Bloggers Cause Disease and Death!
I suppose that’s the next claim the Chicken Littles will make about bloggers. At the moment, however, we’re apparently the cause of socio-political polarization.
If you want to look for a cause of polarization (understanding that the problem is complex), I suggest you take a first hard look at the kinds of nonsense that television news organizations foist on the public, e.g. X-versus-Y Sunday political talk shows and flaming partisan pundit shows.
UPDATE (2:25 p.m.): Are there two sides to every story? Yes, if you stop counting at two.
Among the troubling problems caused by the cult of objectivity in journalism is the inability of many journalists to understand their role as civic actors. Journalists are not objective observers of anything; journalists are players. But the cult encourages them to think otherwise.
Further, the cult (and our particular political system) encourages journalists to see the political world as divided between two warring camps. Various of the structural biases of journalism encourage them to view the actions of political actors as mere tactics aimed at winning rather than as possibly also sincere efforts to solve problems.
One way that polarization occurs: Political actors begin to believe this master narrative. So the actions of political opponents become mere tactics and the motives of political opponents become evil attempts to ruin rather than to build (or fix).
I’m not suggesting that journalists, instead of bloggers, cause disease and death. Rather, I think American journalism needs to take a hard look at itself first when it wonders whence all this contention has come.
Very grateful for your update, Andrew. I made a small comment on my blog (URL of that post shows here as my homepage.) Sure wish you had trackbacks.)
My point in a nutshell: adversarialism is built into our culture in ways that go far beyond the political system.
BTW, I moved you to the top of my blogroll this weekend. I think you make a tremendous contribution toward clear thinking, which is a concern of the Alpha Mind Blog.
Best,
Max
Max… Thanks for the mention. I quit using Trackback when I stopped using the MovableType comment system in favor of Haloscan. I was just getting too much spam.
And thanks for your interest in Rhetorica.
Untended Gates: The Mismanaged Press (1986)
Snob Journalism: Elitism Versus Ethics for a Profession in Crisis (2003)
The State of the News Media: Public Attitudes (2007)
Tim… Thanks for the links!
No problem, here’s another (which you probably also already have read):
A Free And Responsible Press (1947)
Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity (1972)