Democracy and Television News Media

The 2008 election saw television media becoming a particularly key player in the democratic process in a more active way not seen in past elections. Rather than merely reporting the news, television networks became intricately involved with the stories they covered. This approach has been controversial and abrasive, especially in the case of the media's treatment of key female players Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Such involvement has caused the media to occupy an unclear space between the private sector and the state, effectively reorganizing a longstanding hegemonic order.

Theorists George Kennedy and Daryl Moen describe news media as the "lifeblood of democracy" (18). They believe this function to be served by the medium acting a "watchdog" of the government (79). From Watergate in the 1970's to the recent torture and abuse scandals involving the US military, it is of little doubt that US news media effectively "saves lives" through its discursive narrative (Kennedy and Moen 113). But this narrative is not a singular one, and over time has come to represent much more than a retelling of the day's events.

Fox News Channel has become the most infamous of the networks for its adherence to a sort of anarchical reconstructionist narrative hinged on violent rhetoric (most notoriously anchors Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity) that is cited by most critics to be counter-intuitive to the function of news media, with even the President of the United States describing this trend as "troublesome" (Huffington Post). MSNBC presents a tamer rhetoric-based system of news dissemination that veers into a place of activistic punditry, using faces such as Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann to instigate non-violent legislatively based reform. CNN has attempted to appear as a sort of grandfather of news, priding itself on not engaging the sort of punditry embodied by the other networks . But its completely hands-off, non-decisive approach to controversial topics (i.e. gay marriage, health care reform, religious scandals, etc.) has led to accusations of biased reporting for the sake of securing the widest possible demographic.

James Fallows states, "Even if practiced perfectly, journalism will leave some resentment and bruised feelings in its wake" (114). Given the wide public opinion on the function of news media, a singular acceptable model would be an impossible aspiration at this point in American culture. Also at odds with the very fiber of television journalism is the neo-liberal construct of American life that devalues community-oriented concern and action. This construct leaves reporters with few options of narrative framing, requiring each segment to be produced in a way that will read reflexively to a mass audience. Fox News is most oriented to this construct, hence its leveling of the competing networks in viewer ratings, even when the other networks numbers are aggregated (Neilson, via TV Newser).

Hard news shows that avoid reflexive framing and punditry, such as CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, routinely fail to secure even passable ratings except during major news events (a signifier that the lack of viewers has less to do with viewer confidence than boredom and apathy). The most successful show of the last decade in terms of ratings is The O'Reilly Factor, a politically oriented talk-format discussion show. Rarely does the show engage in any journalism at all. Rather it is an exercise in entertaining adrenaline-fueled punditry. Even repeats of The Factor as it's come to be known often experience higher rating trends than the competing live shows from networks such as CNN. While public discourse points the finger at Fox New Channel, the issue is a much more complex one involving what it is that viewers choose to watch.

This has proven to be one of the most interesting developments over the last decade: the transformation of television reporting into a hybrid brand of television journalism that is highly interdiscursive. From Larry King Live to Sean Hannity's America to The Colbert Report, each program occupies a space referred to as "news show." A recent poll by Time Magazine declared the most trusted anchor after Walter Cronkite's death to be Jon Stewart (of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart). This element of humorous news reporting reflects a societal irreverence that has required a shift in the way the media broadcasts news. Telling is that these comedic news show forms are claimed by viewers and critics alike to embody some of the highest and most articulate levels of analysis, with hosts such as Jon Stewart often taking on networks including Fox and CNN for misreporting major news items or dodging heated discussions (i.e., Jon's incessant mocking of CNN's advertisement lead-in: "We'll have to leave it right there.").

Continuing in this tradition is Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report. Geoffrey Baym describes the show by saying: "A multi-layered assemblage, the Reportis a complex performance, one that functions simultaneously as entertainment, spectacle, information, and critique" (126). The satirical leanings provide a unique platform for engaging controversial news items in a way that doesn't overtly offend public sensibility. The issue arises that much of mainstream America is not trained to read such discourse, rendering the complex performance meaningless and non-informative, at worst highly confusing, to a large segment of the population.

Also unique to shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the decentralization of media power embodied in them. Neither show appear on a news network or have any real backing or endorsement from major news networks. On the contrary, both are products of Comedy Central. However, their place among media news elites is begrudgingly granted by the networks in the form of hard interviews and segment responses to pieces that appear on the Comedy Central shows. One could say the appointment of news status to these shows often exists more from in-fighting than actual respect, given the substantial criticisms of mainstream news outlets leveled by Stewart and Colbert.

Hosts such as Bill O'Reilly consider these forms to embody a cynical subset of supposed elitist segments of mainstream media, a point he routinely makes to his on-air guests who have included Stewart and Colbert. And while research finds that elite rhetoric can have a substantial effect on viewer confirmation bias, criticisms such as the ones offered by O'Reilly fall flat as he is an undisputed media elite (Ladd par. 5). News media's discussion of media elitism is problematic in and of itself given that any television news outlet with a substantial number of viewers is by definition a part of the media elite.

It could be argued that the existence of the satirical comedic structures in news media is in direct response to the completely non-ironic structure provided by the Fox News Network. The spectacle ricocheted between Comedy Central, Fox, and (to a more subdued degree) MSNBC probably speaks much to the overshadowing of CNN due to its stubborn dis-involvement.

Viewer responses toward these trends embody an interesting paradox. While the majority of Americans polled have a distaste and distrust for punditry based news, such shows are the often the only hyper-successful ones among viewers. This leads researchers to question how much of a role narrative and spectacle play in audience decisions over which shows to engage, as clearly their answers juxtaposed to the actual trends display that trust is not the hinging factor on which viewers make programming decisions.

Were networks to be transparent regarding viewer trends, it is a ratings-supported fact that talk-show style broadcasts are of more interest currently to television viewers. And the phenomenon has effects that transcend the media texts themselves. The format is said to contribute "to 'a strange snobbish wave in Washington writing' and a meanness in public debate" while "altering some traditional values of the print media" (79-82 Rosensteil).

Both satirically oriented newscasts and almost all of Fox News' headline programming positions itself in this commentative (or "talk show) format that allows for a lower level of civility given the traditional roles of media interaction are inapplicable to the format. Such conversational civility rests on the assumption that objective politeness can be achieved because the conversation is unidirectional.

Also lost in this commentative format is a level of psychological distance. This distance is said to "[heighten] the legitimacy of powerholders... by using official language, referring to collective institutional decisions, using a respectful tone, depersonalizing, and giving minimum coverage to jurisdictional and procedural disputes" (Paletz and Entman 151). News punditry effectively reverses this entire process, personalizing even the slightest of items and disregarding respect in favor of spectacle. Possibly the most obvious example of this is Bill O'Reilly and his penchant for screaming at in-studio guests.

But given that this style of journalism is what audiences have come to desire for a series of reasons too complex to detail in this essay (it will suffice to say that generally this shift has occurred through socio-cultural factors related to information technologies that have positioned media in a reflexive way mainly through the personal integration of the Internet), networks have been presented with a challenging decision: adapt to this new format whilst disregarding essential elements of the medium or fade slowly into obscurity while retaining traditional form.

What complicates matters for traditional media forms is the difficulty in constructing a parallel message (that of journalistic integrity and trustworthiness) within this new form, especially given that no news media has ever been truly objective in the discursive sense accepted in the public sphere. As W. Lance Bennet states:

"It is clear that the news does not hold up very well under scrutiny of the normative claims made about it. A number of observers have argued persuasively that whatever the news it, it is not a spontaneous and objective mirror of the world" (135).

This is not to say that news media intentionally misleads or is disingenuous to the public (although it arguably often does and is), rather a pure objectivity and reflection of societal values is not possible given the naturally reflexive way human beings gather information. If anything, talk-show journalism is not much more than a removing of the veneer of objectivity to reveal a slightly unpleasant underbelly of journalisms state of affairs.

Optimists could argue that this state of flux is actually a good thing, forcing a new transparency in media and shaping a new landscape of television journalism that could effectively surpass past forms. As an increasingly suspicious public comes to realize the previously masked power structure to which they've been subjected as passive viewers, they are challenged with the responsibility to take a more active role in shaping the media.

CNN has proven an interesting player in this regard as they've introduced an element titled iReport in which tech-savvy viewers are able to act as reporters on local stories. While still dictated by network interest and quality control, such a service does provide a level of democratization within the media that had been previously absent.

Live-blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other networking social and professional utilities have also contributed to a more democratic media in which receivers of the media can talk back to its producers, challenging and shaping them to viewer needs, which are often based in a "complicated mix of appreciation and anger, dependence and distrust" (Kennedy and Moen 8). This subversion of the unidirectional power structure of mainstream media is more of an asset than is currently being acknowledged by the public, likely because many are just acclimating to the occurring shift.

This new heterogenization of power structures could serve as the single greatest asset to media forms outside of new technologies (which arise from innovation, bringing the argument full-circle). As Fallows states: "Many things that 'everyone knows' are actually not true" (239). In a media landscape driven by a culture in the throws of an information age, hopeful his statement will ring less true over time. And with an involved public accumulating a greater understanding of the workings and trends within the media, hopefully they will come to shape a new era in which the media acts as an active but peaceful force for the advancement of democratic ideals, both in the US and abroad.

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Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisSosa

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References

Baym, Geoffrey. (2010) From Cronkite to Colbert. Paradigm Publishers. Boulder, CO.

Beck, Glenn. The Glenn Beck Show. Fox News Channel.

Bennett, Lance. (1988) News: The Politics of Illusion. Longman. White Plains, NY

Colbert, Stephen. The Colbert Report.

Cooper, Anderson. Anderson Cooper 360. CNN. .

Eds: Cook, Phillip. Gomery, Douglas. Lichty, Lawrence. (1992) The Future of News. Johns Hopkins University Press. Washinton, D.C.

Fallows, James. (1997) Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine Democracy. Vintage Books. New York

Hannity, Sean. Sean Hannity's America. Fox News Channel.

Kennedy, George. Moen, Daryl. (2007) What Good Is Journalism: How Reporters and Editors Are Saving America's Way of Life. Columbia, Missouri

Ladd, Jonathan. (2009) "The Neglected Power of Elite Opinion Leadership to Produce Antipathy Toward the News Media: Evidence from a Survey Experiment " Department of Government and Georgetown Public Policy Institute.

Maddow, Rachel. The Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC.

O'Reilly, Bill. The O'Reilly Factor. Fox News Channel.

Olbermann, Keith. Countdown with Keith Olbermann. MSNBC.

Paletz, David. Entman, Robert. (1981) Media, Power, Politics. The Free Press. New York

Shea, Danny. (2010) "Obama Calls Out Limbaugh, Beck: 'Troublesome'." Huffington Post. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/obama-calls-out-limbaugh_n_522558.html ) Retrieved 4-05-2010.Stewart, Jon. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Comedy Central.