Becoming Pure: The Civil Sphere,Media Practices and Constructing Civil Purification

Introduction

This paper is about the cultural civil sphere and the news in the US. It treats the nonfiction news as practice, examines it through the lens of Alexander’s civil sphere theory, and shows how people construct their own sense of belonging in civil society. Record lows in public opinion of the mainstream news in the US, combined with a sense of confidence in knowing current political and public affairs information, provide an appropriate context for this analysis.

At one time the mainstream US press enjoyed substantial trust and credibility (Gronke and Cook, 2007). Today, however, we see public evaluations of the press hitting lows not seen in the past two decades (Pew Research Center, 2009) and an increasingly polarized audience that is more cynical of the news than it has been for years (Pew Research Center, 2004). Yet some people remain steadfast in their belief that, despite these criticisms, they can gain a solid understanding of current news and political events from the available options (Gronke and Cook, 2007; Ostertag, 2010a, 2010b; Schroder and Phillips, 2007). ¹

This combination of crisis in legitimacy with confidence in knowing the news provides an unusual opportunity for cultural sociologists, and recent developments in American cultural theory (focusing on the civil sphere) and European media theory (focusing on media as practice) point us in one promising direction. Indeed, the contemporary mainstream news environment offers an opportunity to conduct a social psychoanalysis (Alexander, 2003) and better understand how people construct their own sense of social belonging. By examining people’s discussions of the nonfictional news and the public-at-large, we can observe how people draw on the binary cultural codes of the civil sphere to construct and justify their own membership in it. Doing so helps to develop and clarify some theoretical linkages between civil sphere theory and media practices that might be fruitful for subsequent scholarship. However, scholars have yet to engage these two domains directly.

In this paper, I treat media as practice and examine it through the lens of Alexander’s cultural civil sphere. In doing so, I address important limitations to current scholarship in both areas, and highlight some potential avenues for theory building and empirical research. At present, civil sphere theory and media practice theory suffer from certain limitations that the other addresses. These are most notable in the areas of methodology for civil sphere theory, and individualism and meaning-making for media practice theory. Alexander’s (2003) cultural sociology places meaning and the processes of meaning-making as central factors in understanding human behavior; however, much of this work on the civil sphere is based on textual analyses (e.g. newspaper coverage of the Civil Rights Movement) rather than people’s narratives. Yet it is precisely this tendency to focus on media structures and texts that media practice theory is intended to supersede by questioning the ‘open-ended range of practices focused directly or indirectly on media.’ (Couldry, 2006: 34–5). Civil sphere scholarship might ‘decentre’ (Couldry, 2004: 117) its conceptualization of media and consider what people actually say or do ‘in relation to media across a whole range of situations and contexts’ (Couldry, 2006: 36). Doing so will illuminate some of the dynamic social processes that underlie Alexander’s sense of the cultural civil sphere, such as those of civil expansion or contraction.

On the other hand, media as practice scholarship tends to overlook the individual as an agent who ‘carries out’ social practices (Postill, 2010; Reckwitz, 2002), despite the importance of the individual as ‘the unique crossing point of practices’ (Reckwitz, 2002: 256). Yet the individual as a meaning-making actor is fundamental to civil sphere theory and the model of cultural sociology upon which it is grounded (Alexander, 2003). If we focus attention more directly on individual narratives, particularly those that Schatzki (1996) has referred to as dispersed practices – that is, those involved with ‘describing, ordering, following rules, explaining, questioning, reporting, examining and imagining’ (Schatzki, 1996: 91) – we might uncover the dynamic and nuanced relationship between individual media-related practices and the cultural civil sphere. This includes understanding processes of civil purification and exclusion, and the media-related practices that cultivate them.

In this paper, I bring these two domains together, and I do so via the social psychological literature on social comparisons, identity and self-enhancement. Through in-depth interviews designed to assess people’s opinions of the news and the general public, I uncover the cognitive processes that structure people’s sense of belonging in civil society. By treating the nonfiction news not as text, nor as institution, but as the range of open-ended practices ‘relating to, or oriented around, [news] media’ (Couldry, 2004: 117) we see how people invoke a language of civil purity as they talk about the news and the public-at-large and construct their membership in the civil sphere.

I argue that in the context of record low levels of trust and credibility with the contemporary, nonfiction news, some people invent pollution and, by extension, their own purity. They do this by fabricating an image of other people as ignorant about the important events that comprise nonfiction news. ² This fabrication of others is made particularly meaningful and powerful because it is filtered through the deep binary cultural codes of civil society, the domain upon which the news is supposed to provide information. ³ This imagined ‘other’ becomes a cognitive resource that is used to construct a pure and sacred self by displaying anger and scorn concerning those who do not hold certain important moral values associated with civil society. Through their expression of scorn, people reveal to others and to themselves who they are not and, by extension, who they are (Alexander, 2006; Lamont, 2000).

Civil Society

The civil sphere is ‘a [cultural] sphere or subsystem of society that is analytically and, to various degrees, empirically separated from the spheres of political, economic, family, and religious life … a sphere of solidarity in which individual rights and collective obligations are tensely intertwined’ (Alexander, 2006: 53). It is a social process organized around collective moral issues and values, such as justice, fairness, trust, reasonableness, and rationality. These moral values structure civil society and they become evident when we look at binary cultural codes.

Nonfiction News and Practice Theory

Practices are ‘certain routinized ways of understanding, knowing how and desiring’ that inform how bodies move, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood (Reckwitz, 2002: 250). To theorize media as practice is to examine the relatively routinized range of open-ended, direct and indirect understandings, knowing-hows, and desires that are in any way associated with the media. Media practice theory is an effort to broaden the focus of media research to accommodate a media saturated world and the multiple nuanced ways media inform everyday life.

As part of its communicative system, the nonfiction news media are the avenues through which information and knowledge regarding civil and noncivil spheres (e.g. political, economic, education, criminal justice, religion, etc.) are delivered to others. Yet if we step back from focusing on text and production structures, to approach the nonfiction news through a lens of practice theory, and to ask ‘what … are people doing in relation to [nonfiction news] media across a whole range of situations and contexts’ (Couldry, 2004: 119), we are in a better position to witness the varied direct and indirect ways news media inform our everyday lives. As such, we will notice that the news also serves as a topic on which battles over what is best for civil society and who deserves membership are waged. Responsible, competent, intelligent people ‘pay attention’ and know ‘what’s going on’ in the news. They are not a threat, and their involvement symbolizes that they uphold the sacred values of civil society. Irresponsible, lazy, gullible, incompetent people do not ‘pay attention’, nor do they know ‘what’s going on’ in the news. Their actions symbolize that they do not uphold the sacred values of civil society; they are a threat.

It is ‘in relation to’ the news that people speak a language of civil purity, invoke the binary cultural codes of civil society and situate vaguely conceptualized ‘other’ people along the profane and polluting side of a cultural binary. In so doing, we find a way to situate ourselves along the sacred and pure side. By default, we participate in identity maintenance and positive, morally valued self-enhancements. We become pure, and our social comparisons over news consumption are fundamental to this process.

Social Comparisons

By treating nonfiction news through a practice lens, we can better understand the social psychological processes involved in constructing civil purity. This includes understanding how people invoke the binary cultural codes of civil society through their news-talk and as a means of social comparison and self-enhancement. By railing against those envisioned as profane as regards the binary cultural codes of civil society and their manifestation in news consumption, individuals make it known to others and (perhaps through the reactions of others) to themselves that they internalize and respect the normative expectations and values associated with civil society. Their differentiation and anger symbolize their purity according to the binary cultural codes. This demarcates who they are by showing who they are not (Lamont, 2000). As Alexander (2006: 50) notes, ‘the civility of the self always articulates itself in language about the incivility of the other’. In doing so, it reveals their group membership, who is based on the things that upset him/her as a member of civil society. In this sense, we might understand social comparisons as a mechanism of civil purification (Alexander, 2003), and the nonfiction news as the topic upon which such purification is measured and constructed. When compared against the profane and polluting, the individual discovers a means of identity maintenance and self-enhancement; one becomes a ‘good’ person (i.e. pure). Yet, this comparative group need not be an empirical reality. It could be imagined.

Self and Identity

Self-constructions and identity maintenance are fundamentally rooted in social comparisons and are key to the process of becoming pure. Indeed, the self is an intimately social phenomenon, ‘a cognitive object generated in acts of reflexive knowing that joins self as knower and self as known in a single act of self-awareness’ (Weigert and Gecas, 2003: 267). Having been subject to postmodern and poststructuralist critiques that claim life ‘decenters and trivializes [the self]’ (Gubrium and Holstein, 2000: 95) by ‘relocating or dispersing it within a larger set of structures and forces, most notably … discourse, power, and desire’ (Dunn, 1997: 698), sociologists have emerged with a stronger, more nuanced and sustainable understanding of the self than in previous times (Holstein and Gubrium, 2000). Scholarship on the self now reflects new emphases on power, reflexivity, flexibility and social constructionism (Adler and Adler, 2008; Callero, 2003), and a recognition that ‘the self can be understood as structured in and through discourse without being finally reduced to it’ (Dunn, 1997: 696).

As a reflexive object, the self ‘can categorize, classify, or name itself in particular ways in relation to other social categories or classifications’ (Stets and Burke,: 224). It is through this process of self-categorization or classification that an identity is formed, for ‘identity is contained in the meaning of the self – what it means to be who one is’ (Burke, 2003: 1).

Social identity theory claims that ‘individuals define their identities along two dimensions: socially, defined by membership in various social groups, and personally, the idiosyncratic attributes that distinguish an individual from others’ (Howard, 2000: 369). Matching our perceptions of self with an identity may involve extensive negotiations and symbolic interaction with others, as well as the exchange and control of relevant resources. These resources can be material or nonmaterial, real or imagined, and may include mental heuristics. Through strategic interaction and the keen use of relevant resources we seek to maintain a particular identity standard and construct and embellish a socially approved and (somewhat) stable self (Burke, 1991: 839). Indeed, cultural sociologists might interpret ‘socially approved’ to mean the sacred normative and moral values associated with civil society, and the nonfiction news as one ‘standard’ through which we identify as members of civil society.

Self-enhancement

A body of scholarship (outlined below) bridging social psychology and communications research that spans the past three decades, notes the rather common tendency of differentiation and social comparisons on senses of self and identities. Collectively, much of this scholarship is part of the self-enhancement literature, where, it is argued, we compare ourselves against each other in an effort to enhance our own sense of self. Much of the self-enhancement scholarship seeks to discuss the functions of these self-comparisons in traditional social psychological terms, such as improving self-esteem (Alicke et al., 1995). Yet, with some slight reworking, cultural sociologists can benefit from a closer look at this insightful branch of scholarship and what it has to offer. Perhaps most useful for the following discussion is the work on third-person effect and the better-than-average phenomenon, as both are important in the process of constructing civil purification.

Recap and Looking Forward

Together, social comparisons through the nonfiction news and against an imagined public-at-large provide opportunities for people to express a language of civil purity, with which they demonstrate to self and others that they are aligned with the deep, enduring moral values of civil society. In so doing they enhance their sense of self and situate themselves closer to the sacred and pure ends of the binary cultural codes of civil society. This allows them to identify as legitimate and rightful members and ‘become pure’.

Inventing an imagined ignorant public involves three aspects of social comparison that fall within the normative and moral values of civil society. These are the casting oneself as: 1) more knowledgeable and aware; 2) more motivated and interested; 3) less naïve, easily manipulated, gullible, and ignorant about what is real and true about the nonfiction news, and by extension the civil and noncivil spheres, than are others. This practice involves the extension of excuses – or their denial – as mechanisms to explain perceived distinctions, and it may be substantiated through the use of select, often personalized, examples and stories.

Data and Sample

People actively produce their identity through talk (Howard, 2000: 372). Personal stories and accounts are two of the more promising forms of talk for producing and understanding self and identity. Holstein and Gubrium (2000: 103) note that in the wake of the postmodern critique, ‘we are relearning that selves are constructed through storytelling’. Yet, consistent with the socially constructed self, such stories and personal accounts are assembled piecemeal, using socially approved vocabularies, from both accurate and mythical memories and perceptions. The emphasis on the self-narrative as data for research on the self and identity suggests that semi-structured, open-ended interviews are an appropriate technique for data collection.

The data upon which this paper is based was collected as part of a larger, semi-structured, interview-based project that broadly investigated people’s opinions of the news. Rooted in recent developments in European media theory that seek to treat media as ‘practice’ (Couldry, 2004), this paper treats the mass media as a diffuse cultural object (Couldry, 2000; Gleverac, 2005) and is guided by the broad question of what people do in relation to it. Posed this way, instead of recruiting participants based on what content they report consuming, a sample is drawn along other lines, and then the researcher seeks to understand how media are implicated in people’s thoughts, talk and behavior.

To recruit participants I posted flyers in two urban centers and their surrounding suburbs, placed ads in three community newspapers, and recorded a radio announcement advertising a research project associated with a local university on opinions of the news. I posted recruitment fliers at local grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, lunch spots, bus stops, and diners, among other places. The fliers invited interested parties to tear off a tab and contact me through telephone or email if they wanted to learn more about the study. Those who contacted me were told more about the research project and then asked if they would like to set up a time to meet for an interview. Interested parties qualified for the study if they were at least 18 years of age or older and willing to talk about the news for about an hour. Respondents were not paid for their participation and all but one reported living in the northeastern US, though several had previously lived in other states or countries.

Interviews usually lasted about one hour to an hour and a half and were frequently conducted in public places, such as coffee shops, bars, bookstores, libraries, or restaurants, though several were conducted at the respondents’ homes. I relied on a semi-structured interview protocol to touch on several topics, including bias in the news; what news, if any, the respondents consumed; how informed they believed they are about events in the news, and more broadly the country and world. My intention was to ‘get the ball rolling’ and then allow my respondents the freedom to discuss what they felt necessary within the broad context of the project. As such, earlier interviews served as important exploratory tools in unearthing new insights that later interviewees were asked. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and then analyzed using NVivo qualitative coding software.

I collected data for approximately a year and a half (March 2006 through August 2007) and, in all, 56 people contacted me and completed an interview. Those who contacted me were largely white men and women of ages mostly ranging from the early 30s to upper 60s. ⁵ They consisted of computer technicians, business owners, lawyers, financial analysts, paramedics, and carpenters, among others. About half considered themselves liberals, while one quarter considered themselves conservative and one quarter a mixture of liberal and conservative tendencies (e.g. fiscally conservative/socially liberal, or conservative Democrat).

Scholarship on identity notes that not all identities are equally attended to by the individual, and that sometimes they might be activated by stimuli in the environment (Stets and Burke, 2000). While I did not recognize this immediately, I soon found that the interview setting served as an important activation mechanism for people’s identities regarding a number of socially approved issues related to news consumption and civil society. By creating such an interaction environment, I was able to investigate in greater detail the nuanced and creative work involved in identity maintenance and self-constructions.

The fact that the recruitment mechanism I used in this project required potential respondents to initiate contact with me speaks to selection bias and the collective voice that is ultimately reflected in this project. Arguably, given the lack of financial incentive and the fact that most of my respondents had to go out of their way to take part in this project, we may conceptualize most of my respondents as self-motivated in their desire to talk about such a politically hot and contentious issue as the news. Such a selection bias raises questions about the generalizability of the data presented here. Future research based on a different sample and recruitment techniques is warranted.

Situating the News in Civil Society

Most of my respondents characterized the news as a source of important information for issues related to politics and government, and said that they consumed the news to learn about and stay up-to-date with the hot topics of the day. ⁶ In fact, virtually all of them noted the importance of the news for an informed and educated citizenry and that responsible people will try to keep up-to-date with the news. David, a white urbanite in his mid-40s, explained why he consumes the news: ‘I just try to get a general idea of what’s happening [in the country and world]. I try to keep abreast.’ Ryan, a white male in his mid-30s, said: ‘Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s going on in the world, that’s the reason why I bother reading papers … it just helps put a perspective on the world [and] therefore my life.’ Both David and Ryan were referring mostly to political news, though other social and economic news was also important. Their reasons for consuming news were typical of most interviewees.

Yet, consistent with national trends in trust and credibility, practically all of my respondents levied serious criticisms toward the mainstream news and its ability to deliver accurate national news and political information. For example, Susan, an African American retired nurse, stated: ‘[the news] always leaves you feeling like you want more and you never get it … [w]ith commercial TV and radio they go from thing to thing and you can’t get a good hold on what they’re saying … commercial TV is more bits and pieces.’ Dan, a white male and retired financial executive in his upper-60s, said: ‘[it’s] too fluffy … It’s not really news, it’s about some unique event that happened. There is no relationship about what is going on in the greater scheme of things.’ Indeed, what Susan, Dan, and many others in my sample had to say about the mainstream news is indicative of the widespread declining trust and credibility in mainstream news that has been occurring over the past two decades.

Ironically, though consistent with other research (Schroder and Phillips, 2007), my participants simultaneously felt that despite their criticisms of the mainstream news (e.g. fluffy, superficial, incomplete) they remained confident and secure in their knowledge and understanding of important national news and information (Ostertag, 2010a, 2010b). This was often not the case when asked about ‘other’ people in the US.

Recognizing an Ignorant Public

Alexander (2006: 60) notes that in an ideal-typical civil society, people are ‘rational, can process information intelligently and independently, [and] know the truth when they see it’. These are positive qualities associated with the binary cultural codes of civil society, and while my respondents might have recognized these qualities among themselves, they did not necessarily recognize them among a broader public. In fact, my respondents often recognized a general public characterized by the opposite qualities, one that is irrational, ignorant, naïve, and lazy. Here, Fred, a white male in his mid-60s, discusses news biases and a general public that often fails to see it as he believes they should: ‘the answer is yes, the media has an axe to grind and unfortunately the general public does not dig deep enough to realize what the bias is that is being presented to them.’

Justin, also a white male in his mid-60s, implied a public that is poorly informed and enjoys the ‘wrong’ type of information. He said: ‘I think human beings like that sensationalism. I noticed that in the news … people don’t really want to know what is going on.’ Phil, another white male in his mid-40s, said: ‘… my critical side says that there is a certain percentage of the population that do not benefit from anything because they are too low functioning intellectually’.

Finally, Toby, a 67-year-old white male with a Master’s degree, draws on a number of sacred binary codes in his narrative. He addresses rationality and intelligence, something that he thinks most people should possess, but that many do not.

The reason I say that is because any rational thinking human being should be able to recognize it [bias in the news] when he sees it. Siphon that out of their own opinions. I understand from the stand-point of the masses if you have biased stuff they might take that as the truth and maybe end up with a national public opinion that is not quite honest. From my own standpoint I think I can recognize when things are not shown on an equal basis … I am concerned they [i.e. other people] are getting a skewed view of what is really happening … I think the public believes, if it’s Brian Williams ⁷ or whoever that it’s the absolute truth.

Consistent with the self-enhancement, communication scholarship, many of those who participated in this project frequently envisioned a public that lacks the necessary insight, intelligence, and/or motivation to learn about important political and newsworthy events that have implications for civil society. Yet my respondents largely saw themselves as different. Most saw themselves as possessing the unique qualities necessary to navigate what they believed to be a largely biased, dysfunctional news industry as they established confidence in knowing what is real and why (Ostertag, 2010a, 2010b). This vision of ‘other’ is constructed as significantly different from my respondents’ self-concepts (Owens et al., 2010; Rosenberg, 1979), particularly regarding the issues of insight, intelligence, and motivation to learn about important news. While these narratives reveal a noted distinction between self and other, when allowed to elaborate, my respondents often steered the interview towards people’s motivations for consuming the news. Many then offered various stories from their pasts that they used to justify their beliefs. These claims located the ‘others’ toward the polluting end of the binary cultural codes associated with civil society. By doing so, my respondents were able to construct an understanding of themselves as different in a more pro-social direction; that is, as more pure.

Inventing an Ignorant Public: Motivational Values

In maintaining the belief of a broader, ill-informed public, my respondents offered a number of explanations for their views. My respondents frequently directed their narratives towards the motivational-value dimension of others’ concern with and consumption of news. In these narratives, we see the tensions that underlie membership in civil society. Sometimes my respondents would offer excuses for others’ ignorance. In these cases, my respondents might explain the inferior knowledge and awareness of others as due to the demands of their daily lives and their inability to find time to learn about social events and issues. In this sense, others’ ignorance is unfortunate but not terribly threatening to civil society, since it is not due to a faulty value system.

More commonly, however, people tended to deny these excuses to others. Here, people saw the ignorance of others as due to their own laziness and disinterest in things about which they are supposed to care as responsible members of civil society. In these situations, others are seen as having internalized a faulty value system and, as such, they pose a greater threat to civil society. They symbolize pollution and deserve ridicule and ostracism. ⁸

I recorded a total of 58 instances ⁹ in which my respondents discussed an ignorant public. Fifteen of these I categorized as reflecting the extension of excuses and 43 as denial.

Storytelling as Evidence

My respondents occasionally drew on select examples to make their point of an ill-informed public. By couching these examples within a discourse of pollution my respondents were able to show to themselves and to others that they were not only different, but that their difference placed them squarely within civil society. It is important to note that often these responses were unsolicited. Interviewees voluntarily offered them as evidence to support their contentions and, in doing so, supported their personal identities and socially approved selves. As Orbuch (1997: 465) notes, ‘identity is generated and maintained through the process of storytelling … [stories] shape the definitions that individuals create of themselves and of others’. Storytelling helped my respondents place themselves in a more desirable social category. This was partly due to the fact that they placed ‘others’ into a less desirable one. By way of social comparison, these stories help people envision selves as ‘better-than-others’ according to the value systems of civil society.

In total, I recorded 18 instances in which my respondents offered stories to support their beliefs. In the following example, Phil, a liberal, white male in his mid-40s, drew on his experience at a town meeting several years earlier to make his point. He said:

I recall a Black Panther leader visit [to a city in the northeast of the US] a few years ago and they were regurgitating. I remember this woman in a talk session got up and said, ‘we should always listen to our leaders [and] our elders in the community’. I stood up and said ‘no, do not listen to your elders in the community. Think for yourself and listen to your own self. You’re seeking a shepherd when you should be your own leader.’ I think there are too many people who don’t have a sophisticated viewpoint that need to be shepherded around with ideas and they are not accustomed to thinking independently. That to me is the fear of, certainly [in] our society it’s always a disappointment that people just don’t think too clearly on issues.

Percy, a liberal 56-year-old white male, drew on a public opinion poll he recalled reading to support his beliefs. He said:

There’ve been polls published, I can’t off the top of my head tell you when, but I can give a general idea. These are polls done after the war in Iraq started. You still had a majority of people thinking there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Still had people believing Iraq was a serious threat to the US. Polls that I’ve seen indicate that people are not well informed. Interestingly enough it was the most ill-informed people who say they get their news from Fox News. … The problem is if you question people that are not well informed, they think Fox News is telling the truth. When Fox News is pretty clear about, ‘we’re here to support the government’, take it with a grain of salt. I don’t mind Fox News being around and being the mouth for the government but the people can’t take that seriously. Unfortunately a lot of people do. So the answer to the question is no, they’re not informed.

Kevin, a liberal 25-year-old American male with Chinese ancestry, recalled his time outside the US.

We have the most mis-informed, uneducated population. I was in Belgium hanging out with a friend and she knew more about my country than I did [Kevin believed he knew more about the US than most others]. I asked her why did you know so much about my country and she said that is just the way it is here [in Belgium]. Nobody cares here [in the US].

By drawing on select examples to confirm their suspicions of an ill-informed, gullible, and unmotivated public, my respondents added cognitive ammunition to support the distinctions they drew between themselves and others. In so doing, my respondents were able to reinforce their personal identities and establish a sense of self that is knowledgeable and responsible, and by extension sacred and pure. These are the desirable qualities that members of civil society possess. As such, my respondents can envision themselves as worthy members of civil society.

Conclusion: Becoming Pure through a Language of Civil Purity

Recent developments in US civil sphere theory (Alexander, 2006) and European media as practice theory (Couldry, 2004) offer encouraging avenues for scholarship in cultural sociology and the related sociologies of knowledge and action (Couldry, 2004). However, these two domains have yet to be thoroughly integrated, hindering their potential theoretical promise. Civil sphere theory places at center-stage the power of individuals as sources of meaning (both rationally and emotionally derived) and related actions. Media as practice theory also celebrates individual meanings and actions but has yet to fully develop theoretical or empirical work highlighting them (Postill, 2010). Civil sphere theory, and the US-based cultural sociology from which it is derived, nicely fills this gap. On the other hand, civil sphere theory tends to treat mass media and the news as texts and/or structures, which places unnecessary limits on its theoretical potential. Media as practice theory is well suited to extend these limits by theorizing media influence as the open-ended, direct and indirect range of thoughts, talk, and actions related to media. This vastly expands how scholars theorize the role of media in society and offers a fruitful framework to more fully understand the various ways mass media inform meaning-making and the cultural processes that influence the civil sphere (e.g. civil solidary, exclusion and repair). Fortunately, there exists a sizable social psychological literature examining social comparisons, identity and self-enhancement (Alicke et al., 1995; Stets and Burke, 2000; Perloff, 2002; Weigert and Gecas, 2003) that helps us link these two domains and explain the role of media in processes of the civil sphere.

By talking with people about their opinions of the mainstream news in the US in an open-ended format, I found that people invoke a language of civil purity as they work toward constructing and justifying their membership in civil society. This language uncovers the deep, enduring values and norms of civil society and their expression in binary oppositions. It also reveals the social psychological processes that enable people to construct and justify a sense of social belonging. Most notably, these involve social comparisons and their implications for identity and self-enhancement. I found that people compare themselves with and against each other regarding values and norms associated with news and responsible citizenship, and that these comparisons have implications for their sense of belonging within civil society. This process involves creating a mental heuristic in the form of a vague, generalized public that possesses qualities associated with the polluting ends of the binary culture codes. Using nonfiction news as the topic of consideration, some people imagine a public-at-large that is mostly unmotivated, gullible and ignorant of the important news of the day. As a heuristic device, this imagined public serves as a resource against which people compare themselves and express their disapproval, outrage and anger. By doing so, they demonstrate to themselves and to others that they are not like this imagined public, but instead have internalized the value system associated with the pure ends of the binary cultural codes. These demonstrations of discontent provide an opportunity for people to enhance their sense of self and see themselves as legitimate members of civil society. They ‘become’ pure.

Theorizing media as practice (Coudlry, 2004) allows us to respect the dynamic and nuanced role of the news in civil society, including its utility in social comparisons, self-enhancement, and the construction of civil purity. We see how people draw on the news as a topic upon which their comparisons with others take place, as they see themselves as ‘better than’ an imagined broader public as regards the binary cultural codes of civil society. This helps us ‘morally anchor thoughts and feelings about who and what we are’ (Gurbium and Holstein, 2000: 100–1) because it demonstrates to self and others who we are not (Alexander, 2006). Our frustration and anger with an ignorant public signifies that we appreciate and celebrate the opposite, socially desirable value system. In this sense, we ‘become pure’ and justify our membership in civil society. Scholars should now 1) question how other cultural objects (Couldry, 2000) and social institutions are ‘practiced’ through a language of civil purity and implicated in processes of becoming pure, and 2) seek to better understand the varied ways that media related practices inform other processes of civil society.