I Finished Reading The Sack of Rome
the other day. It's Alexander Stille's book about Silvio Berlusconi. It's a brilliant, entertaining, and only somewhat disturbing book. It leaves me convinced that Berlusconi is a terrific crook, but hey, that's not news. It also leaves me convinced of the political power of television. There's a long history of communication scholars in the US disputing the power of television. This is called the "limited effects model"; according to it, ordinary people are insulated from the direct influence of television by local opinion leaders and organic face-to-face groups. And this is true for some things and in some places and for some people. I can sit in a bar filled with fans of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, and even though everyone will be watching a telecast of a Chicago Cubs game with announcers paid by the Tribune Company, the owners of the Cubs, all the patrons in the bar will still hate the Cubs, and "read against the grain," so to speak. Sure. And I DO talk back to my television, even though no one listens.
But this has never been what the power of television is all about. On the contrary. Television has had great power because of all the LONELY people who watch it, and this has certainly been the case in Italy. Berlusconi's television channels have large viewerships of old and lonely people who don't have a bar full of organic community to tell them he's a liar. But moreso television has had great power because it REPRESENTS the people. In the absence of all the people speaking, television has been the delegated voice of the people. To be more precise, the empowered act as if television represents the people.
In the US, all of this is obscured because we don't yet have a Berlusconi. We have the ingredients. We have the demented power mad media mogul (Ted Turner used to be the best example, but Rupert Murdoch has taken his place); we have telegenic ambitious politicians; and we have celebrities who, for the life of us, we can't figure out why they're celebrities. But we don't yet have someone who's all three.
That doesn't mean we don't have the same system. Stille drives this point home admirably in his closing chapter.
the other day. It's Alexander Stille's book about Silvio Berlusconi. It's a brilliant, entertaining, and only somewhat disturbing book. It leaves me convinced that Berlusconi is a terrific crook, but hey, that's not news. It also leaves me convinced of the political power of television. There's a long history of communication scholars in the US disputing the power of television. This is called the "limited effects model"; according to it, ordinary people are insulated from the direct influence of television by local opinion leaders and organic face-to-face groups. And this is true for some things and in some places and for some people. I can sit in a bar filled with fans of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, and even though everyone will be watching a telecast of a Chicago Cubs game with announcers paid by the Tribune Company, the owners of the Cubs, all the patrons in the bar will still hate the Cubs, and "read against the grain," so to speak. Sure. And I DO talk back to my television, even though no one listens.
But this has never been what the power of television is all about. On the contrary. Television has had great power because of all the LONELY people who watch it, and this has certainly been the case in Italy. Berlusconi's television channels have large viewerships of old and lonely people who don't have a bar full of organic community to tell them he's a liar. But moreso television has had great power because it REPRESENTS the people. In the absence of all the people speaking, television has been the delegated voice of the people. To be more precise, the empowered act as if television represents the people.
In the US, all of this is obscured because we don't yet have a Berlusconi. We have the ingredients. We have the demented power mad media mogul (Ted Turner used to be the best example, but Rupert Murdoch has taken his place); we have telegenic ambitious politicians; and we have celebrities who, for the life of us, we can't figure out why they're celebrities. But we don't yet have someone who's all three.
That doesn't mean we don't have the same system. Stille drives this point home admirably in his closing chapter.
posted by jnerone at 10:03 PM
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