Jeffrey Scheuer's The Sound Bite Society

...It no longer seems thinkable to him that the various strands of economics, electronics, advertising, public relations, production styles, Hollywood mentalities, and the like might somehow be disentangled to reveal possibilities for communications of a different kind...

...In fact, I'm surprised no entrepreneur has taken up the challenge...

...Rather than pretend that all voices in the political spectrum can employ the tube for their best purposes, Scheuer suggests that progressives own up to a baleful predicament— that television is fundamentally a rightwing medium...

...Long before that, of course, the derisive slogans of yellow journalism had become familiar toxins in American newspapers and magazines...

...As one surveys the wider dimensions of the problem, it is perplexing to find television featured as the primary villain...

...T0 THE RISING stack of jeremiads, Jeffrey Scheuer contributes an insightful but profoundly unsettling volume...

...The enormous media conglomerates know exactly BOOKS what they want from this transformation: unprecedented profits from the deregulated sphere that combines local and long distance telephone, cable television, and lucrative Internet services...

...Those who care about democratic inclusion and social justice would do well to study possibilities in what appear to be realms of obsolescence, places where less than state-of-the-art technologies are sometimes accessible at low cost and with few institutional restrictions...

...If people in substantial numbers reject the push for media mummification, the Internet might still develop as a space of communities rather than of commodities...

...Scheuer does not agonize over the burgeoning oligopolies in publishing and the electronic media, although he's clearly aware of that trend...

...The "failed and commercialized public television system" should be replaced with a new system of public communications, one that would afford greater diversity and public access...

...Even a new medium recently upheld as the next great arena for social justice and deliberative democracy— the Internet—is to an increasing extent the province of wealthy computer users with a preference for conservative and libertarian bile...

...The message must be brisk, colorful, and to the point...

...He is the author of The Whale and the Reactor...

...It's worth remembering that the most pungent and enduring models for the kinds of electronic images and political rhetoric Scheuer deplores were perfected long before the coming of television, in the films and radio of Joseph Goebbels and other totalitarian propagandists...

...In the United States it has long been common practice to develop means of communications in ways that at first seem well connected to broader notions of the public good, but soon to deliver them into the hands of commercial, profit-seeking enterprise...

...BUT WHERE to begin...

...In his view the rise of television during the past generation and the "collapse of American liberalism in the face of a resurgent New Right" are actually one and the same unhappy development...

...Additional possibilities have been made available by a recent Federal Communications Commission decision that opens up nearly a thousand low-power FM channels to local community groups, a step resisted by commercial broadcasters because "it would interfere" with their stations...

...The basic tension that informs The Sound Bite Society is a contrast between simplicity and complexity...

...These days what works best is a faint hint that the beer, automobile, or fast food vaguely evident in the background is synonymous with a cool, sexy lifestyle...

...As commentaries of this kind proliferate, it now seems there's enough good material about television and the corruption of American politics to fill a twenty-four-hour-a-day cable television channel...

...My own tendency to regard television as a univocal, deterministic power was considerably DISSENT / Spring 2000 n 107 BOOKS diminished during years in which I lived in Western Europe and witnessed institutions of social democracy still strong enough to resist total commercial saturation...

...As long as the energy level is high and focus rapidly shifting, all of us are lured away from the yawning void, the pit of TV horror—viewer boredom...

...As is true for many who write on television and politics, Scheuer tends to paint himself into a corner...

...Existing antitrust laws should be enforced and new ones passed to limit the ownership of broadcast licenses...

...Several years ago, for example, I happened to be in Oslo during a time when one of the television channels devoted several hours a night to coverage of a Norwegian consensus conference, a panel of ordinary citizens brought together to examine policy questions about biotechnology...

...What...

...Perhaps even the beleaguered Internet still holds some promise, although it is increasingly packaged as a set of brand name portals through which infotainment and shopping flow...

...Scheuer recognizes that liberals frequently traffic in the same kinds of simplification and distortion he deplores...

...Much of the richness of the book comes in its exploration of the many ways in which this predicament within political speech and, indeed, political culture plays itself out...

...Neal Postman and Danny Schechter have taken perverse delight in showing how news and political discussion have been absorbed within increasingly banal genres of entertainment...

...The progressive worldview, he notes, envisions "a more connected, integrated, and sysBOOKS tematic understanding of social relationships...

...Offering an insider's view of the scene, James Fallows has exposed the dirty little secrets of Washington pundits who trample standards of journalism in the quest for personal wealth and stardom...

...In the bombastic slogans and beguiling imagery of the right, viewers find the scapegoats and easy remedies they crave...

...Seen as a matter of political communications in general, the crucial questions have less to do with the peculiarities of any particular medium than with the control of communication channels of all kinds, especially how the rules governing access and use are established...

...Under such circumstances, television included opportunities for uninterrupted theatrical productions, imaginative investigative journalism, and events where extended public deliberation and debate took place...

...Scheuer maintains that conservative viewpoints are bound to be favored in such settings because they depend upon packaging the world in facile, divisive categories...

...The Supreme Court must overturn its decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which designates money for campaign contributions as equivalent to free speech...

...Individuals are seen not as billiard balls, but as fibers in that social fabric of individuals, groups, communities, institutions, nations, ideas, and broader social and economic forces, sharing common histories and destinies...

...Here one often finds lively channels for news, commentary, discussion, debate, and artistic performance, ones closely connected to the concerns, issues, and talents of everyday life...

...But its ills are compounded by the effects this policy has in limiting possibilities for common access to new media in the arts, education, and public affairs...

...Instead he advised, "You must teach them how to deliver an effective, eight-second sound bite...

...The sound bite society is one in which politicians choose flash over substance, citizens retreat into cynicism and regard for crucial issues deteriorates...

...Within the crackling impatience that defines contemporary television, the specific category of performance no longer matters...

...Aware that viewers fidget with remote controls at the ready, broadcasters reward continued watching with recurring bursts of stimulation— comedy punch lines accompanied by bursts from the laugh track...

...Those who acknowledge the realities of social life in this way are confronted with ambiguous situations and webs of knotty choices...

...What the experience revealed, however, is that the act of televising words and pictures over great distances is not necessarily antithetical to democratic expression...

...Television as it has existed for the past half century is giving way to a hybrid of high-definition television, computer networking, and a host of competing digital formats...

...Policing the realm is, of course, the ratings system that delivers swift punishment to producers who guess wrong about what viewers will endure...

...Headline news, MTV, sitcoms, talk shows, sports events, and high-toned commentaries like the PBS NewsHour—all move to the frenetic pitch...

...A consensus for preserving space of that kind, never very strong in the United States, has all but vanished in the Reagan/Bush and (alas) Clinton eras, as the market has been embraced as the sole arbiter of social priorities...

...Who would be so boorish as to ask what's in Taco Bell's "chalupa" anyhow or what makes George W. Bush's policies "compassionate...

...After a time, even those who ought to know better, who understand why such speed and brevity are insidious, yield to these demands as clever spin becomes the essence of argument...

...SCHEUER' S DESCRIPTION of today's communications pathologies seems entirely valid...

...But he contends that, at bottom, a progressive understanding of society and its problems is bound to be more aware of interdependencies, ambiguities, and contradictory social possibilities than the crude characterizations that conservative ideologists prefer...

...In fact, I myself grew impatient watching Norwegians debate the jumble of issues hour after hour...

...DISSENT / Spring 2000 n 109...

...talk-show pundits pummeling each other with one-liners and insults...

...Thus, a liberal may decide to crow vapid slogans just as loudly as the other popinjays on the McLaughlin Group, but the shrillness will inevitably seem phony, betraying any grasp of social justice, respect for crucial human differences, or recognition of the intricacies of particular policies...

...Sharp either/or choices, photogenic personalities, memorable quips, and stark contrasts between "good" and "evil" are convenient for a medium in which immediate impact is all that matters...

...A key question, then, is whether a society has the mettle needed to set aside a broad cultural domain, one in which advertising and other market forces are limited in influence and in which the activities of civic culture are nurtured...

...The power of the tube seems so pervasive, so overwhelming, that only a massive power failure lasting several weeks could reacquaint people with political realities unmediated by electronic imagery...

...The sheer folly of simply giving away the enormous wealth of electronic resources is bad enough...

...Well, there are three things to keep in mind...

...Through the decades, those who make public policy have been willing to relinquish the public's stake in the airways (and now the Internet) because, it is believed, the corporate sector knows best how to build and manage society's communications facilities...

...Both repel close scrutiny...

...Can you tell us, Professor, what parents need to be aware of as their children log onto the Internet...

...Stressing the virtues of individualism, old-fashioned family values, the magic of the market, and the hideous evils of government, conservative speakers offer solace to those in retreat from the trouble and confusion of modern life...

...Neither does he stress the corruption of politicians 106 n DISSENT / Spring 2000 by their endless scramble to raise funds for TV campaign ads, although he understands it full well...

...In its very mode of operation and its way of catching the attention of viewers, television prefers uncomplicated forms of expression...

...The forces that impose this bizarre mode of "communication" are by this point well understood...

...Three decades after Newton Minow declared television a "vast wasteland," dozens of wonderful books are busily mapping exactly how vast it's become...

...But what will Americans as citizens demand from all the new media other than greater bandwidth and more consumer choices...

...rapidly morphing images of hip-hop performers...

...That enormously important question awaits widespread attention, study, and debate...

...sports figures hurtling through simulated Star Trek explosions...

...Still smiling, she bobs her eyebrows up and down as if to say: come on, come on, let's get this over with...

...standards this was an insane way to invest perfectly good "prime time...

...He recognizes, for example, that television is not just the equipment and human organization of video broadcasting, but the whole nexus of corporate power and pervasive commercialism that determines what viewers see...

...Hence, it is hardly surprising to find that a society that has systematically shackled the ability of citizens to use the tools of electronic speech should have a shriveled, distorted public sphere...

...Less persuasive, however, is his diagnosis, which places blame solely upon television and its effects...

...Today, the penchant for dumbed-down, embittered political speech is, if anything, most prominent on the AM radio dial, as music programming and listeners have migrated to FM, leaving a vacuum that conservative demagogues and their sponsors have eagerly filled...

...I'm an American, after all, and want the key points to be summarized in less than a minute...

...Just say it and get off...

...Broader context...

...Indeed, Scheuer's own definition of "television" is so broad as to encompass criticisms of exactly this kind...

...Closer to Ellul and Mander than to today's left-wing political economists, Scheuer insists that there is something in the very essence of television that makes it insidious for democracy...

...LANGDON WINNER teaches in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...

...As headlines on the business page make clear, the sound bite society is rapidly moving to a new stage...

...The Telecommunications Act of 1996, one that opened the door for the current wave of telecom megamergers, must be repealed...

...First, it's important to remember that none of these changes takes place in a vacuum . . . ." A look of irritation flashes across the interviewer's face...

...An irony that accompanies the dumbing down of political speech in the age of video is that as the situation has deteriorated, scholarly analysis of it has greatly improved...

...A host of critics, Jerry Mander and Mary Winn most notably, have decried the personal addictions and social obsessions that electronic media spawn as audiences gorge on "the plugin drug...

...No special consideration is allowed philosophers and scholars asked to address weighty matters of public affairs...

...In the middle of my second point she finally interrupts...

...Robert McChesney has amplified these concerns, noting that the Internet is the obvious next target for takeover...

...Quips in vogue at the moment— "Drop the Chalupa" and "I believe in compassionate conservatism"—are pitched at exactly the same level: mindless, pleasant, and (for reasons you can't quite put your finger on) vaguely appealing...

...The success of such methods in selling Coke and Pepsi was long ago embraced by managers of political DISSENT / Spring 2000 n 105 BOOKS campaigns...

...Now, let's go to Ed who has breaking news on that storm blowing in from the Great Lakes...

...Thank you for that interesting overview of some developments that are transforming our schools...

...In sum," Scheuer argues, "what is simple, fragmented, short-term or localized plays well on the tube...

...At the same time, Scheuer often writes about "television" as if it were a juggernaut, a cultural essence that arrives as an irresistible force...

...Above all, Scheuer recommends, we need to restore op108 DISSENT / Spring 2000 portunities in education, the media, and elsewhere for "the critical spirit" to flourish among citizens...

...Advertisers, similarly, have learned that anything of significance about their products can be squeezed into a few well-chosen images, words and sounds...

...Ben Bagdikian and Mark Crispin Miller have documented the increasing concentration of ownership among the corporations that imposes a sterile uniformity on what we read, hear, and watch...

...Struggling with this problem, the book ends with several ambitious, if unlikely, proposals for reform...

...Anyone unfamiliar with the insistent pace of American television production encounters it as soon as the camera's red light switches on...

...When I asked a Washington, D.C.-based peace activist recently what I should teach my students about the arms control debate, I expected him to suggest studying negotiations between the nuclear powers and the developing countries...

...By U.S...

...Examples can be found in hundreds of college/community radio stations that dot the country (at least the ones that are not mere broadcast towers for the pallid programming of National Public Radio...

...Three points...

...Enigmatic blather makes great TV...

...He also admits that conservatives are sometimes capable of offering complicated, nuanced political philosophies...

...A thirty-second commercial is more than enough time to handle the job...

...A ray of hope, in my view, can be found in the very fact that rapidly advancing innovations in media leave in their wake a host of "outmoded" but entirely adequate venues for communications...

...The anchorwoman smiles and leans forward as if expecting an informative reply...

...they too are expected to deliver well-rehearsed zingers as the video frame moves from one morsel of excitement to the next...

...what is compound, integrated, long-term, or general, does not...

...Alas, an awareness of this kind handcuffs the democratic left in the reductionist slugfests that make for riveting TV...