The Liberal Media
Sat Oct 01, 2005 at 02:42:56 AM PDT
It's taken me a long time, but I finally figured out why such a large percentage of people in this country consider the media to be "liberal", no matter how much the media has become almost a complete right-wing mouthpeice.
It's because they're confusing "liberal" with "permissive", and they're thinking of things like the relentless increase in the amount of sex, violence, foul language, idiocy, and general depravity in the media over the last 40 years. By that standard, sure, the media sure as hell ain't "conservative", by any stretch.
We'll never be able to win against that frame. We're speaking two different languages.
As usual, we're doing it wrong, too. We're talking about facts, figures, issues, policies, positions, and all relating to the
news media. None of which matter.
We look at media as a way to get facts, and our media is a complete laughingstock from that standpoint-- it's clearly the propoganda arm of Corporate America and thus its interests are far to the right. We also consider it from an economic, not a personal perspective, and the media's interests are as right-wing economically as it gets. Likewise in terms of what it permits and restricts: the mega-media-conglomerates are closed to all but the most wealthy and powerful, and completely deferential to powers such as Big Corporations and right-wing politicians. So we consider it way too restrictive, a right-wing force.
And that's why we lose the battle. Most of America considers the media to be an entertainment tool, not a way to get facts and data. And, as entertainment, it's a wild wanton space of openness and permissiveness. Anything goes, basically, and the more shocking, the better. It's not too regimented, it's not regimented enough, from the viewpoint of its social and personal presentation. And so Grandma sitting down to see Eminem flipping off the crowd at the Grammies, or some actress taking off her shirt in a football locker room in a commercial, and thinks, "Oh dear, that media is way too liberal!".
Here we come whining about the right-wing media, and its demonstrable rightward slant to almost every news story, and most of America stares at us like cows at a passing train. Huh? News? They watch the entertainment, and the commercials, and to them the media must have the most liberal people in the world, based on what they see of it (the sex/violence/language/moronity).
After glueing Lakoff to "What's the Matter with Kansas?", the problem of the SCLM comes out in stark relief.
I think one possibility would be to reframe the media as kind of an "anything-for-a-buck" media, the "Greed Media". Clearly that is what most annoys us about it. If we can tie the shock-value titillation of media to the Corporate Overlords who run it, then people who are repulsed by it will be drawn to our cause. I think it'll stick if we pound at it for a while.
I think we're missing an opportunity here, but I'm not sure exactly what is the optimum way to take advantage of it. But we have to do it, otherwise the average American will somewhat reasonably conclude that their TV news has "liberal" bias because the entertainment that completely surrounds it is so "liberal".
This is how the language has gotten away from us. Crap "entertainment" is not "liberal" by any stretch-- it's the ugly, depraved face of Corporate Greed run amok. When most of America sees that face, and associates it with Corporatism and not Liberalism, then we've got a chance at winning elections.
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