Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

377Civil Society and the Political Public Sphere----- - ---------- -------- ----information are all the more successful the more they can rely ontrained personnel, on financial and technical resources, and ingeneral on a professional infrastructure. Collective actors operatingoutside the political system or outside large organizationsnormally have fewer opportunities to influence the content andviews presented by the media. This is especially true for messagesthat do not fall inside the "balanced," that is, the centrist and rathernarrowly defined, spectrum of " established opinions" dominatingthe programs of the electronic media. 66Moreover, before messages selected in this way are broadcast,,they are subject to information-processing strategies within the media.These are oriented by reception conditions as perceived by medialexperts, program directors, and the press. Because the public's!receptiveness, cognitive capcity, and attention represent unsui ·ally scarce resources for wh1ch the programs of numerous sta-tions" compete, the presentation of news and commentaries for themost part follows market strategies. Reporting facts as humanintereststories,mixing information with entertainment, arrangingmaterial episodically, and breaking down complex relationships Jinto smaller fragments-all of this comes together to form a 1syndrome that works to depoliticize public communication.67 This!is the kernel of truth in the theory of the culture industry. Theresearch literature provides fairly reliable information on theinstitutional framework and structure of the media, as well as on theway they work, organize programs, and are utilized. But, even ageneration after Paul Lazarsfeld, propositions concerning theeffects of the media remain controversial. The research on effect andreception has at least done away with the image of passive consumersas "cultural dopes" who are manipulated by the programsoffered to them. It directs our attention to the strategies of interpretationemployed by viewers, who communicate with one another,and who in fact can be provoked to criticize or reject what programsoffer or to synthesize it with judgments of their own.68Even if we know something about the internal operation andimpact of the mass media, as well as about the distribution of rolesamong the public and various actors, and even if we can make somereasonable conjectures about who has privileged access to themedia and who has a share in media power, it is by no means clear\ . - -v