Political Discussions
Shifting Media Landscape and Extremism
Posted by clioandme • 7/19/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: conservatism, extremism, media, walter cronkite
The commentary on NPR yesterday about Walter Cronkite's passing made me think. He was a trusted face in journalism. Of course, part of that was about him and his work, but part of it was the medium. We only had so many choices some decades ago, but now the media landscape has fragmented. Could there even be another Cronkite today? It seems our media fragmentation even promotes the development of niche personalities, such as Limbaugh and Hannity. That's right, I said niche. They're big by today's standards, but as a percentage of potential viewers, how does that compare to what Cronkite had back in the day? And these niche markets seem to encourage a lot more shouting and extremism. The straight shooter seems undervalued.
That's one side of the equation for me. The extremist tendencies in our society are a reflection of the new media landscape. But a lot of these tendencies have significant antecedents which are just less obvious to me. I must beware of falling in the presentist trap. As new as some of the extremism seems to me, because it is much easier to find and much harder to avoid, it must be drawing on earlier strands of American politics, such as the McCarthyists (to go back more than half a century) or the Know Nothings (to back even farther).
Not sure where I'm going with any of this. Thoughts?
If you're conservative here, who are your heros from the first three quarters of the twentieth century?
If you can't stand conservatism or what it has become, what continuities have you observed?
Something for everyone here.
User Comments
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I think it might be hard for modern "conservatism" to find an all encompassing hero from the first HALF of the 20th century. They seem to be William Jennings Bryan on social issues, and Calvin Coolidge on economic issues.
Fortunately, during the third quarter there was William F. Buckley and Gov. Ronald Reagan, who are fairly close to the modern conservatism.-
also, if conservatives wish to claim JFK, God bless 'em. I just read his innaugural address, and was both inspired by his optimism, and a little taken aback by his brash internationalism. I wonder what would be said of such words if spoken today?
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Wasn't he the guy who founded the peace corps? And then there was Clinton and Americorps. Two really good ideas, I should think, no matter where you stand politically.
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yes he was
"It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares the purpose of the Peace Corps to be:
'To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.'"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps -
@Agit8r: JFK was also a tough dude who had no qualms (too few in fact) about trying to invade Cuba and getting millitarilly involved in Vietnam. Further, if you really pay close attention to Reagan, you will find that he often spread similar messages, and partially won the Cold War by harnessing the strength and handling the fears of the Islamic World, China, the Vatican and England. He also used some very interesting soft power approaches (some using the Peace Corps) to East Asian communism that helped turn many former adversaries (including China & Vietnam) to allies, and pushing India back to the neutral column. Even W was considerably more internationalist then he is usually given credit; it's just that by that time most governments of the world had a self-interest in seeing W lose.
@MS: Peace corps certainly because of the diplomatic value. Americorps - I don't actually know what they do, but if they do what I think they do I can actually see how a libertarian in particular could object. -
according to John McCain, americorps is primarily a coordinating entity for various state and local volunteer services. He also would have liked to change that somewhat
www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.mccain.html
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Real journalism has been eroded by politically-motivated and self-serving pundits, news hacks and bloggers. Hardly any report can be taken at face value these days and responsibility has shifted to the reader/viewer/listener to research many of the claims made by these so-called 'fair and balanced' news sources.
Free Press (www.freepress.net), PolitiFact (www.politifact.com), SourceWatch (www.sourcewatch.org) and Media Matters for America (www.mediamatters.org) are doing a lot to help separate fact from fiction, but unfortunately many Americans are lazy when it comes to this stuff. They simply don't follow thru which is what those who deceive are banking on.
I actually share some of the views of conservatives/Republicans, but I detest those who deliberately distort the facts and sensationalize the rhetoric. Recent BC forum post titles reflect this clearly. Perhaps a more sensible approach would lead to some common ground or at least some constructive debate.-
It would seem that the current media landscape militates against that. I still think there's some good reporting going on, who feels responsible to the nation as a whole, instead of their bottom line and niche? I guess that's one thing that set Cronkite apart. Would he have even been able to adopt a similar ethos in today's media world?
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I find it humorous that an ad for Ann Coulter's column accompanies this thread.
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I've helped her and BC's bottom line a lot.
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lol. I wonder which tag did it? "conservatism" or "extremism"
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I admire Ronald Reagan, I know he isn't from the first half of the century. Well, technically he is, but only because that was when he was born, lol. Also, Russell Kirk comes to mind.
As for the fragmentation of television, I agree with you. That very same fragmentation can be seen in the music industry. It began in the '80s with MTV. I am sure you all remember back when MTV actually played music videos. Once, when the band I was managing was touring with classic rockers, Head East, Roger Boyd (founding member and keyboardist) told me backstage before a show that MTV took music and changed it tremendously. It took the idea of a music video from one way to sell a song and transformed it into the only way to sell a song. I think we may be finally getting away from that with the advent of satellite radio.-
I haven't a clue about Russell Kirk, but I found this: www.kirkcenter.org/. Care to enlighten us about what he means to you?
And I did say first three quarters, so that you could include Ford and anyone before him. Of course, Reagan figures in there. He challenged Ford for the 1976 nomination, and he was prominent as governor of California in the 60s and early 70s.
It was under Reagan that I first noticed the shift towards anti-government rhetoric becoming respectable, a rather remarkable turn of events for what had been casting itself as a kind of law and order party during the sixties, or so at least is my impression. -
Wikipedia says it as good as I could say it, so I will just link to them:
"His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post-World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Kirk
I look at Kirk as a kind of 'bridge' if you will, from Burke to modern day Conservatism. -
'Kirk declined to drive, calling cars "mechanical Jacobins," and would have nothing to do with television and what he called "electronic computers." '
That is a sort of conservatism, to be sure.
I've got to admit, that his Burkean belief in an education in Liberal Arts has merit in a democracy. -
I was going to talk about a quote I saw on the foundation's website, but I see the quote changes periodically, though not with each visit. Can't recall the wording of the quote I had in mind, just that it was about culture or ideals versus a materialist view of the world, whereby I could see that in a Cold War context or directed at Johnson's Great Society, since Johnson did worry about material things like hunger, never mind that they had very real cultural and even spiritual consequences for those affected. But like I said, I can't remember the quote.
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