Abstract
A primary goal of Williams and Delli Carpini’s new book, After Broadcast News, is to emphasize the importance in contemporary political discourse of what has traditionally been considered ‘non-political’ media content. This includes not only those shows that have been labeled by some as ‘fake,’ or satire news, such as Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, but also entertainment media such as movies and novels, as well as ‘comic strips, reality television, cell phone videos, [and] You Tube’ (p. 109). More obviously, we need to also account for the powerful radio talk genre as well as 24-hour cable news fare such as the prime-time programs found on the Murdoch-owned U.S. network FOX News. In sum, any content that ‘provid[es] vital information to the public and hold[s] elites accountable’ (p. 13), the work of traditional mainstream news at its best. In this vastly expanded universe of political content, political communications scholars and other interested parties are implored to ‘shift from categorizing [politically relevant media] by genre, content, or source to categorizing by utility’ (p. 122).
Williams and Delli Carpini argue that the dualisms of ‘news versus entertainment, public affairs versus public culture, hard news versus features, and so forth’ (p. 12), are no longer useful. To move beyond these dualisms, they propose we consider as politically relevant all content which ‘shape[s] opportunities for understanding, deliberating, and acting on (1) the conditions of one’s everyday life, (2) the life of fellow community members, and (3) the norms and structures of power that shape these relationships’ (p. 122). In emphasizing a more expansive definition of political media content, they align themselves with the Realist movement of the nineteenth century, which, as ‘a broad intellectual movement that sought to bring greater truth to all areas of representation, whether in literature, newspapers, architecture, or elsewhere’ (p. 34), is held up throughout the book as a stance to which observers of, and participants in, 21st-century political discourse ought to return.
In chapters 2 and 3, Williams and Delli Carpini set out to put previous U.S. ‘media regimes’ – the first partisan press, the penny era, and the Age of Broadcast News – in their technological, economic, cultural, and political context, drawing on social histories of the development of these previous eras. From this overview, Williams and Delli Carpini turn toward three case studies: media coverage of the Clinton scandals, environmental issues, and 9/11 and its aftermath. In their analysis they lean heavily on ideas from cultural studies and postmodern theory, especially hyperreality and multiaxiality. These, they suggest, are the defining concepts of the emergent media regime, in that contemporary public discourse is no longer driven by objective reality but by ‘media events,’ as described by the former, and the expansion of access to the political discourse soapbox, as described by the latter.
The application of these concepts is persuasive, as when they argue that the firestorm over President Clinton’s sex life was primarily a media event (hyperreal), and was perpetuated much longer than would have been possible twenty years before by myriad new blogs, radio talk shows, and the growing entertainment-orientation of traditional news (multiaxiality); or, that alternative media have been much more effective at portraying the truth about climate change than have traditional news outlets, which are bound by problematic mandates such as that for balance, and by an outdated fascination with the ‘game’ of politics. Or again, that traditional news outlets failed in the aftermath of 9/11 to maintain critical distance from government decision-making, while so-called ‘fake news’ and prime-time political talk shows became nearly the only sources for informed debate over the causes of 9/11 and the subsequent war in Iraq.
However, the fuzzy causality posited by Williams and Delli Carpini is problematic in at least one case, and makes the argument less forceful than perhaps it could have been. For example, regarding the Clinton scandals, they state that the ‘multiaxial alliance between mainstream and fringe actors was strengthened with the Republican congressional victories of 1994…and, crucial to our argument, this alliance and its success were made possible by the changes in the information environment’ (p. 154; italics added). This is certainly plausible, but does it necessarily follow that because non-traditional media sources give greater voice to fringe players, that mainstream news must also do so? Haven’t there always been allegations or ideological arguments that fall outside the ‘sphere of consensus’ (Hallin 1986), but which mainstream media have steadfastly ignored? It could be just as easily argued – in the case of the Clinton scandals – that the drumbeat of accusations and allegations against Clinton was entirely the result of a newly empowered conservative Republican element, which, though far more successful than liberal Democrats at harnessing the changing media environment, could have controlled the discourse in Broadcast-Era media as well, had they dominated the political sphere.
Indeed, it has been the conservatives’ contention since the 1960s, during a time when liberals controlled not only the political but also the social and cultural zeitgeist as well, that the mainstream media largely favored the liberals’ version of events.
Yet sorting out this messy causality was clearly not their main goal, and it does not take away from their main contribution, which is to showcase just how much has changed, and its likely impacts. In the last section of the book, Williams and Delli Carpini make normative and public policy recommendations for shaping the nascent media regime. One puzzle is how to instill shared norms of civility, truth-seeking, and democratic engagement across what have become fragmented and somewhat insular audiences. To do this, they say, scholars and public officials should use the tools at hand to encourage public deliberation that employs transparency, pluralism, verisimilitude, and practice –concepts that take the best from the Realist and Progressive Eras. Implementing these will take a combination of public regulation, voluntary industry action, and media literacy and democratic impetus on the part of consumers. In sum, Walter Lippmann’s ideals having won the day for the Age of Broadcast News, it is now John Dewey’s turn to take center stage.
After Broadcast News will be regularly cited because it puts authoritative weight behind the nascent argument that the previous era – the one that was dominated by broadcast – has ended. This adds to the growing canon of books and articles that have made a similar argument, including Baym (2010), Hallin (1994), Lotz (2009), and Urrichio (2009). After Broadcast News walks the fine line between asserting that the changes in media norms and technology have changed political discourse, and acknowledging that ‘the relative influence of these new conduits is not, however, random, but rather shaped by the structures of power – economic, political, and cultural – that produce them’ (p. 173). The normative roadmap and policy recommendations they provide merit serious consideration from the communication policy community, especially since the battles being fought now will shape the media landscape for years to come. In short, it is an eminently useful synthesis of the latest thinking on political communication, and will serve as a signpost for future generations who want to know how top scholars in the field were thinking about the problems that confronted us as the emerging media regime took shape.