Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiAs the Media Merges with Politics, Can We Resist 'Electotainment'?
What were they thinking? Did the Democrats who decided to extend the campaign season with a year of frenetic barnstorming really believe that would turn more people on to politics or was it just another fundraising gambit?
As the race drones on, as the mainstream turns into a mud-stream, cynicism and tune-out deepen. It's a reaction to what Time Magazine's once called, "electotainment," an ongoing televised carnival in an age of hyper partisanship, in which the corrosive spirit of polarization between Democrats and Republicans has now led the Dems to polarize themselves.
The ONION caught the vibe with a headline: "AMERICANS ANNOUNCE THEY'RE DROPPING OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE." Among the factors these satirists hone in on is a lack of stamina for an l8-month marathon horse race and exhaustion with "relentless media scrutiny."
I would modify that to "tired of self-promotional media exploitation" and anchor-pimping/corporate news brand-building with staged events that do little to engage us with real choices and issues but instead provide on-air "talent" with another chance to show how much smarter they are than everyone else. Marshall McLuhan thought everyone craved fifteen seconds of fame. Many newscasters are face-time on TV hogs. They need fifteen seconds of fame every fifteen seconds.
The most recent case in point-CNN's "debate" from Las Vegas, a town known for prizefights and gambling. David Swanson was right to call it a "soul-sickening disaster."
He watched it while watching a clock:
On Thursday Wolf Blitzer devoted the first 20 minutes to goading Clinton and Obama into bashing each other over how they have run their campaigns. Edwards was given a token 60 seconds to join the fight. At 8:18 (the debate began at 8:00 p.m. ET) Biden was permitted to add his two cents. At 8:20, Edwards was asked to bash Clinton from another angle. He took the bait, but then turned to the topic of poverty, in open violation of WB's rules. (Blitzer had announced at the start that candidates would not be permitted to stray from the topics of the questions asked.) At 8:23 Dodd got to speak, still on the debate over the debate. At 8:24 Richardson was allowed to add to the same substance-free topic. He introduced himself to the crowd as a way of registering his dissastisfaction with being ignored for 24 minutes.
Adds Swanson: "... time was found for an audience member to ask Clinton whether she "prefers diamonds or pearls."
(PS. Later we learned from Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls," that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN," Luisa writes. "I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was approved by CNN days in advance.")
She wasn't. CNN wouldn't let her, insisting on the trivial to the important.
Swanson concludes: "Wolf Blitzer lost this one. The ranks of non-voters probably won."
You bet, but maybe that's the real goal. Ever think of that? Make politics so tendentious and predictable that issues really don't matter. Focus on posturing and being clever instead or what matters. The pundits say that the candidate that wins is the one that makes the fewest mistakes. Is that the way we should chose a president?
Anyone notice what's not being debated---our economic collapse, the subprime meltdown, the crimes of Wall Street, the inflation that is squeezing our lives, the threat of new wars, global warming, infectious diseases etc. etc. ? You know what I am talking about. And one of the reasons is due to another media failure-a lack of scrutiny of the wealthy funders behind the political curtains.
Today, the notion that war is politics by other means, has been inverted: politics is now war. That's why veteran political correspondent Ronald Brownstein calls his new book "The Second Civil War." It argues that extreme partisanship has paralyzed Washington and polarized America. It has led to candidates playing to the certain constituencies while ignoring the needs of millions.
This has been the GOP strategy and it has propelled a minority of zealots into becoming our Republican Guard. They are also media whores, always in the media and on the media. (Karl Rove just joined Newsweek as a columnist while partisan soundbite artists on all sides dominate the punditocracy.) Extremists on the right are everywhere; progressives rarely heard or seen. MoveOn gets in the news when the right choses to target them, not because what they do merits media visibility. That's why they have to buy pricey ads to get heard.
When we talk about media mergers, we rarely discuss the merger between big media and big politics!
The truth is that news business is now show business and that politics dances to its rules. TV news used to model its programming on what newspapers reported. Now fewer Americans even read newspapers and the press often follows TV's lead because of its fetishism with immediacy. New media outlets like My Space and You Tube further glitz up the process while the Daily Show and its imitators give young people more to laugh about than think about.
That means that personalties rule and information is sloganized, dumbed down and robbed of substance. It means more "message points" on the right and rhetoric on the left. No wonder so many Americans don't even bother voting.
Formalistic debates and related blather on the Sunday shows now substitute for the work of the political parties which are no longer mass-based bottom-up grass roots organizations. TV is our politics. (Roseanne once called it "our everything.") Candidate strategies are built around waging expensive "airwars" in contested states; they fight with TV ads, not house parties and real field organizing. It is easier to "participate" by sending in checks or signing petitions on line. Low-key passivity is then redefined as activism.
Look at the conventions. The delegates are increasingly elected officials and political pros. These events are now considered ho-hummers with the media barely covering them anymore allegedly because they are designed as formulaic TV shows. That same media doesn't admit that they are the ones pushing for the high entertainment and production values. The pols are just imitating them by hiring media consultants. It's a symbiotic game. Remember that most of TV is driven by so-called KISS formulas-Keep it simple and stupid.
And also look at the electoral process itself. The Daily News fears NY State will become another Florida because of federal pressure to force us to use electronic voting machines. Can the media that failed to focus in on what happened in 2000 until it was too late, and then ignored massive violations in Ohio in 2004 be trusted to monitor the integrity of the elections in 2008? Don't count on it.
So where does that leave us? Angry and worried. Meanwhile many of the most concerned about our democracy become resigned to being observers not doers, moving from event to event, caucus to primary, watered down TV "debate" to "debate" watching the pols become slicker showboaters as our political culture becomes more remote. Can't we do better?
Our politicians are turning into brands to chose between in the great mall of electronic "democracy." Unfortunately, you can't return them or upgrade later.
Mediachannel.org's News Dissector Danny Schechter's new book Squeezed on the financial crisis is now available on Coldtype.net. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
25 Comments so far
Show AllElectotainment is sickening, but for those in the loop, Gravel has turned the beast on its head. His alternate debates excoriate the lies and exhume the truth for those that tune in.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=npbftGodGGI
The writing is on the wall when one of the major measures is how much money a candidate has raised. I once thought that "better ideas" got someone elected. Now the game is to throw out platitudes in public and sell your elected soul to corporations in private.
All I can say is vote your conscience as to who has the best ideas and not look at this as a football game. You never "throw away" your vote if you vote for who you believe in. The only way to throw away your vote is to vote for #1 or #2 in the polls because the media convinces you that it's a waste otherwise.
I really don't believe that most people are interested in pearls or diamonds. Ordinary folk do like entertainment, but I think it may be just a little elitist to assume they are not interested in learning more about the issues, or that they don't care about preserving our earth as well as our Constitution. The complaints are wide spread amongst them about the MSM being trashy and offering little real information. I am pretty much convinced that the media is not really interested in connecting with the majority. They make their money off of a minority who are able and ready to swallow the phony news along with the pills-for-all-ills they advertise. It may be that most people don't know what to do and are more in despair than apathetic or gullible. Nobody believes we can change things. This is why so many of us who get our information from alternative sources simply do so without making any noisy demands that the corporate media inject some morality and civic responsibility into their business code if they expect to continue using OUR airwaves.
First, let's not use the word chose when we mean choose.
Second, the Daily Show gives young people plenty to think about, not just laugh about.
Last, let's hope Nader or someone like him gets into the race soon enough to get some votes so we don't get another Democrank. Better to have a successor nut-case like Guliani so folks can wake up. But don't count on it.
You know what? Most viewers probably cared more about "pearls or diamonds" than Yucca Mountain. I don't hold a brief for the media, but I do think TV tries to give viewers what they want, which is entertainment, not education. Those of us who want an education aren't watching.
I'm sick and tired of the media selecting the democrats we are allowed to consider as the next President. They are determined Dennis Kucinich is out; and during the last (so-called) debate, showed him no respect whatever.
Media has decided it's Clinton and Obama . . . but the media best realize the masses don't want either
candidate . . . and coupled with all they haven't done (like holding Bush and Cheney accountable for crimes against American citizens and humanity in general - plus holding a real investigation of 9/11 - and stopping the war), citizens are not likely to vote.
Everybody I know and have met in recent years -including many republicans - prefer Kucinich and Edwards . . . and that goes for me, too.
I dunno, at first I was outraged that they would waste precious time on asking that idiotic question about 'diamonds or pearls' but it turned out to be the only time that Hillary really told the truth all night (didja see her face light up at just the thought of it??) SHE WANTS EVERYTHING!!! Money, Power!
The world is falling apart and she talks about JEWELRY?
Now, she might have changed my mind from voting for Kucinich if she had said sternly to the hapless questioner, "I know CNN wanted you to ask that kind of question for a light hearted ending, but now, what did you REALLY want to ask?" She would have brought the house down.
Too bad she didn't.
AND WHERE DO THEY GET OFF IGNORING DENNIS? He's got more brains and integrity than the rest of them put together. Must be why he's 'unelectable'. He's real!
Kucinich for President! Because IT'S NOT A BEAUTY CONTEST!
And I swear by all that's holy, if his small plane goes down in an 'accident', I'm storming the bloody white house and waterboarding Darth Vader myself!
I think we have lost sight of the fact that the primaries are used LEGALLY for the election of DELEGATES to the party convention that will generate the party's political "platform," and nominate the party's candidates for president and vice president. The candidates campaigning in the primaries are campaigning for delegates committed to vote for them at least on the first ballot. Clearly no single person will win enough delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot, since candidates who get at least 15% of the votes in the primary are entitled to a proportionate number of delegates. IF THE ELECTED DELEGATES STICK TO THEIR NOMINEE the power to nominate the party's candidates will stay with the deadlocked CONVENTION. Instead of separate flocks of SHEEP controlled by their shepherds, the convention will consist of a relatively representative group of serious party members searching for the best person to be our next president. I hope they turn to Al Gore, who has the global vision for leadership in a world in which all the important problems are intricately tied up as if we were a global village. The so called "national interest" is just the combination of special interests who manipulate the system to their advantage, rather than representing the needs of the people of a state. Reflect on the cold war: All the fantastic expenditure on weaponry, interference in foreign countries, espionage, secret police, strategic studies, politicians, etc, all kinds of material and intellectual industries that suddenly in 1998 were exposed as absurd. These groups who determined the "national interest"s in the US and the USSR had more of a common interest in keeping up the cold war that served them well, rather than the welfare of their own populations.
In a just world Danny Schecter would be given the budget and staff to produce regular thought-provoking TV programming (like PBS' Frontline only occasionally does anymore)for the net--because that's where mass dumbed down media is heading.
The beauty of the net is it is so much cheaper to get programming up and running. The curse of the net (for those whose only motive is making as extravagent profits as possible) is its egalitarian and decentralized nature.
Waaaay up there at the top peachmcd has it right :
' 1) our corporate media's tunnel-visioned focus on the fundraising horserace &
2) the juice corporate media gets from political advertising. '
1. Gravel is excluded from the debate because he has not raised $1000000.
2. Why does he need $1000000?
3. To "pay-to-play" Electotainment on the MSM!
4. This is a pattern of racketeering, as defined under the RICO Act!
The MSM are "breaking Gravel's legs" to demonstrate to any potential candidate that they have to "pay for protection" or the same WILL happen to them!
There is big money in a RICO prosecution of the MSM/DNC combine!
Where are the ambulance-chasers when we need them?
Only one is running for president.
After each debate we get a clip of zingers and an in depth analysis of the horse race. If the candidates have policy positions it will be a big surprise when one of them takes office and begins to implement those unknown policies.
That is why people are so satisfied with Bu$h the inferior, Congress, and the press.
peachmcd-----I'm with you on this one. While this article nails some great points and gives us some clever lines to toss around in humor, he does leave out the biggest part of the pie. My attitude is, yes, it IS about money, but that is just something they do along the way, as they continue the frontal assault on our intelligence and our constitutional rights.
Like the people who still have trouble accepting the 911truth movement's brave attempts to wake up the American people,(By the way, the rest of the world GOT IT a very long time ago), facing the "monster in our midst" creates too much cognitive dissonance. So we distract ourselves with clever reasoning games and brilliant analysis. This monstrous momentum has been building while we pursued mass entertainment and ridiculous consumption. Now we have a problem that flourished because we just weren't paying attention.
Where your attention goes, so goes your energy....so where does most of your energy go? What would happen if we all re-directed it? Not sure, but it seems a necessary first step.
And while I am on my bandbox, since most of us here agree that the powers behind the throne are trying to install the next "public face" to do their bidding, with the eager assistance of the MSM, why do we buy the lie that Dennis Kucinich is unelectable? "Methinks they protest too much."
Looks like if we really want a shot at changing things we may need to make some unpleasant observations --like examining the policies of our own!! party with a view toward recognizing the Clinton's hard right revolution of the 90's eagerly endorsed by George Jr. Maybe we oughta start a "Monsters Club" reserved for those victims who WOULD!! --- identify their rapistS!! (regardless of party) from a lineup. Clintonomics--the Democratic leadership (DLC) is in lockstep w/ George Jr.
"So tell me Lucius Vorenus. Now that Ceasar of the Juliae has forgiven rents of the poorest of the poor for a year, who do you think they'll vote for on the Aventine; the Nobility or Gaius Julius Ceasar, especially with the backing of Mark Antony and the unified gangs of the Collegium?
But Titus Pullo, pull your dick out of the slave for a minute & listen. Brutus is a fine and Moral man who loves the people and knows the needs of our people. Just the other day Cicero penned a fine honorium about some battle he fought in for the Republic, somewhere in one of the provinces of Carthage or Gaul. Yes, I know Cicero's a slumlord and stands to loose a small fortune, but his words were true and Brutus is of a long and noble family. You know the nobility have always looked out for us. Saw to the glory of our Empire for 500 years. Roma Victa. Vote for the winners.
Ceasar will do more. He's insisting that 1/3 of all labor in Rome and the provinces be provided by Free Men. 1/3. Which of your Nobles will do that, Lucius?
But Titus, with the rents lost and now prospective loss of the free labor of slaves on their plantations, the Nobles will go mad. They'll kill him. Then you'll have the Nobles back, pissed off at us, and civil war. Is it worth it?
Surely you cannot believe otherwise Lucius. My father used to own some of that land before the Nobles pushed him off. Do you think the XIII Legion was my first choice?"
Now that was an election.
Peace.
It's not a matter if we can resist it. It's a matter if we can survive it. The role of the media in our society today is so powerful it can erase the truth and replace it with lies. Until Americans know the truth about their country they won't be able to change.
Hoa binh
Look at the democratic congress; where do you see ANY "partisanship" there, let alone "extreme" (Scary!) partisanship?
Speaking of "electotainment", what can one say at the fact that Brian Williams, the NBC news anchor, hosts Saturday Night Live and, in a skit, states that the media have chosen Hillary Clinton?
Things said in apparent jest often mirror truths normally kept under wraps.
Inflation (or is the deflation?) has arrived in Media is the Message Land. McLuhan spoke of 15 minutes of fame, and now Schechter has that down to 15 seconds.
Lobo Gris - With so many urgent and important issues facing us it is unbelievable that a question as to whether H. Clinton prefers diamonds or pearls would be asked. The real question is who gives a sh#t?
I think it was a good question. Let's us know which one to hang her with when she is tried and convicted for treason alongside Bush and Cheney. Answer: "Both".
Might as well vote because 2008 may very well be the last election in which your vote is likely to be counted.
The corporate oligarchy does seem a bit undecided at this point between Hillary and Rudy. Hillary is trying to convince them she would be a careful and prudent manager of the empire while Rudy is making it clear he would be a take-no-prisoners dictator who would make sure the US middle class is squashed once and for all and that weak foreign powers who resist total domination by US corporations will be nuked. I am sure they find Rudy tempting but dangerous.
We will probably be able to figure out the choice by watching the general election news coverage in the Fall of 2008.
With so many urgent and important issues facing us it is unbelievable that a question as to whether H. Clinton prefers diamonds or pearls would be asked. The real question is who gives a sh#t?
Lobo Gris
I refuse to watch any of it. I have seen 0 debates; and, plan to watch nothing about the election. I read little about it because most of it is propaganda. It's football season and there is plenty to watch. I do my own studies of the candidates and issues; and, then, go vote on the second Tuesday in November. The more people who recognize all this electotainment (a good word), the better off our republic will be.
Wolf Blitzer is a Republican supporting Hillary Clinton (who is a closet Republican), her support continues through large donations through the Military Industry, health care industry, and Ruport Murdock (need I say more). Obama good guy, but I'm afraid his Presidential term would be similar to Jimmy Carter (also a great statesman). Leaves me with the Choice of Edwards. In Iowa Obama has spent $5 million on his campaign as of last week, Hillary $3 million and Edwards $20,000. And yet they are in a statistical tie.
The electotainment is in full swing, and what better red herring to distract people from what's really going on in the US halls of power! There are no real national elections in the US. That ship has sailed. But americans continue to be the most entertained people in the world, and with clowns like Clinton, McCain, Giulani, Romney, Obama et al giving us our prime time jollies, by George we will continue to be well entertained right into prison camps and thought crime arrests.
Schechter nailed it!
The one angle Schechter didn't mention (but certainly knows, if he knew to write this piece) is the tidy connection between
1) our corporate media's tunnel-visioned focus on the fundraising horserace
&
2) the juice corporate media gets from political advertising.
So it makes sense that We the People, instead of an informed vote for representatives, get a dog and pony show, the object of which is to sell the most ads.
What to do about it? Public financing of elections and a Constitutional Amendment limiting legal personhood and the Bill of Rights to human citizens. In the meantime, VOTE FOR KUCINICH and send a message to the media that ignoring the truth doesn't make it go away.
Peach McD in Durham NC