In the 1980’s Rupert Murdoch’s ‘fledgling’ media empire got together with Thatcher’s conservatives and waged war on the establishment. They railed against elitism and the government men who said they knew what was best for you, and dragged us kicking and screaming into this modern world. It created a system of focus groups and an attitude of giving the public what they want, and regularly the media still derides the arrogance of people who try and talk down to the tabloid newspapers or impose their standards on the public. But the word ‘elitism’ has all kinds of negative connotations attached to it, most of which are about being dismissive, exclusionary and condescending towards a public who are perceived as stupid by the higher-ups, none of which have anything to do with the idea of being ‘elite’. When we really look at the situation, I’m not sure we ever tackled elitism, rather, just replace one group of elites with another.
Neo-Elites & The Junk Food Economy
Elitism is a description of small groups of people who hold power, often in government, whose skills or intellect make their opinions carry greater weight in society. The backlash against elitism in the 80’s happened because the elites who made decisions on behalf of everyone, acted in a dismissive, exclusionary and condescending manner which stemmed from the belief that the public was too stupid to be able understand they were doing. It is something that effects us all in all walks of life, as we rise up the chain of command we become less tolerant as the people at the bottom get further away from us. We become less willing to talk to people the longer it takes to explain your actions, and ultimately resort to an “I know best”, “trust me” or “I’m acting in your best interest” type of attitude that signals that we’ve had enough of trying to explain these very complicated ideas to someone who is clearly too dumb to comprehend something that seems so easy and intuitive to us, a person who has spent years gaining their expertise. This is when angry exchanges start to take place as adults begin to feel like they are being treated like children. When people who ask for explanations on issues that worry them only find themselves being dismissed, it only serves to makes their worries worse, and is the beginning of a country that doesn’t trust it’s government.
This behaviour isn’t limited to governments, the very institutions who resented the attitude that the people are dumb, and spearheaded the attack, have now come to believe the very same thing. The media; television, news, film, print etc. all start from the same assumption, that the people they are broadcasting to are stupid. We hear constant accusations of ‘dumbing down’, the print media writes everything in short, easily digestible paragraphs, with limits syllables and plenty of pictures, film and television is constantly remade for a local audiences because they assume we can’t translate something from another country into our own context, even if it is in the same language. Yet, the influence of Hollywood, the success of television shows like Top Gear, Sherlock, Doctor Who around the world, or the recent success of foreign language Scandinavian shows like The Killing, Wallander and Borgen in the UK, blatantly contradict this attitude.
The media’s campaign against government elitism never really worked, they just got better at hiding it. Now governments use political language, which has been focus grouped to get the desired response, that makes it seem like they are engaging with the people whilst minimising the amount of time needed to achieve the illusion, The media changed the rules of the game with its campaign and the government adapted, but in the process they added a new type of media elitism which also worked from the assumption that the public is dumb. The difference between the two elitisms is that they are the inverse of one another, whereas government elitism thought we were dumb and tried to act in our best interest because of it, media elitism thinks we are dumb and try’s to exploit us for it. Hence, ‘Inverse Elitism’.
We have ended up with a media system that feeds us intellectual junk food made from gossip, scandal, sex and witch hunts, and then attacks anyone who takes issue with it as just another arrogant old-elite. The media then rallies behind the old argument of ‘giving the public what they want’ as justification for their actions, but this smacks of a post rationalised excuse thought of to fit the process with the results, finding the facts to fit your conclusion.
The real reason for this mess is the huge sums of money and power involved. We have a media system that has profit as its primary directive, and so the necessary integrity for a healthy news culture becomes compromised. Newspapers are supposed to be bastions of integrity and an investigator on behalf of the public that keeps us all honest, but politics can be incredibly boring at times and doesn’t inspire huge sales figures. The people at the top of the media industry desire money, power and influence above all else, it is very important to them to make sure they sell as many papers as possible because a large readership brings with it money and influence. It becomes very easy to lose sight of values, when it’s easier to make money without them. This is why we have news that inserts its own incendiary opinions and false narratives into the news and sensationalised headlines to grab your attention, as well as framing a story with irrelevant facts about the race, sex, wealth or sexuality of the antagonist (so and so, who lives in a million dollar house,…!), because it gets people riled up and angry which sells more papers.
This process infects all areas of the media, including Hollywood, the infinite growth model has forced us into a situation where we are so focussed on making everything as broad and appealing as possible, to maximise profitability, that we have films that are aimed squarely at the teenage market because they are the easiest to sell to. Everything has a PG13 certificate, plenty of explosions and fights, and an over exposed marketing campaign, all of which drowns us in information and drowns out the quieter attempts of smaller films to gain attention. We have to wade through a river of commercialised shit just to unearth the small budget gems or indie music artists, in the same way we have to decode political language to find the real meaning, that we have become disenfranchised with the media system. This signals the beginning of a downward spiral as the disenfranchised take themselves out of the market place, making it even less likely that media will tailor their output to the needs of people who no longer buy their product.
We are at a point where capitalism has become so big that the infinite growth model is pushing us down an unsustainable road. It is a model that looks to maximise profit by any means and once a country has reached market saturation, it keeps on going by cutting corners and laying people off. It is a model that doesn’t just define something as profitable and therefore worthwhile, but asks does it make enough profit to make it worthwhile. Companies go for the easy money in the same way politicians go for the easy votes. The result is that, not only does the noise and shouting from big capitalism drown out the noise of the small and perfectly profitable capitalism, but it makes it less likely that the small, less profitable ventures will be even made in the first place as no one thinks they are worth the time or investment. This then only makes disenfranchisement exponentially worse as the small efforts that engage with people, who don’t enjoy dumbed-down-pop-culture, begin to dry up and disappear along with their financial backing, cementing our future in a culture of unintelligible nonsense as no one is willing to make the effort to engage with the masses simply because there is no money in it.
This is the point where the neo-elites (new media elites) pipe up and point out that a media system needs to be commercially viable to exist and to, therefore, do its job. The argument is akin to industries that campaign against environmental regulations, claiming it will kill jobs because it is uneconomical not to pollute the environment. When government introduces regulations, it very rarely has the kind of effect that industry fear mongering suggests because it changes the rules of the game for everyone and maintains a level playing field. When we are all playing by the same rules, then the competition remains the same, but it only takes one competitor to start cheating to gain a competitive advantage to then drag their competitors into cheating as well and send us into a downward spiral. The only reason it is uneconomical for the press to have standards is because they have created a competitive environment that demands low standards and compromised values. By lowering standards and going for the easy wins and cheap shots, which is easier to sell, they make it so their competitors also have to lower their standards just to maintain their own readership, and anyone who tries to maintain their standards will undoubtedly lose readers and struggle to compete. A junk food economy supports junk food economics, and a heath food economy support health food economics. If all the competitors had the same high standards, then it would be economical to have high standards because they are all competing to the same set of rules. The problem is we live in a market-knows-best economy, meaning that we will inevitably end up with a low standard media because there is more money to be made in sex and gossip rather than intelligent discussion. If we want to maintain a decent standard in any industry, we need regulation, but the problem with regulating the press is that you then risk interfering with freedom of speech and the free flow of information.
The people who hide behind excuses like “giving the people what they want” are the neo-elites (new media elites) who decide on a daily basis what is best for us. They choose what we should be reading, how we should be reading it, the amount of words and limited paragraphs and plenty of pictures, they tell you that you should be angry and deicide who and what is and isn’t acceptable, whether it’s anti-homosexual, pro-family, anti-immigration, racist or nationalistic values, they decide it all for us because they know better, and don’t even give us a choice in the matter claiming people vote with their wallets. Sex, gossip and sensation is always going to sell well, but that doesn’t mean that it is the only thing we want, nor does it mean it is the only thing media should supply. By only allowing journalists at your newspaper to talk about an idea in one particular manner that appeals to the readers, you are effectively censoring out other opinions and ways of thinking and creating/perpetuating a bias in your readership. It creates a feedback loop that reinforces your own behaviour by creating a bias reader that demands ever more bias material to consume and doesn’t give anyone a chance to see and read something they otherwise might not think to look at. This process is allowing the market to dictate the values of the press, profit is a corrupting influence in all unregulated industries, and talking about “voting with our wallets” or “giving the people what they want” are just the excuses used to devolve and ignore responsibility for what appears in their own newspaper. It is power without responsibility as you pass the buck of media standards to the public and absolve yourself of accountability for your own actions and choices.
The press chooses everyday to cave to the markets and appeal to our worst natures, but information is brain food, we need a balanced and varied diet to keep healthy, and when the media feeds people with only intellectual junk food we end up with unhealthy ideas. Media must hold themselves to higher standards and have a shared code of conduct across the entire industry, they must offer alternative views as well as alternate presentations so that people don’t develop ideas in isolation that are left unchallenged because they only get their information from one source. It only takes one weak link to drag us all into a downward spiral of poor standards, the result of which is an ill informed, divided, unengaged and disenfranchised public who don’t know who to trust. Whenever someone calls out the press for their dubious practices they are dismissed as just an old elite, but it is not arrogant or elitist to want better standards for people, rather it only highlights your own inverse elitism. The constant excuses from the media to escape their duties is a damning insight into the warped mentality of those in charge, and it must end. The media uses its position as a trusted information resource to spread its own ideas and achieve its own self interested goals by manipulating the public with biased and inaccurate journalism, and then somehow manages to pass itself off as working in the public interest, because their real allegiance is to profit and influence.
No one is against freedom of the press, what I object to is the abuse of power. It is not okay for a newspaper to pick sides during an election, or insert its own opinion as public opinion, or to artificially frame an article to manipulate the reader. It is also not okay to project your own image of acceptability and reject and resent anyone who thinks differently, or is different, because of their demography, social status, sexuality, nationality, wealth, or celebrity, because to do so is to be elitist. Creating a version of society based on overly simplistic values which don’t apply to everyone, and using overly simplistic terms to talk about complex issues, such as heroes and villains, causes and fuels divisions in society and undermines social cohesion and integration.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the paper is aimed at a particular demographic, what matters is content and how you conduct yourself. It is very rare, if not nonexistent, that profit and the market come hand in hand with desirable principles and values, so whilst it may make a lot of money, it is not principled to keep selling us only intellectual junk food because of the adverse effects it has on the public. Editors, publishers, programmers etc. must not resign themselves to only feeding our worst attributes and urges, but instead do their best to educate and lift the public consciousness without telling people what to do. The media must hold themselves, and the public, to higher standards and start from the position of knowledge, or at least assume a desire for knowledge, recognise their position of authority and take responsibility for their own actions and choices. With great power comes great responsibility.
The press created a mission statement to fight the old elites and people-who-knew-better, but in the process they have become everything they hate, only ten times worse, because they make it impossible for government to do their job for fear of vicious and unfair portrayals and an equally unbalance response from an easily spooked, reactionary public that has been created by the junk food economy. All kinds of elitism are bad, but the presses elitist values exactly mirror those of the government’s as they both claim to be acting in the interests of the public and speak on their behalf, the difference being that the old elites at least tried to make us better, whereas the neo-elites choose to feed and take advantage of our worst natures. Both sides think the public is dumb and are dismissive, exclusionary and condescending to people who challenge their standards, but that is their own failing. It is a failure of their ability to appraise the situation, because it is not possible to behave like a rational human being when you don’t have rational, complete and accurate information to generate your opinions with. Is it really so difficult to understand that when you feed a population with a sensational, malicious, irrational, nationalist news system, then you get a very confused public which the elites then interpret as being dumb. A dumbed-down system creates dumbed-down people. In reality no one is incapable of being intelligent, they just need to be given the right tools and information to work with and a political and media system willing to take the time to engage with them. It’s like teaching, some pupils work well when left alone to get on with things themselves, some work best in a classroom environment and others need one-on-one support, you just have to talk to people on their level in terms they are comfortable with to get the educated, functional public required for a functional democracy. It is essential that we make the efforts necessary to engage with everyone because everyone has the same weight of vote in a democracy, meaning your vote affects me, and I’d rather have a rational and well informed individual in the poll booth than what we have now. We are left with a choice, do we want a functional democracy with an functional public, or is it too much effort to educate people and we should just make do with the mess we’re already in? Unfortunately, engagement requires a cooperative political and media class, and we know what they think of the public, so it’s unlikely we are about to see any change because it represents too much effort to change now we’ve gotten in so deep with the junk food economy.
What Can We Do?
The Leveson Enquiry has brought the media into their own spotlight which they used so successfully to harpoon the people they deemed not worthy. The media machine exposes people, warts and all, under the guise of the public interest and now their own gun has turned on them, it makes for some uncomfortable reading. What it has done is show us that media values are in the gutter, their methods and standards, and has brought media ethics, as a whole, under question. It’s not limited to phone hacking, but all their reporting from the harassment of celebrities to the papering of anyone’s most sensitive secrets from their private lives all over the public forum, causing their public interest defence to have never seemed so thin. Yet we are no nearer to a solution to the age old paradox of how you regulate the press to prevent rich owners from promoting their own agendas, or prevent journalist whose ethics are often dubious, without interfering with a free press which is so vital to the functioning of any modern democracy. Nor are we any closer to understanding the dilemma of whether to have a press controlled by the state which is no longer free to criticise the state, or a free press that abuses its freedom and uses practices which the public, on whose behalf the press claims to speak and whose interests they claim to serve, may find deeply disturbing.
It is too dangerous to give the government the powers that allow it the censor the press, that kind of regulation is asking for trouble, but I think we can all agree that the abuse of power from the press is equally deplorable. So if the government can’t regulate the industry, what options are we left with? For me personally, one of the most destructive practices of the media is the specialisation of its presentation to a specific audience. For example, News Corp. owns(ed) The Sun, The News Of The World and The Times, all of which are aimed at very different demographics. The result of this is that different groups of people go to different places for their information which is presented in very different ways. It prevents crossover, people never interact with information aimed at anyone else so they never see it from another point of view, it specifically prevents the mixed diet that we need. If we were to prevent one company from owning multiple newspapers, then we need to stop a single press baron from having a monopoly and undue influence over many different sectors of society, but we also force that company into a situation where it has to choose the direction of the one newspaper they own. Currently News Corp. can maintain different brands and behave deplorably in one newspaper without affecting the credibility of another, essentially they can have their cake and eat it, if they only have one newspaper and have all their eggs in one basket, then they might take better care of their reputation and be more encouraged to find a better balance between credibility and mass appeal. It may also make the idea of self regulation more credible as it’s not possible for a company to simply shut down one newspaper to protect its other brands. It may also have the unintended consequence of forcing a decision that then goes against you, i.e. they could all choose to go with mass market appeal and completely shun credibility, which would leave us with a worse version of the same problem of media standards that we have now because the more credible brands may then disappear due to economics.
Of course, it may be a more rational approach if we were to stop deifying freedom of speech. Is freedom of speech an absolute? We already put people in jail for ‘Incitement to hatred’ from or against religious groups, and put people in jail for racist tweets. We also make certain political parties illegal for having dangerous agendas as we already understand that democracy isn’t an absolute. We have film classification boards that have the power to ban a film from being released. The BBC, one of the world’s most admired media companies, is forbidden from expressing its own opinions in matters of current affairs and public policy and must treat controversial subjects with “due accuracy and impartiality”. It is subject to these regulations and standards in its obligation the Royal Charter and is watched over by a board of governors and an independent regulator, Ofcom (which also regulates all other broadcasters(and is probably why British TV hasn’t descended into the same farce that American TV has)). We already have many institutions in place which apparently contradict the idea of freedom of speech, but when it is applied to freedom of the press we become uncertain (perhaps this is because the press always vehemently reports that interfering with the freedom of the press is a bad idea, that we then think it is a bad idea). Maybe it would be more constructive to approach this from the position that it is perfectly possible to independently regulate the conduct of the press without government interfering with the ability of the press to do its job. Ending self regulation and setting up an independent regulator, equivalent to Ofcom, with independent board members who create and enforce a code of conduct that ends incendiary reporting and the taking of sides during elections, or ever, which all companies who wish to sell newspapers must sign up to or be shut down, and has the power to impose steep fines on all those who are found to be in violation of the code of conduct, may be all that is required to solve the problem. An independent regulator, independent of both the press and government, would safe guard the freedom of the press and prevent government interference whilst also maintaining standards, and is perhaps a better representative of the public than a media system that has profit as a conflict of interest.
Conclusion
One of the key abilities of any individual is their ability to think for themselves, but when you have a set of commandments or a constitution that is perceived as an authority to be consulted before making your own decisions, it effectively devolves decision making power to someone, or something, else and stops a person from thinking for themselves (check The Milgram Experiment & Stanford Prison Experiment). It’s the same process that leads people to drive into the sea because their GPS told them to, we can predict the result of the action will be negative and therefore it is a bad idea, but we do it anyway because the GPS told us to. In this case the issue is freedom of speech and the freedom of the press, both ideas that are perceives as simple black and white, sacred rules that under no circumstances is it okay to subjugate, that are causing us to hit a brick wall when trying to find ways of ensuring desirable standards in the media. In my mind it seem perfectly possible for an independent regulator, independent of both the government and the press, that can safeguard the presses critical ability to criticise the government free from government interference, whilst also maintaining standards that allow the government to do their jobs without fear of a press that it out to hang them(of force them to resign)if they make a small mistake or do something unpopular but necessary, because they will at least give them a fair trial.
Breaking the media monopolies will prevent any one voice from having undue influence that could be easily exploited for sinister purposes, and creating a code of conduct to be monitored and enforced by an independent regulator will ensure editors are held to account for their own actions and choices. It will create a level playing field that gets us out of the junk food economic trap that is preventing us from changing for the better by allowing us to hold ourselves to higher standards without fear of going bust due to unfair competition. Most importantly, it tackles the media’s own elitism and begins to perpetuate an attitude of engagement and a desire for knowledge instead of dumbing down, and forces the media to recognise that the power it has brings with it an enormous responsibility which is not voluntary or open to corruption and abuse.
Maintaining media standards is the key issue here, because it is our understanding of the basic terms that allows us to engage in a rational political discourse and prevents people from throwing around words like communism or tyranny without being called out for blatant bullshit (unless, of course, it isn’t bullshit). When the media decides to let the market dictate its values and principles, it sends us into a downward spiral of ever more biased and sensationalised reporting, powered by profit, that fuels a divided society and undermines social cohesion and integration, the result of which is, in one part, a disenfranchised public who don’t vote, but also, in another part, an angry and confused public who do vote. It is this mess which is primarily responsible for the disastrous political system we now live in, and it desperately needs to stop of we are to have any hopes of preventing the current anti-intellectual trend, let alone start a recovery. A functional democracy requires a functional public.
Finally, we, the public, need to hold ourselves to higher standards and remember to think for ourselves because our votes effect everyone else.
