The bulk of Benkler’s book for this week focuses on how network culture impacts our political processes. What issues and arguments seem particularly relevant to you, especially in light of the ongoing campaign that many people are referring to as the “YouTube Election”? Do you see evidence of increased autonomy and freedom emerging around politics in the networked ecology?
Reading responses for 4/8
- Author By Jason Mittell
- Publication date April 5, 2008
- Categories: Media politics, Reading Responses
- 10 Comments on Reading responses for 4/8
I found Benkler’s discussion of the public sphere to be very compelling. He mentioned that every society has a different public sphere and different ways of communicating.
Benkler believes that the Internet allows people to continue the discussion we hear from other sources of media. Instead of a statement being permanent in the newspaper or on the television, the internet allows the public sphere to comment and act on their beliefs. It is encouraging all people to voice their opinions and not be intimidated when doing so. On the internet, statements are not set in stone. Now, according to Benkler, they are considered to be invitations for the public sphere to debate with one another and stand up for their opinions.
The internet truly allows us to gain other perspectives on the world. The public sphere uses the internet to collect other people’s observations and then use the information to form an opinion of their own. It makes it easy to communicate with people across the globe and have a broader public conversation instead of, for example, conversation within the home.
This election certainly has set a new benchmark for autonomy and participation. While this particular set of candidates has certainly sparked this, the network culture, particularly YouTube have provided the vehicle for it.
Its interesting how the old-media is scrambling adapt to this. I didn’t see much of the “YouTube” debates on CNN, but what I did see wasn’t very impressive. It basically boiled down to user submitted questions–not a new phenomenon in the age of radio talk shows and 24 hour news channels. Certainly there is enormous value in being able ask a candidate a question, but this is not why its the YouTube election. It’s the YouTube election because of the chatter and commentary by anyone for everyone. Pieces like the Obama\Clinton remix of Sarah Silverman’s brilliant song about Matt Damon, and the “Full Metal Pantsuit” version of Clinton’s Bosnia heroics are infinitely more important than what CNN tried to do.
Perhaps even more important than its role as a platform for commentary YouTube’s role as a free, easy-to-access repository for candidates positions. Now, people are able to take that initiative bred by this unique pool of candidates and really investigate what they have said during the campaign. The highs and lows are all there for people to watch.
In a different vein, I think its important to remember that while the Internet is a decentralized medium, it still very much under the control of national governments. Many eastern countries routinely block access to various parts of the internet. I hope that in its review of net-neutrality, our own government will take this into account. A free and open 21st century society will be judged on how free and open its internet is.
I found Benkler’s argument that mass media tends to prioritize ratings and entertainment value over civic importance to be his most compelling critique of commercial mass media (although there were several good ones). The claim he makes on p. 205 is good summary of his argument – “those that cater to broader markets need to subject journalistic ethic to business necessity, emphasizing celebrities or local crime over distant famines or a careful analysis of economic policy.” The clip Ross posted of John McCaine on the tonight show is a perfect example. I haven’t watched the whole episode, but it looked like McCaine came all the way down to the studio, walked out and made a few jabs at Letterman, and then walked off stage without even sitting down for a real interview. Now I realize that the Tonight Show is supposed to be entertaining rather than “informative,” but it’s seems like a totally wasted opportunity to actually learn more about the candidate’s positions on certain issues. The same could be said of the clip Ross posted of the President talking about his Ipod on Fox News. In the clip you hear a reporter ask what the president listens to when he rides his bike? It might be entertaining and non-alienating to most audience segments, but you have to step back and say is that really the best you can do as a journalist? You’ve been privileged enough to gain access to one of the most powerful and controversial men in the world and you ask him what’s on his workout playlist?
The media might be giving the public “what it wants,” but what the public wants isn’t necessarily what the public needs in order to function properly in a democracy. Furthermore, how can the mass media really know what we want? Only we can truly know that. The majority of public might hate “dumbed down” puff pieces and prefer shows that tackle controversial politics head-on, but w/in one-way informational flow of TV/print there is no room for our input.
The question this brings up, then, is can the internet alleviate this problem? I would say yes. When talking about the Diebold scandal, Benkler claims that the internet transforms individuals from passive recipients into “active participants in defining the agenda and debating action in the public spere.” The explosion of youtube political remix videos is perfect example of how the public can use the internet to begin a conversation about issues they feel are important. Not only does the internet change the way we understand certain issues (from passively consuming a limited number of opinions to actively commentating on a much larger variety of opinions), but it also gives us the freedom to choose what issues get discussed in the first place.
That being said, I think CNN is moving in the right direction with its “Youtube debates,” in which candidates respond to a political question posted on youtube during the televised debate. The televised response is then posted on youtube for individuals to discuss amongst themselves and even post their own response videos. The main problem I see with this potentially breakthrough debate format is that the CNN editors and the debate host are the ones who determine which questions get picked from the thousands of entries. CNN is on the right path, but they’ve seemed to forget a principle strength of the internet: the freedom it gives the public to collectively discuss and determine for itself which questions are the most politically relevant and which questions can be synthesized together while remaining relevant to all those who posed them.
Most of my exposure to the 2008 election process as seen through the YouTube lens actually disconcerts me a little, but maybe that’s my own goldurned fault for not looking in the right places. I liked Kyle’s paraphrasis of Benkler’s argument “that mass media tends to prioritize ratings and entertainment value over civic importance.” The geeky generation of political video remixes like “Full Metal Pantsuit” may be willing to take a swing at political candidates in a way that even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert might shrink at, but is that same group of people doing much more than alerting the snooping, filtering, responding contemporary public to anything other than the inherent untrustworthiness of the politician? As I said, perhaps I’m not looking in the right places, and I oughtn’t belittle the kind of wariness spread in the wry humor of what is definitely a bounty of political remixes. Many people aren’t wary enough of the promises a politician makes—particularly a politician on the campaign trail. Nonetheless, a few more cynical frames that poke fun at the candidates’ actual policies and issues, as well as at discrepancies within those categories, would go a long way to reassure me about the involvement of the combined intellect of the American people.
I seem to be coming down on the side of an Internet that fits in with every other medium groping for ratings, viewers, and whatever else it is that the mass media do. Not actually true. I think that YouTube has a great deal of potential for significant contribution to the general public’s ability to comment meaningfully on the election (or whatever else comes our way). I just haven’t seen that much of it yet.
I agree with the point made in previous posts that this election definitely serves as an example of greater autonomy and freedom to participate. Benkler explains that the number and variety of options open to people in a society greatly affects their autonomy. He makes the argument that “if all the options one has–even if, in a purely quantitative sense, they are “adequate”–are conventional or mainstream, then one loses an important dimension of self-creation” (151). As a result I think that the “YouTube Election” have greatly increased the number and variety of opinions and general information available to the public.
The NY Times article on the “YouTube Election,” states that Matthew Dowd, a political analysts, “sees a future where candidates must be camera-ready before they hit the road, rather than be a work in progress. ‘What’s happened is that politicians now have to be perfect from Day 1,’ he said. ‘It’s taken some richness out of the political discourse.” On the contrary I think that the presence of YouTube has added richness to this election, a much needed plurality of opinions and has enabled the public’s memory and discussions to be truly collective.
The internet availability of so many important speech, dialogues, debates, serves as an archive to those who were unable to witness these events in real time. By allowing people to youtube clips of obama’s race speech, or to remix Hilary Clinton’s 3am ad, or to watch the Daily Show’s commentary whenever we want, allows us to have a larger volume of information to draw upon before making any crucial decision.
I think there is a potential draw back, however, to all this information. I cannot recall an election that has seen so much job turnover in terms of campaign personnel. I believe it is because whenever anyone misspeaks, or says something inflammatory, it will be captured forever where pendants and commentators can offer their opinions. What may have been a mildly offensive comment can now be blown out of proportion and played continuously on 24 hour news. I think about Obama’s minister who made all those inflammatory comments after 9/11. Those video clips are from 2001, but it is with the mass media distribution channels of 2008 that really brought them into the country’s forethought.
Similarly, the availability of video clips can also help campaigns, as their supporters can make footage available to people who may have otherwise not seen a particular clip or video. I can filter out what I want to hear about a candidate by going do different internet sources or just viewing the actual debates/speeches without any commentary from cable news. I feel that before this readily available technology, viewers were forced to watch the information filtered through the various news companies. With greater access to media, comes more informed decisions.
It is undeniable that the internet has incredible potential to do good in politics. I got out of the first half of Chapter 7 of Benkler’s book, that there is a tremendous upside to the internet, simply based on the facts that the internet gives more people a voice and and the opportunity to, well, form networks.
This all being said, one cannot deny the criticisms of the potential of the internet to do good. Benkler discusses an overload of information, how money could end up dominating the internet and the possibility of polarization to name a few.
Therefore, the future prospects of the internet depend on how the internet is managed by governments (as Ross points out) and also how individuals see the internet. The internet can help promote civic engagement (to use the political scientist, Robert Putnam’s terms) but it can’t create it just by virtue of its technology. People will have to buy into wanting change and being good citizens, this won’t just happen on its own in terms of the technology.
In terms of the present state of politics and the “youtube election,” I don’t think the internet has made a major difference. There are the example of Ron Paul and Howard Dean who used the internet to gather support, but in order to gain momentum on a national level, the mainstream media is still a must. As Benkler suggests, one of the major criticisms of the internet in terms of political change is the polarization the internet causes. So niche communities (like the Ron Paul campaign) thrive under this environment.
DailyKos is a good example of an on-line community that is attempting to create political change. Although DailyKos serves as an example of the increased autonomy and freedom that is available with the internet, DailyKos hasn’t yet played a large role in mainstream politics and many could argue that it is a very polarizing force.
So overall, I think the internet has incredible potential to do good politically. Net neutrality is a must and even beyond that, the general culture on the internet has to remain healthy and open.
Benkler’s arguments about the rise of what he calls the “networked public sphere” are quite convincing on the whole. I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a moment, though, and raise a critique (through an example) that I don’t think Benkler really goes into that much. What is the role of sensationalism in a networked public sphere? Benkler talks about the “Babel” critique, whereby there are (in theory) too many voices in a network and no one voice is truly heard, which ties into Noam’s point that money becomes the determining factor again. What happens when the other end of the spectrum holds true? When there is almost universal agreement on a particular issue or facet of an issue?
The example I have in mind is the recent brouhaha over Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor. Sound bytes of Wright’s sermons have been played many times on CNN and FOX News, where they have been characterized squarely within a context of “anti-Americanism” and “black separatism.” Even on YouTube, most of the primary assumptions at work were that Wright was at worst a racist and terrorist sympathizer, and at best slightly crazy. The result was Obama’s “big speech on race”—a speech that the Clinton campaign’s and the media’s circulation of Wright’s comments necessitated. Almost nowhere within this primary sphere of public discourse was there much discussion of the validity of the fundamental argument behind Wright’s rhetoric and its sway within many black churches and the black community as a whole. As many academics cited in the Wikipedia article on Wright point out, Wright’s rhetoric is neither uncommon nor terribly controversial when placed in the context of its religious and rhetorical tradition.
While the networked public sphere of the internet (particularly Wikipedia) did offer this alternative view that TV networks and newspapers (not even The Daily Show) refused to even mention, how much of the Jeremiah Wright media-moment was actually caused by the internet and easy availability of Wright’s comments? How many people actually chose to listen to the sermon in full, and how many chose to watch an edited, sound-byted YouTube clip based on the footage from CNN and FOX News? To what extent do the “old media” of TV and newspapers determine the information available on the networked public sphere? I would argue that the Internet allowed for at least the availability of an alternative viewpoint of Wright’s rhetoric, but it also allowed “concerned citizens” to forward sound bytes of “GOD DAMN AMERICA!” to all their friends, removed from context and any real discussion. I see a real possibility that the same sort of thing might affect the course of the “YouTube election” in the coming months.
Yochai Benkler’s discussion on media and politics is relevant, especially in light of today’s heightened political climate of the information/technology age. As societies and technological capabilities evolve, they affect and concern each other. Benkler states how, “In authoritarian regimes, these means of mass communication were controlled by the state. In democracies, they operated either under state ownership, with varying degrees of independence from the sitting government, or under private ownership financially dependent on advertising markets. We do not, therefore, have examples of complex modern democracies whose public sphere is built on a platform that is widely distributed and independent of both government control and market demands” (176-177). Benkler illustrates how, as means of communication, the progression of technology and media are linked with the political environment. The capabilities of media and their various implications and features are highly significant for the communication of political ends. As technology progresses from print, to radio, to television, to Internet, it impacts the access, immediacy and channels of information. The influence of mass communication in politics is an issue relevant to contemporary society. In the USA today article, (http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2004-10-10-media-mix_x.htm) Peter Johnson discusses the role of news corporations in politics.
Early in his argument, Benkler reference the newspaper industry of the mid-nineteenth century and how their circulation increased “from party-oriented, based in relatively thick communities of interest and practice, to face and sensation-oriented… in order to achiever a borader or more weakly defined leadership.” And while I think that the media is much less segregated today–especially in terms of political coverage– there are still some very defining polarization. The most obvious of this, of course, is the Fox News channel which has a particularly blatant leftist viewpoint. But even though Murdoch’s network does have conservatist sympathies, they still cover and draw attention to Liberal viewpoints–albeit negatively. But, as they say, no publicity is bad publicity. And as Professor Mittell mentioned in class on Tuesday, even if a blog is criticizing, say for example Clinton’s view on health care, they will provide a link to one of her statements or interviews, allowing the spread of information to an audience that may have initially only exposed themselves to the Republican candidates. In a more secular example, the homosexual Levi’s commercial– at least in my experience– was only shown on decidedly liberal or “gay-friendly” networks such as Bravo or MTV. In the political persuasion, these networks (Comedy Central, MTV, Bravo, E!) will be much more likely to run Democrat commercials instead of Republican once since campaigns will figure that more democrats are watching those channels. However, one some level, this seems self-defeating. Shouldn’t John McCain’s camp run ads on these more youth-orientated stations in the hope of reaching a broader audience?