mass-communication-theory

310 Section 4 Contemporary Mass Communication Theory
personalities. But how likely is it that these solutions can actually be implemented?
Politicians and journalists are reluctant to change patterns of behavior that serve their
immediate purposes—getting elected to office and attracting audiences to campaign
coverage. And after every election campaign in recent years, private foundations have
sponsored major conferences at which politicians and journalists have pledged to
improve the quality of campaign communication. But the same mistakes are repeated
in campaign after campaign. An increasingly alienated public seems unlikely to suddenly
develop an interest in issues, even if they become bored with political spectacles.
Journalism professor Jay Rosen, however, sees the Internet and its expansion
of the range of legitimate public discourse as an antidote to media intrusion and
its attendant audience atomization. “In the age of mass media,” he wrote, “the
press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because
people on the receiving end were atomized—connected ‘up’ to Big Media but not
across to each other. And now that authority is eroding” (2009). Drawing on
ideas from Daniel Hallin’s 1986 book, The Uncensored War, Rosen argued that
traditional, mainstream news production practices and objectivity rituals intrude
on public discourse by limiting it to the sphere of consensus (for example, America
is the land of opportunity) about which everyone agrees, so no need to question its
veracity; and the sphere of legitimate debate, the outer regions of which are represented
by the two major political parties, so turning to official spokespeople is journalism
at its best. What is missing is the sphere of deviance, political people and
views that journalists and the political elite deem unworthy of being heard; “journalists
maintain order by either keeping the deviant out of the news entirely or identifying
it within the news frame as unacceptable, radical, or just plain impossible.” He
explained elsewhere, “The ’Net fundamentally changes that, not just because it introduces
more voices into the published arena. That’s part of it. But really that, it connects
us to other people who feel the same way when they’re watching the news,
who have said to themselves: ‘Wait, that’s not the range of debate. Oh, wait a minute,
that doesn’t sound such a deviant idea to me, I know you’re portraying it that
way’” (in Greenwald, 2009c). Using the Internet, people can identify and discuss
ideas and actions that they decide are legitimate, expanding the realm of public discourse,
and around which they can generate and expend social capital.
INSTANT ACCESS
Media Intrusion Theory
Strengths Weaknesses
1. Provides basis for social change
2. Raises important questions about operation
of news media organizations
1. Focuses on operation of news media but has
not empirically demonstrated its effect
2. Has overly pessimistic view of news media
and their social role
3. Focuses too much on intrusion into politics
4. Is based on elite pluralism assumptions
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