Please reread Eric Alterman's piece from the New Yorker, "Out of Print" and focus on the disagreement between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey about the role of journalism.
Lippmann draws a connection between the professionalization of journalism, and the declining participation of the public in politics:
"Aside from biennial elections featuring smaller and smaller portions of the electorate, politics increasingly became a business for professionals and a spectator sport for the great unwashed—much as Lippmann had hoped and Dewey had feared. Beyond the publication of the occasional letter to the editor, the role of the reader was defined as purely passive."
Questions:
1) Do you agree with Lippmann that the work of governing a complex modern society is best left to professionals, and the best role for the public is that of informed spectators? Or do you agree with Dewey that the public has a more important role to play?
2) If you agree with Lippmann, what's the best case you can think of for Dewey's point of view. If you agree with Dewey, what's the best argument for Lippmann?
3) What could newspapers, television or other traditional media do to create more opportunities for public participation and deliberation? What can new media do?
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As much as I want to live in the world that Dewey envisioned, I agree with Alterman’s assessment that “the future turned out much closer to Lippman’s ideal” (p. 53). It seems that we have the left the governing of society to a few professional politicians, and much of the U.S. electorate cannot be bothered to show up and cast a ballot one way or the other.
While this can in part be attributed to “the professionalization” of journalism, I think that other factors have played a more important role in the declining interest in public policy and politics, the first of which is a complete lack of time to stay informed. “Compared with Europeans, a higher percentage of American adults work, they work more hours per week, and they work more weeks per year,” according a 2005 James Surowiecki article in The New Yorker. When they are not at work, many people are driving their children from one activity to another. Then, there is the time it takes to purchase enough goods and services to keep our consumer-driven economy afloat. Now, factor in the deepening cynicism and suspicion among the electorate (as evidence of this, allow me to cite the collapse of the I-35W bridge, a jarring example of the failure of government to keep it’s most fundamental promise to citizens). Who can blame people for opting to leaf through a copy of People magazine instead of picking up The New York Times when they have a few minutes; or for spending an evening watching back-to-back episodes of Law and Order instead of CNN.
I am not arguing that this is an ideal state, but I do think it is important to take these factors into account. It is easy to be a full participant in American culture and to not know a thing about the workings of government at any level. This is simply the path of least resistance for many over-worked, over-tired Americans. Of course, I agree with Dewey that the public has a more important role to play in democracy. Lippman’s world of a few elites running the American government on behalf of the masses has run amok while the masses have been distracted by their busy lives. As evidence - habeas corpus was eliminated in the fall of 2006, and still The Revolution has not begun. I think the current state of politics is not an indication that Lippman got it right, it is also the best argument for striving for Dewey’s vision.
The role of media starts by ceasing to be an active contributor to the growing list of reasons for cynicism and suspicion.
1) I agree with the Lippman idea of professionals disseminating information to the public. To me it seems that a vast amount of people would rather be passive, especially when it relates to local news.
2) Dewey's viewpoint offers the public active participation in the news. the best aspect of this form allows involvement and direction of what the public deems newsworthy. rather than letting one or a few people decide what is "hard-hitting" news. with that level of public involvement, people can not complain about what is news because they have just as much opportunity to contribute as everybody else.
3)What I have seen the traditional mediums do is have this online/write in news stories. essentially you can email CNN your own news story and they will air it. this makes the public their own reporters and gives them the ability to join their ideas with a rather large news organization. not to mention that there are numerous forums, provided by the news organizations, for the public to discuss news and then the networks can turn to the forums to get a quick pulse of the public. New media is the pioneer of the exchange of information. the blogs, forums ETC... are great destinations to get a story out. for example wikipedia and blogs were the first to get the I-35W collapse into the world. the fact that someone sitting in their apartments or houses by the bridge just turned, logged on, and submitted the information they had mere moments after the incident is completely exclusive to the new news media.
I was listening to NPR this morning. There was a great story, "Media Play Catch-Up To Lightning Pace Of News," that addressed in 3:48 several of the issues we've been discussing over the past weeks: What gets covered by the media and why? How are the priorities set? What impact is new technology having on news coverage? Who explains it to those of us, the passive public "in the back row of the theater"? And, as the radio story implies, what if the professionals don't have the time or resources, especially if newsrooms' staff are being cut back, and they are scrambling to keep the headlines coming out? Implicit is how democracy could be affected.
Read it and listen to it here
What caught my ear was the bite from Jeff Jarvis that supports Lippman's view but also expresses frustration inherent in trying to cover so much news as it breaks so quickly, especially as a responsible 'professional journalist':
"I don't think anyone — including the people in charge — can make sense of what's happening in the country right now," says new-media guru Jeff Jarvis. He's a consultant for several media companies, including The Washington Post, and a columnist for The Guardian. Jarvis says the media are simply overwhelmed by the news.
"It's just too big and too complicated, and it requires both too much background and fundamental understanding about economics," Jarvis says. "Also, we're not sure whether we're being told the whole story still, so we need people to look into things the way journalists do."
"(Jarvis) says newspapers and other major news outlets often archive coverage for defined topics on a specific page but rarely curate that page, providing added analysis, links and commentary from informed readers to amplify the stories that appeared in print or on the air.
"What I need is someone to sit down and explain it to me," Jarvis says. "Maybe you come to it the first day, maybe you come to it on the 10th day, but I need someone to say, 'Here are the basics of this story. Click on this link, and I'll take you and I'll explain it to you.' "
At no point in the piece was it mentioned that perhaps the "passive public" could help sort out the confusion and chaos via blogs or videos or any other form of new media as active participants in our democracy as Dewey would like to see. Note that the NPR piece does have a Comments section with a couple of pretty informed opinions from citizens among the "great unwashed." Or do these count as letters to the editor according to Lippman?
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