The Narrative Narrative

Meta makes the MSM go round. Reality isn't real any more; to the press, all the world's a stage. Or rather, all the world's an onstage and a backstage. Candidates don't have beliefs; they have positions. Campaigns don't have meanings; they have narratives. In the postmodern funhouse that imprisons prestige media, the job isn't to cover events, but rather to reveal their theatricality; the trick isn't to find truth, but to disclose "framing"; the task isn't to establish facts, but to transform them into he-said/she-said Mexican standoffs.

The Washington Post's coverage of the CNN circus in Las Vegas set the tone: "For Clinton, it was a chance to change the story line." Not only is this a depressing observation about what politics has become, and a dispiriting illustration of what political coverage has turned into; it's also, tragically, true. Was there anyone in that Nevada audience who believed that Hillary's asbestos pantsuit line wasn't scripted in debate prep? Did anyone mourn when the rhetorical role reversal of Obama and Clinton on drivers licenses for illegals actually meant a victory for Dobbsian demagoguery on immigration reform? Did any candidate care that the price for delivering this sexy spectacle to CNN was Wolf Blitzer's bearbaiting and Campbell Brown's (Mrs. Dan Senor's) branding?

As far as the media's concerned, the purpose of politics isn't democracy; it's to provide product that's not-boring. For the networks, campaigns are just another kind of "reality" programming, equally cheap to produce, equally suspenseful, personality-driven, and potentially -- deliciously -- humiliating. For print journalism, campaigns are an opportunity to put more reporters on the show biz beat; everyone's now a theater critic. Apparently it's our fault, too. If we audiences didn't demand entertainment uber alles, if Amy Goodman or Bill Moyers weren't such niche tastes, Big Media wouldn't be serving up so much cockfighting to us. You want more vitamins in your news, America? You're sick of politics-as-horserace or -as-boxing match? Hey, says the New York Times public editor, if you want broccoli, that's what the internet's for.

It kills me to quote Peggy Noonan, it really does, but on this point she got it right the other day:

"[O]ur political coverage consists of daily disquisitions on 'targeted ads,' 'narratives,' 'positioning' and 'talking points.' We really do make politicians crazy. If a politician cares only about his ads and his rehearsed answers, the pundits call him [sic] inauthentic. But if a politician ignores these things to speak of great issues we say he lacks 'fire in the belly' and is incompetent. So many criticisms of politicians boil down to: He's not manipulating us well enough!"

There are American kids who will be wounded, or worse, in Iraq and Afghanistan this week. I bet that they and their families won't experience what happens to them as a "storyline." There are Americans whose homes will be lost to foreclosure this week, or whose illnesses will go untreated because they can't afford health insurance. I bet they don't live their lives as "narratives." Just because the political/media class treats politics as kabuki doesn't mean that all Americans have completely abandoned their existence as citizens in favor of their roles as audiences and consumers.

Sure, the Founders cared about their images, too. But when Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths" in the Declaration of Independence, I don't think he meant, "We frame these talking points." The Preamble to the Constitution starts with "We the people" -- not "We the polled." It's ironic how, in this post-9/11 world that was supposed to be so post-ironic, "authenticity" is as phony a concept for the candidates as it is for those who cover them. As for the rest of us, it looks like people who actually have values, and who think that the notion of "values voters" does condescending violence to what is in their hearts, just haven't gotten the media's memo yet.

DEPRESSING UPDATE: If you're masochistic enough to want an illustration of the media's covering Giuliani as a gladiator -- rather than as someone whose dishonesty might be terrifyingly germane to America's fate under his possible presidency -- check out Greg Sargent's takedown of this Meet the Press moment. It's a good thing this press pathology doesn't have any real consequences to real people, isn't it? Oh, wait.

Comments

[lamarguerite]

I have been giving a lot of thought to the power of the collective narrative to influence and shape the crowds' decisions, particularly in regards to voting.

Unfortunately, we respond more to narratives and the way things are said, than to the truth itself. In fact, narratives are creators of truth in the listeners' minds.

As a therapist, I can tell you much of the work with patients is about helping them alter the narratives about their lives, and create new ones.

In fact, politics are all about narratives, the ability to tell convincing stories, relying on powerful words that resonate with people's imaginations, and the ability to deliver those narratives in a convincing fashion.

In the field of interest to me, that is climate change, not enough attention is being paid to the way the current collective narrative is influencing individual attitudes and behaviors. Also, a well used narrative can be a powerful agent of change.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
'It's All About Green Psychology'

[professor]

The USA in 2007

If I could just get my hands on him,
"Hold my coat, Hipponax," I would say,
"When my combination lands on him,
It"s left jab, left jab, right hook, Milky Way!"
That stupid, lying, wrong and tic-plagued stooge,
Could I but clamp my headlock round his crop,
No money, bashing, scorn or subterfuge
Could possibly inveigle me to stop.
He sank us chumps hip-deep in the morass,
And then he robbed us while we were at war.
Let me at him, I will kick his ass,
Then, for good measure, kick his ass some more.
I"m old, I"m lame, and I could not care less,
Because my punch is packed with righteousness.

[Star2000dancer]

Kucinich is real!

[Bongborg]

The only way to stop this is to break the monopoly concentration of the news outlets in the hands of the few, and to set term limits on every public office. Neither of which, I'm afraid, appears likely to happen.

[GoreSavingPlanetForJesus]

Instead of news, you get some democrat complaing that Bush has an arrogant smirk when he talks, or a republican saying Hillary has fat ankles.

You get democrats talking about Cheney saying the F-word on a hidden mic, or republicans talking about how senator Byrd used the N-word three times on CNN.

Unfortunately the "Olbermann" style sound bite is the new style of news.

[Metacortex]

Bravo, Marty, Bravo. The powerful impose on the powerless the urgency of time. The urgency of time precludes the powerless from lamenting the true state of their poverty. Mass media is an inherently centralizing technology that serves the interests of the few by saturating the consciousness of the many with lights, camera and action.

God Bless the Internet.

[rcat99]

(continued from above)
Debates are a good example of the futility of the whole process of selection. What exactly do we learn from watching this play-acting over and over again. Does the president have to be a good debater? It would be helpful if his aides were. They're the ones who have to present various sides of an argument but the chief executive, as W says, is the decider. He doesn't have to debate anyone, other than himself. So we might benefit by knowing the man himself, How will he wrestle with this or that issue, internally? What is his core philosophy, how does he think, not on a stage with millions watching and weighing his every utterance and body movement but in his heart of hearts. When no one is watching, what basic principle does he turn to. Which, it seems to me, means we ought to get a clearer picture of the man, beyond stage presence.

Some say that we get a sense of "how the candidate can think on his feet". Well, the last picture I saw of the Oval Office, I'm pretty sure I saw a chair in there somewhere. The President can sit down almost anytime he wants. But we put such emphasis on who scored a point by raising an eyebrow (and I don't mean figuratively) at this moment or made a 3-word crack at that moment. Who lost ground for appearing nervous or gained ground by not sweating, etc., etc. Do we ever learn anything about the candidates that will tell us that he will or won"t be a good president.

Of course, the real problem is that we never discuss what we want in a president, what makes a "good" president and it's apparent that we don't because we haven't figured it out yet.

[rcat99]

People don't get elected or rejected on their merits, on the basis of how good or effective an office-holder he or she might be. We don't vote for a candidate based on his qualifications and how good he would be as president or legislator. We vote, sometimes still deciding as we step into the booth, on perceptions and images.

The process of getting elected, campaigning, getting the voter to vote for you has very little to do with effectively executing the office you're running for. One activity requires a different set of skills than the other. And we never really talk about what makes a good president, for example, but rather the campaign consists of the process of generating images in the minds of the voters. Positive images for your candidate and negative, scary, repulsive, if possible, images for the opponent. And it's those images we carry into the voting booth. The successful candidate will be the one with the most effective campaign team

But what does that say about either the winner or the loser with respect to his ability to perform the functions of the office. All the election has decided is who is a better campaigner or who has a more skillful set of handlers and packagers. (continued below)

[AkiraBergman]

The political charade is a reflection of the society. In a society where most people can be conned into anti-science thinking by a few religious con-men sponsored by the big money, there is big trouble. For every discussion of how sick the political debate is, there should also be a discussion of how sick the society is.

It is the good old B&D relationship going on between the people and the ruling elite. As things get worse it turns into S&M. Like in individual relationships that go sour, it follows an inevitable path of evolution. It starts with love and sex, L&S, and then follows B&D+S&M, and if the relationship survives through all that, it ends up with violence and murder, V&M.

Each part can be enjoyable in it's own perverse way. The people are not little innocent angels. They can enjoy being dominated and abused, as much as being loved and cared for. Just look at the kind relationships our closest relatives chimps enjoy. When they are sending their children to 'liberate' Iraq, deep down they know what is going on. When they are slaving their worthless lives away for a cheap little existence, deep down they know what is going on. They just can't help it.

Of course humans can also be wonderful. They just can't help making every mistake available, before doing the right thing. This is how great civilizations are made. If they fail the test on the way, they become extinct. And that is immaterial, since the universe is very big.

[DocTwain]

"If we audiences didn't demand entertainment uber alles, if Amy Goodman or Bill Moyers weren't such niche tastes, Big Media wouldn't be serving up so much cockfighting to us."

Marty, this simply isn't true. If media corporations made decisions to put quality information and analysis on the air and there was industry-wide pressure to do that rather than to brutalize the electorate, people would consume what was available and actually become better informed.

Average American consumers of news and analysis are both busy and tired. They forage: they listen to whatever is on the radio during the commute, turn on the TV to the "news" stations when crashing on the couch after work, and skim the front page of the paper with their coffee and maybe read an article or two before heading to the funnies. Put actual news in front of them at breakfast time or dinner time and they will consume it just like they'd consume trash. Just like if you just handed them a healthy, tasty, well seasoned meal to eat, and they didn't have to go to the trouble of hunting it down, they would eat it rather than ordering greasy takeout, putting in another insipid frozen dinner, hitting up the half-gallon of ice cream or the bag of chips and salsa, or making some half-hearted mess out of boxes and cans.

I bet that if you took 10,000 random Americans and gave them each a radio with only 2 radio stations, Rush Limbaugh and NPR/BBC news hour etc., and told them that for a month they must listen to each for at least an hour a day (during their commutes or whatever), and then for the next month made them pick one stations to listen to all the time, at least 50% and perhaps as many as 70% would pick NPR.

And I bet if you made commuters listen to both stations for _two_ months, the number of those who would prefer NPR given a choice would increase by 10%.

[ExRepublican]

"One hopes that at some point the American people will come to the realization that most elected officials these days do not serve the public interest, but their own economic self interests and those of their financial backers. The few who would serve the public interest are filtered out by the insurmountable fortress of capital that is the bulwark of electoral politics, especially at the federal level. Genuine public servants have roughly the same chance of winning a seat in Congress or the Whitehouse, as one has of winning the lottery."

article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18748.htm

[webmind]

Brilliant article. "Just because the political/media class treats politics as kabuki doesn't mean that all Americans have completely abandoned their existence as citizens in favor of their roles as audiences and consumers."

Oops.

[Camarosc35]

There were no questions during that debate concerning the housing or credit crises; considering CNN staff screened the questions, this is absolutely inexcusable. I believe Nevada has the seventh-highest rate of foreclosures in the country so I am certain this must have been a question someone in the audience had.

[Garvagh]

Bravo! That Rudy Giuliani and John McCain could argue in favor of a permanent US military presence, large-scale, in Iraq "to protect Israel", is alarming yet little more than a peep emerged in the national press until very recently. There is an effort to create an agreed narrative supposedly accepted by the US voters, that we need Iraq in order to help Israel confront Iran.

[remouse21]

Rollerball--1975