Television And The Crisis Of Democracy

In "Television and the Crisis of Democracy" the most valuable service postmodern popularizer Kellner performs is a quick but fair summary the major leftist theories of media over the past century. Then taking elements of each, he attempts to build a more comprehensive, realistic model of the media and its effects on social, economic, and political life. He shows that each theory tends to focus too narrowly on one cause, for instance that the Frankfurt school theorists represented by Adorno and Max Horkheimer, true to their Marxist backgrounds, tends to view media economistically as a tool of the capitalist, the means to upholding the bourgeoisie state. He also discusses the radical critique of Chomsky and others which charges that the media is almost purely a tool of government. He discusses Habermas briefly, noting his view that the images and stories in the media now constitutes most peoples' understanding and of the world. He touches on Baudrillard, neatly stating this theorists' view that in the postmodern world we now inhabit in which we hear people on television describing events they have witnessed personally as being like something they "saw on TV." A philosophical theory, which though interesting Kellner notes, fails to analyze it in economic or any other terms for that matter.Then, after his summary, noting that television has never been "theorized" completely, he then attempts a synthesis of these various critiques, one that is reasonable and fairly straightforward: the media is captive to economic forces, but not entirely so. It does tend to broadcast and thus sustain the arrangements of both the economic and the political elite. At the same time, the media will give voice to counter opinions. Kellner points out that these counter opinions are usually other elites whose bull is being gored by the another set of elites and thus the "balanced" reporting technique so prized by journalists for its "objectivity" reinforces a fairly narrow discourse and leaves out any other non-elite or even radical elite viewpoints. Rather, the media prefers mainstream discourse from trusted representatives of the power elite to bolster their own authority and to curry favor with that elite. At the same time Kellner notes, certain stories sometimes arise, scandals, for instance, that do not serve the interests of any elites. He notes, however, that such events are relatively rare.Kellner also gives a brief history of the hijacking of the public airwaves by big business, discusses Paul Lazarfeld's insight that what is "not seen" in the media is just as important, if not more so than what is seen, and shows with careful research how the conservatives scared the "liberal media" to a conservative center position during the Nixon, Reagan and Bush era while at the same time the deregulatory policy of the government with respect to the media transformed the media business into bottom line focused entities which quickly failed to uphold the public int

This is a book that if widely read, could possibly precipitate change in the way television works if enough people understood its well argued claims. It should not be brushed off as left-wing, ax-to-grind, [some unforseeable cliché like] drivel. The book should be read as a serious criticism of a controlled medium of information that is many times manipulated, filtered or presented in such a fashion that it reveals some anti-democratic tendencies in the very foundations of the American capitalist system. (Let us be clear, there are arguably many positive aspects to our capitalist system, but they do not negate the overt and covert abuses by corporations which are quite apparent in this and other analyses of television).Douglas Kellner articulates cogent, rational critiques of many typical American opinions and beliefs about television. This particular piece is well worth reading to reconsider how we think about the effects of television on our lives and our perceptions of just about everything. The truism that Americans spend vast quantities of time watching television is not the point here. The point is that television is a means of communication which we think we can depend upon to present issues to us in a balanced, informative format. Well, if the control of television and its spectrum of analysis lies within the purview of relatively few influential individuals (which to some degree it really does), who at the very least share a corporate lifestyle and sit on the board of directors of several major corporations, then how are we to expect that the presentation of facts and issues on corporate run networks won't clearly reflect their interests even if those interests contradict those of the public?Kellner here presents some historical evidence of the corporate influence and ultimate political influence that corporations and administrations have exerted over television and other mediums of communication. An important fact Kellner puts on the table is that corporate and political influence have resulted in less and less true diversity in presentation and content, thereby narrowing the spectrum of articulated opinion on network television.He does account for the reality that there are conflicts between coporate interests and these do result in some (mostly superficial) differences in network content, however, it is also explained that the networks are part of larger conglomerates which include defense contractors, health care providers and other major corporations and their influence over network coverage or the lack of it are hard to deny.The book covers many events or stories which were either presented in a narrow, half-truth fashion or ignored altogether because if they were revealed in their entirety, the public would have been outraged.The weak point is that Kellner and other post-modernist writers use methods that are controversial which deter some potential readers, especially conservatives. I encourage conservatives to read and think ab