionally framed political issues in a manner that will maximize their benefit within the context of the American electoral system.

New York University Culture and Communication professor Rodney Benson writes in his article "Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In" the field of political communications usually treats the audience who receives these political messages as a passive and static entity that doesn’t evolve.

THE MORAL FACTOR
Sociologist Nina Eliasoph responds to Benson’s view of culture as a "product of series of social struggles" by stressing how our culture is just trying to make "moral sense of the world." This is a factor that is often ignored in political analysis – especially in the investigation of foreign policy issues since the overriding economic and militaristic motivations are much more concrete and salient.

Jim Lobe, the Washington Bureau Chief for Inter Press Service, has been following the neo-conservative movement for over 30 years and told The Echo Chamber documentary in an interview:

"I think a part of that also, for the neo-conservatives, is the belief that the United States is morally superior... It’s better for there to be a dominant military power of the morality of the United States than to have a kind of multi-polar world in which powers that are not nearly as moral as the United States -- like France, like China, like Russia -- can actually get their way -- that that’s necessarily going to be bad for the world. They equate American influence with goodness in the world. To me, neo-conservatives have a much, much more of a moral vision of foreign policy than a political vision. They exist in a moral world rather than in a world of politics -- although they play the political game very well."

Lobe describes the moral motivations of the neo-conservatives, but these types of moral lenses are very important for any individual as confirmed by some of the latest sociologist research described below.

PUBLIC AS AN ISTITUTION
Nina Eliasoph specializes in researching the role of public conversation in forming political meaning. She wrote an article called "Can We Theorize the Press Without Theorizing the Public?" in response to Benson’s article.

Eliasoph describes a feedback loop relationship between the three distinct entities of the media, government and society. She critiques Benson’s sociological analysis because he only focused on the most salient variables of the media and government, but she cautions that the role of the public should not be so easily dismissed. But that in fact, that it should be considered a institution within it’s own right because it exhibits just as many predictable social patterns and means of collective meaning making as the government or media.

Eliasoph expands on the patterned nature of ‘the public institution’ by describing how the results from some of the latest sociological research show how the culture collectively creates moral world vision together through relationships and public action. And that this moral vision has an impact on actions and therefore the institutions of the government and the media.

An individual’s system of moral values seems to serve as the primary filter for how each person perceives and interacts to the world of powerful institutions. Eliasoph explains that this is an important revelation, and that the patterns of interaction between ‘the public institution’ and other traditional institutions should be observed and analyzed.

Noticing these patterned moral structures of our culture can give great insight into treating the public as a powerful institution just as is the media or government. Becoming aware of these patterns also gives us insight into how the collective morality of our culture affects our individual lives on a personal level.

Eliasoph argues that the more that our culture recognizes the collective power of our individual thoughts, then the more that we begin to view the public a powerful entity that isn’t just passively subjected to the powers of the free market.

Media reform and media bias activists often fall into the common trap of dismissing the public as irrelevant by viewing it as a complicit accomplice to the sins of the mainstream media establishment.

CULTURAL EVOLUTION
Many believe that our culture is dynamic and evolving, and that the mechanism for this cultural evolution is through various levels of human developmental.

There are many different psychological theories of human development that have been applied on an individual and micro level. I’d be curious to see if any of these developmental theories have been empirically researched on a more macro / sociological level.

I have a hypothesis that American culture has a collective low-level "Need for Cognition." There is probably enough prima facie evidence of American popular culture that is filled with mindless entertainment to conclude this.

The closest researcher that I have come across that discusses the psychological, spiritual, emotional, physical and cultural development is the integral philosopher Ken Wilber.

Wilber writes in the introduction of the book, Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine:

"There appear to be at least two dozen relatively independent developmental lines or streams that progress through the developmental levels or waves of consciousness. These developmental lines include the cognitive line (studied by, e.g., Robert Kagan, Patricia Arlin), the interpersonal line (e.g., William Selman, Cheryl Armon), that of values (Clare Graves), self-identity (Jane Loevinger), stages of faith (James Fowler), morals (Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan), needs (Abraham Maslow), among others."

Taking a closer look at these micro theories of development will give some insights as to our collective cultural development.

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Development suggests that cognitive development is stimulated by "equilibration." Equilibration is the coping mechanism that humans use to deal with information that conflicts with their existing world views (also know as the reduction of cognitive dissonance).

An individual either simplifies the complex information so that it fits into an existing category of his/her current world view (assimilation). Or person will overhaul their own belief system in order to create a new category to better incorporate the new information (accommodation). Overhauling your belief system is the mechanism by which individuals evolve through the various stages of psychological development.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Education accomplished developmental evolution by presenting moral dilemmas that contained information that didn’t fit into an individual’s existing stage of moral development. Kohlberg would present a dilemma and focus on the individual’s reasoning, and would use the process of debate as a catalyst for development.

The following passage from William Crane’s Theories of Development textbook provides a lot of insight into how development does and does not occur:

Kohlberg (e.g., 1968; 198 1, Ch. 3) says that his stages are not the product of maturation. That is, the stage structures and sequences do not simply unfold according to a genetic blueprint.
Neither, Kohlberg maintains, are his stages the product of socialization. That is, socializing agents (e.g., parents and teachers) do not directly teach new forms of thinking. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine them systematically teaching each new stage structure in its particular place in the sequence.
The stages emerge, instead, from our own thinking about moral problems. Social experiences do promote development, but they do so by stimulating our mental processes. As we get into discussions and debates with others, we find our views questioned and challenged and are therefore motivated to come up with new, more comprehensive positions. New stages reflect these broader viewpoints (Kohlberg et al., 1975).

This indicates that the only way for individuals to evolve their respective levels of development is to challenge their own belief system. One of the most effective ways to challenge your belief system is to engage in civilized political debates with individuals who have a different perspective.

I would like for The Echo Chamber documentary to help accelerate the process cultural evolution by using the insights from theories of psychological development. By stimulating debate between Conservatives and Liberals, then I hope to produce evidence that supports the theory that we live in a dynamic culture that is evolving.

The dominant assumption is that our culture is static and passive, but there are intriguing insights that can be made if it is viewed as a dynamic and powerful institution. The following sections will see how the public institution interacts with the media, corporations and the government.

MEDIA & PUBLIC
David Altheide describes how popular culture feeds the media logic of infotainment.

Free market enthusiasts would insist that the media are just providing the audience with what they demand.

So how do journalists balance this "audience demand" with the highest principles of journalism?

As CBS White House Correspondent Bill Plante described this dilemma to us:

"The need for an audience helps to drive the way we present the news. We can't take large chunks of time and just meander on about policy. We no longer have documentaries with any regularity. And most of what we do is done in a "short-attention-span" context.

It seems that before the media can have the freedom to explore the complexity of the vital issues of the day, then the American culture has to evolve to the point to where it is willing to consume hard-hitting public affairs programming.

As Plante describes this phenomena:

"You can feed broccoli to people who don't want to eat it, and they're not going to eat it. The broccoli should be out there for those who want to help themselves, but you can't force feed it."

Plante concedes that hard-hitting, public affairs programming needs to exist and made available to the public. But Plante is not confident that there is enough of a market demand for the mainstream television media to help provide it:

"Performing more analysis, looking more deeply at questions would be a fine idea on television. Somebody should do it. It might work on public television. You probably won't see it on commercial television. Is it a good idea? Absolutely. Is it likely to happen on commercial television? I don't think so."

There does appear to be hard-hitting public affairs programming on television via PBS and the unfiltered nature of C-SPAN. But there is not a critical mass of people within our culture who are tuning in to these often dry and boring presentations.

CORPORATE OWNERSHIP & PUBLIC
Rodney Benson questions the influence of the role of corporate consolidation of media ownership in his Political Communication article by noting that there is a lot of research that supports the notion that the media’s desire to maximize the audience and broaden the advertising base are the most decisive factors.

This points back to the importance of considering "the public" as its own institution. Benson suggests that one solution to this commercialization of the media is to expand the diversity of financing and more democratic systems of media control, but notes that this type of solution is difficult in the current political environment.

The Democrats do not view the expansion of the financial diversity of the media as an issue that could gain any type of short-term electoral advantage. Therefore, the Democrats and Republicans are essentially in agreement that a purely free market, commercial media is the best way to go. When the two major political parties agree, then there is no further debate. As a result, these types of academic insights become "Dead on Arrival." It is therefore entirely up to the public to educate themselves on this revelation and support a more diverse independent media that compliments the free market media.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION & PUBLIC
The commercial networks are given control over the broadcast radio frequencies for disseminating their programs by the Federal Communications Commission. As part of the deal, the FCC requires that the broadcasters serve the "public interest."

But from an enforcement perspective, the definition of "public interest" is a subjective term that is widely open to interpretation.

FCC Commission Michael Powell infamously expressed this struggle by saying:

"When I first became aware that I might be nominated to a seat on the Federal Communications Commission, I was thrilled that I might be one of those charged with protecting and promoting the public interest. I had long known that the public interest was a pivotal part of communications regulation, but realized I was unsure what it really meant...
"The night after I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come. And, in fact, five months into this job, I still have had no divine awakening and no one has issued me my public interest crystal ball."

There are many interpretations of how to measure and enforce the "public interest," but Powell has a legitimate concern regarding the role of government in policing the free market of television news.

Even with the practical difficulties of enforcing such a rule, I still favor the concept of a maintaining the "public interest" standard for commercial networks. I believe that more harm than good would be done by discarding it.

But Michael Powell brings up a legitimate concern as to how to handle these types of laws that are hard to police and enforce in the real world.

If the public is more interested in "Desperate Housewives" than the latest Frontline documentary, then how would the government force commercial entities to lose money by producing content that no one is willing watch?

CONSUMER-BASED SOLUTION
I think that one possible paradigm-shift solution would be to focus on stimulating the evolution of the collective cognitive and moral development of our culture. This is a bottom-up, grassroots approach that would move the cultural demand away from mindless entertainment and more towards provocative and thought-provoking programming.

The dominant political and sociological framing views the public as a passive entity that is being manipulated by powerful institutions. Sociologist Nina Eliasoph stresses how important it is to teach people how to interact with each other as opposed to just feeding people the "truth" of institutional domination. She warns that preaching a litany of facts to people is the same as viewing humans as passive and not active creatures who are capable of creating a collective meaning.

I want The Echo Chamber documentary to break people out of their dominant paradigms and open their minds up to alternative solutions that transcend the framing of the Democratic and Republican party.

Merely watching a 90-minute documentary will not achieve this, but it will only result from a dialogue between the broad range of perspectives of audience members. I intend to accomplish this by stimulating political debate between Liberals and Conservatives by the using the common ground of their respective grievances with the mainstream news media.

I intend to stimulate cultural evolution by framing the military intervention in Iraq as a moral dilemma structured according to either Lawrence Kohlberg’s or Carol Gilligan’s Theory of Moral Development.

I will not be able to accomplish this alone, and I will definitely need the insights from many different citizens who are a product of this culture in order to help realize this vision.

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