Television And The Crisis Of Democracy

Douglas Kellner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429972591
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"This is one of the best books I've read on the changing relationship of television to society. It provides a very good analysis of theoretical perspectives on television and makes excellent use of critical theory. An accessible book that at the same time challenges the reader to think more deeply about the role of television in a formally democratic society. —Vincent Mosco Carleton University In this pathbreaking study, Douglas Kellner offers the most systematic, critically informed political and institutional study of television yet published in the United States. Focusing on the relationships among television, the state, and business, he traces the history of television broadcasting, emphasizing its socioeconomic impact and its growing political power. Throughout, Kellner evaluates the contradictory influence of television, a medium that has clearly served the interests of the powerful but has also dramatized conflicts within society and has on occasion led to valuable social criticism.

1
Toward a Critical Theory of Television

Television will be of no importance in your lifetime or mine.

—Bertrand Russell

Once television is truly national it will become the most important medium that exists. Everything that it does or does not do will be important.

—Norman Collins

Chewing gum for the eyes.

—Frank Lloyd Wright

The luminous screen in the home carries fantastic authority. Viewers everywhere tend to accept it as a window on the world, and to watch it for hours each day. Viewers feel that they understand, from television alone, what is going on in the world. They unconsciously look to it for guidance as to what is important, good, and desirable, and what is not. It has tended to displace or overwhelm other influences such as newspapers, school, church, grandpa, grandma. It has become the definer and transmitter of a society's values.

—Erik Barnouw

In excess of 750 million TV sets in more than 160 countries are watched by 2.5 billion people per day. Although there is no consensus regarding television's nature and impact (as the quotes that open this chapter attest), the ubiquity and centrality of television in our everyday lives are obvious. At present, almost every home in the United States has a television set that is turned on for more than seven hours per day. Individuals spend more time watching television than in any other leisure activity and, cumulatively, far more time in front of the television than in school; only work absorbs more waking time. Furthermore, polls reveal that more people depend on television for news and information than on any other source, and that it is the most trusted source of news and information.¹

Given television's penetration into everyday life, the controversy surrounding it is not surprising. The controversy intensifies in the light of debates over its social and political functions. Television has been deeply implicated in post-World War II presidential elections, the cold war, the Vietnam War and other struggles of the 1960s, and the major political controversies of its era, sometimes referred to as the Age of Television (Bogart 1956). There is little agreement, however, concerning television's social and political effects. Some commentators argue that television has overwhelmingly defended conservative economic and political interests. Others have argued that television has had a primarily liberal bias, bringing down such conservatives as Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, undermining the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, and promoting a liberal agenda of social reform and change.²

A series of equally heated controversies surround television's impact on everyday life. Whereas some claim that television promotes violence, others maintain that its effects are primarily "pro-social." Defenders of the industry see television as promoting a democratic, egalitarian, populist culture; critics argue that it is creating a vast cultural wasteland. Some see it as a "tube of plenty" that provides a wealth of entertainment and information; others attack it as promoting ideological domination and manipulation of the masses by dominant social groups and forces. And some social scientists perceive television as a powerful instrument of socialization, while others dismiss it as harmless entertainment, "chewing gum for the eyes."³

1.1 Theorizing Television

Despite these and other controversies, few attempts have been made to provide a systematic theory of television that articulates its relations with the chief institutions of contemporary capitalist society and defines its impact on social and political life. Surprisingly, it has not received the sort of systematic theoretical scrutiny that has been directed toward other major institutions, such as the state, the corporation, the military, the family, and the education system. Of all contemporary institutions, the system of television is the one most neglected, mystified, and undertheorized.

Of course, many books on television have emerged. Several detail the history and economics of television, and a growing number are concerned with analyzing its influence on contemporary politics. Its impact on socialization has been widely studied, and many criticisms of its effects have been mounted, ranging from attacks on its promotion of sex and violence to its alleged political biases. In addition, there are countless books about the television industry as well as about its programming and personalities. An even greater amount of material is published daily in newspapers, magazines, and journals, ranging from scholarly and academic studies to TV reviews and gossip. Yet there are few critical theories of television that situate it within the institutional and systemic framework of the existing social order.

Television thus has many critics, commentators, and celebrants—but few theorists. The critiques themselves have largely been determined by the political views of the critics. Conservatives, for example, claim that television is a liberal medium that subverts traditional values. Liberals and radicals, by contrast, often criticize television for its domination by business imperatives and conservative values. Liberals decry trends toward monopoly in television, restrictions on freedom of the press, and what they see as distortions and misuse of television in certain instances (Skornia 1965, 1968; Bagdikian 1987). Radicals argue that television reproduces a conservative status quo and provides powerful tools for managing social conflict and for selling the values and life-styles of corporate capitalism. Theories of television thus tend to focus on television's political functions and values, and often reproduce the political perspectives of theorists.

The Politics of Theory

Conservatives frequently criticize new forms of popular culture and mass media that they see as a subversive threat to traditional values and insti-tutions.⁴ In the 1960s conservative values were under attack by the new social movements of that era and, as noted, some conservatives saw television as a primarily liberal medium. In 1969, for example, Vice President Spiro Agnew carried out an assault against "Eastern-establishment" news media. Noting that a recent Vietnam speech by Richard Nixon was followed immediately by critical analysis on the television networks, Agnew complained that the president's talk had been "subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism ... by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say." Agnew claimed that a "small group of men" decide what the country will learn each day, and that they have acquired the power to make or break politicians or policies. These journalists, Agnew continued, are highly parochial and share the same liberal biases. Such concentration of cultural power is intolerable, he argued, and should be carefully scrutinized by the government (Agnew, cited in Emery and Smythe 1972, 309ff.).

In later speeches, Agnew referred to this "Eastern, liberal-biased" media establishment as an "effete corps of impudent snobs" and as "nattering nabobs of negativism" (Barnouw 1975, 443fif.) A variety of conservative scholars and commentators have subsequently taken the position that network television has a "liberal bias." In a study of the 1968 election, Edith Efron (1972) concluded that television was overwhelmingly prejudiced against Richard Nixon and in favor of Hubert Humphrey, given the positive and negative presentations of the two candidates on the nightly news programs. Ernest Lefever (1974) found that CBS's coverage of defense-related issues in 1972-1973 reflected unfavorably on the U.S. military and was slanted toward detente with the Soviet Union. Still others argue that, according to their research, reporters for the major news media were overwhelmingly liberal in their political orientations (Lichter, Rothman, Lichter 1986). (Some of these claims, however, were contested: see Stevenson, et al. 1973.)

These conservatives critiques have formed part of the ideology of the "New Right," which emerged in the late 1970s. The New Right became increasingly critical of the "new class" within the media, claiming that its biases are liberal, "collectivist," and "anti-free enterprise." This position was promoted for several years by TV Guide, which employed conservatives such as Edith Efron, Patrick Buchanan, Kevin Phillips, and others who argued that television subverted traditional values and promoted a left-liberal sociopolitical agenda. Efron, for instance, claimed that television became a mouthpiece for "ecological stop-growth types," "nuclear Luddites and plutonophobes," and "Third World and socialist tyrannies," all the while exhibiting hostility toward "U.S. business, U.S. labor, the U.S. military and US. technology." In short, she claimed, it promotes the agenda of the New Left (TV Guide, October 8, 1977, pp. A5-A6).

In a series of corporate ads, Mobil oil corporation claimed that "leading reporters and editors of major newspapers and television networks have distinct hostilities toward businessmen" (cited in Dreier 1987: 64). A similar position concerning television entertainment was advanced by Ben Stein (1979), who attacked television programming for promoting antibusiness, antimilitary, and antitraditional values. Stein contends that the Hollywood community, which produces TV entertainment, is an "extremely energetic and militant class" that uses its cultural power to attack competing social elites and to propagate its ultraliberal views. Segments of the New Right have focused their critiques on television entertainment as well, claiming that it subverts traditional religious values while promoting "secular humanism."

Another group of critiques emerged in the 1970s. For instance, Daniel Bell (1976) argued that television and the mass media have been instrumental in promoting a new consumer ethic and hedonistic life-style that contradict the older capitalist-protestant production ethic with its emphasis on hard work, saving, delayed gratification, the family, religion, and other traditional values.⁵ "Neoconservative" critics such as Daniel Moynihan, Robert Nisbet, and Samuel Huntington maintain that television has eroded respect for authority by exposing political scandals (as well as business corruption and failures) while fostering cynicism, distrust, and disrespect for the system as a whole. These critics complain that the media have gone too far in their "adversary" function and have eroded the president's power, thus "seriously and dangerously" weakening "the state's ability to govern" (Moynihan 1973, 315). The neoconservatives claim that television has helped produce an "adversary culture," and Crozier et al. (1975) specifically assert that it has promoted a "democratic distemper."

The liberal approach to television and popular culture is divided into two camps. One critical position focuses on television's institutional setting and function within contemporary capitalist democracies (Siepmann 1950; Friendly 1967; Skornia 1965; and Bagdikian 1987). The other, more pluralist position focuses, often affirmatively, on the cultural and social functions of television. Liberal critics usually document the abuses of television caused by excessive corporate control of television and the placement of profit above all other values and goals. They hold that if television were both more fully competitive and in the service of democratic goals, the medium could be embraced as an important institution in a pluralist, democratic social order.

The liberal pluralist position is detailed, along with some conservative and radical critiques, in the anthology Mass Culture, edited by Bernard Rosenberg and David White (1957). White presents television and popular culture as parts of a democratic, pluralistic cultural system that provides a marketplace of ideas and entertainment as well as a diversity of choices. This position is also elaborated in Herbert Gans's (1974) study of "taste cultures," which celebrates the liberal pluralist view of culture—and television—in the United States. The affirmative liberal position is reflected as well in James Carey's (1988) description of television and popular culture as a "communalistic ritual" in which a culture celebrates its dominant values, institutions, and way of life. This view is elaborated by Paul Hirsch and Horace Newcomb (1987), who present television as a "cultural forum" in which society presents, debates, and works out its values, problems, and identity. The liberal position also shapes some of the work being done by members of the Popular Culture Association, which views television positively as an important expression of dominant values in the United States.

Although liberals have not developed a distinct and systematic institutional theory or critique of television, most sociological studies of how news is produced tend to take a liberal bent. These studies see the production of news as a consequence of complex organizational imperatives, which in turn result from the interplay of economic and ideological constraints by management, professional codes and news values, and the interaction of a variety of reporters. Most of these liberal sociological studies (Epstein 1973; Altheide 1976; Gans 1979) see news in terms of a liberal consensus produced through a series of compromises and complex interactions. They call into question the conservative claim that television has a liberal bias by emphasizing how the allegedly liberal bias of reporters is countered by the processes of gatekeeping and filtering, which tend to exclude socially critical stories and radical points of view. The studies also point to the ways in which the constraints in news production force the news media to rely on establishment sources and, hence, to disproportionately favor pro-business and pro-government points of view.

Radicals have variously conceptualized television as part of "an ideological state apparatus" (Akhusser, 1971), as a "mind manager" (Schiller 1973), as "the cultural arm of the industrial order" (Gerbner 1976), as an instrument that "maintains hegemony and legitimates the status quo" (Tuchman 1974), as a "looking glass" that provides a distorted and ideological view of social life (Rapping 1987), as an instrument that "invents reality" according to the needs and imperatives of corporate capitalism (Parenti 1987), and as a propaganda machine that "manufactures consent" to the existing sociopolitical order (Herman and Chomsky 1988; Herman 1988; Chomsky 1989). In a sense, only the radicals have attempted to provide even a rudimentary account of television's place in the system of institutions established in the United States and to analyze its sociopolitical functions and effects. The conservative critique focuses on television's alleged liberal bias, and I have seen no systematic liberal attempt to theorize television as a key institution within contemporary U.S. society.

The Logic of Accumulation and Exclusion

In this book, I shall generally take the radical position, although I argue that television has contradictory social functions and effects: Sometimes it reproduces the status quo in a highly conservative manner, and sometimes it promotes (liberal) change and social reforms. Against models of contemporary U.S. society that project a pluralist concept of television as a major institutional force between big business and big government, I argue that, in a capitalist society, the state, media, and other major institutions are predominantly controlled by business—that is, by the capitalist class. A capitalist society is a system of commodity production defined by a set of social relations marked by private ownership of the means of production and production for private profit. In such a society, workers are forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists, who own the means of production; and the capitalists extract at least part of their profit from unpaid labor time (Marx and Engels 1978).

A capitalist society is therefore a class society divided between those who own and control the means of production and those who do not and are thus forced to sell their labor.⁶ This class division is often described as an opposition between the ruling (or capitalist) class and the working class. The ruling class, in turn, is divided into various class sectors, just as capital is divided into various fields. The capitalist class is divided between big and small business sectors and between transnational and national corporations. Big business is divided into various sectors such as heavy manufacturing, finance, communications, and oil.

The ruling class often competes internally, as when struggles erupt between big business and small business or between the manufacturing and finance sectors. In a competitive market society, competition among different firms within a sector constitutes another form of conflict. Business sometimes unites to struggle against workers or reform movements; but, on the whole, capitalist society is characterized by conflict and struggle among the different class sectors and classes. In a highly competitive society, such conflict is inevitable—especially if certain groups are oppressed or exploited. Thus, tension, structural antagonism, and struggle are permanent and constituent features of capitalist society.

Marx arid Engels argued that the ruling ideas in a given society are those of the ruling class, and that these ideas express the interests of the dominant class in an idealized form (1978, 172). Thus in feudal society, the ruling ideas were those of chivalry, honor, valor, and spirituality—precisely the ideas of the ruling strata. In capitalist society, individualism, competition, winning, material success, and other capitalist ideas are highly esteemed and likewise reflect the interests and ideas of the ruling class.

"Ideology" smooths over differences between classes and presents idealized visions of class harmony and consensus. Ruling classes attempt to present their ideas as universal and their interests as the common interests; thus ideology presents historically contingent ideas, such as the "innate" aggressiveness and egotism of human beings, as the "ways of the world." Ideas such as competition and the right to accumulate unlimited amounts of money and property, which reflect the interests of the capitalist class, are presented as the interests of everyone, as universally valid ideas. The media—one of a series of "ideological apparatuses" along with the state, the church, schooling, and the family (Althusser 1971)—produce ideology and thus serve the interests of the ruling class by idealizing existing institutions, practices, and ideas. In this context, ideology refers to a set of ideas that legitimate the existing organization of society and obscure class/gender/race domination, oppression, exploitation, inequality, and the like (Kellner 1978).

Ideology thus attempts to obscure social antagonisms and conflicts—a function that ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1 Toward a Critical Theory of Television
• 2 Broadcasting and the Rise of Network Television
• 3 Television, Government, and Business: Toward a Critical/Institutional Theory
• 4 Television, Politics, and the Making of Conservative Hegemony
• 5 Alternatives
• Appendixes
• Bibliography
• About the Book and Author
• Index