Programming Hatred on the Airwaves
If the majority of Americans take pride in their tolerance, why is corporate media so filled with rage? A Lexington article in the Economist, “The rebirth of outrage” (4/1/2006) suggests that the anger foisted upon us by cable and broadcast outlets represents a narrow sliver of the population, but that differences of viewpoint are actually a part of America’s identity as a melting pot of diverse cultural origins.
THE most striking thing about Americans to many outsiders is how nice they are. They have none of the aloofness of the British or the froideur of the French. On the contrary, they go out of their way to be warm and welcoming. This is the land of the smiley face and the “have a nice day” greeting. Put simply, Americans like to be liked.
Yet turn on cable television and you are confronted with a series of people who are in a perpetual state of outrage. …
The current king of outrage is Bill O’Reilly, the host of a Fox television show who only has to look at the camera to convey a sense that some monstrosity has been committed. But there are plenty of others. Sean Hannity (also at Fox) and Joe Scarborough (at MSNBC) are furious about whatever the Democrats have done that day. Over at CNN, Lou Dobbs, under the guise of presenting a news programme, bashes the government for failing to fix America’s borders, and big companies for exporting jobs abroad. The oddest of the lot is Don Imus (also at MSNBC) who sits there with a cowboy hat on his head and a scowl on his face, fulminating about whatever irritates him at that moment. …
Why is outrage becoming such a defining feature of American life, and particularly political life? It does not apply to the whole country. Four in five Americans tell pollsters that they are either very happy (34%) or pretty happy (50%). Tabloid journalists the world over are in the outrage business. But America’s tabloid titans appeal only to narrow slivers of the country (”The O’Reilly Factor” reaches 2.5m people in a country of 300m). Most Americans pride themselves on their tolerance. …
Angry people are usually among the most politically active everywhere, but in America a combination of low voter turnout and gerrymandering has allowed radicals to capture both the main parties. Then there are the culture wars: ever since the 1960s American politics has been pulled apart by battles over fundamental values. Other countries have been able to fudge tricky issues, such as abortion, through parliamentary votes; in America, abortion is decided by the Supreme Court–and a debate about the fundamental rights of the individual.
Ironically, both sides of the divide feel marginalised. Leftists feel excluded because the Republicans control every branch of government. Rightists feel left out because the left dominates so much of the cultural world–especially the movie business and the universities (only about 15% of academics admit to being conservative). The natural response to being marginalised is to rage at the fiends doing the marginalising–whether they be the “corrupt cronies” of the Bush political machine or the “dangerous leftists” at Warner Brothers and Harvard. …
In his book, “Albion’s Seed” (1989), David Hackett Fischer argued that the earliest settlers were heavily influenced by the regional cultures of different parts of Britain. The Puritans of Boston had a very different world view from the Cavaliers of the South, and both had different outlooks from the Scots-Irish. These different values ensured that Americans were perpetually engaged in arguments over everything from slavery to religion to, above all, the nature of the United States. This means that America is not just the land of that smiling “waitperson” who just told you to have a nice day. It is also the land of such maestros of outrage as Messrs O’Reilly and Imus.
The notion of America’s origins as a culturally diverse nation predisposed to disagree may have merit, but historically, if those differences were to be resolved so that people could live in harmony and avoid resorting to violence, disagreements had to be settled through civil dialog.
That problems should be resolved by way of civil discourse is the great virtue of democracy. Civility may be difficult to achieve when issues are highly emotionally charged, but condemning a person with an opposing viewpoint is harder to do face-to-face. Broadcast media, however, allows speakers to voice their anger and vilify others while speaking to an anonymous audience. In fact, the entire purpose of talk show formats isn’t to resolve issues, but to amplify the differences between opposing extremes of an issue to incite audiences and boost ratings. When that audience spans the nation, there is a very real danger that personal vilification of people who are different might rally viewers and listeners into an irrational mass seeking answers from demagogues. And when programming decisions are made by corporations which seek profit by selling controversy peddled by extreme ideologues, then greed has a corrosive effect on the virtues of our democracy.
We need to reclaim our right of ownership over broadcast media, to ensure that we leave a more peaceful nation for our children, and to help us resolve the difficult issues that divide our communities. Whether by challenging the right of corporations to control the public airwaves, or by lobbying sponsors of hate-mongering talk-show hosts, we have a say in what we are subjected to, and we should demand not just that corporate boardrooms pay attention to us, but whenever possible, we should claim physical ownership of the means to broadcast.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:54 am
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