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With
a Conceptual Framework in hand – PART II --
one can far better understand the forces
impacting MainStream Media and why it is no
longer fulfilling its original role in the Fourth Estate.
The
fact is, MainStream Media has shifted to a new
role in a different Estate.
As
we do often in The Shape of the Future, in PART
III we take a second cut through reality
outlined in PART I because it is made more
understandable by PART II. With the new
Conceptual Framework established by The Estates
Matrix, the evolution of MainStream Media over
the past 700 plus years is much easier to
understand.
Background
The
reason that “Journalism” ascended to a
position of power, especially over the past
400 years, is rooted in the fact that society
grew more complex and urban society's control was extended
over most of the Globe. As
complexity increased, new systems of gathering
and reporting information became necessary.
Let
us start at the beginning: The earliest
humanoids were relatively weak animals which had
to compete for food and territory with bigger,
faster, stronger animals. They evolved to forage
on the ground as well as in the relative safety
of trees.
Even in trees their ancestors had
found there was strength in numbers. They had
learned that the extended family was a more
formidable group for defense and offense than
the nuclear family. On the ground, even larger
groups were needed to construct shelters, defend
gatherers and overpower larger pray. That led to
the formalization of groups beyond the extended
family – bands, clans, tribes and eventually
confederations or “nations.”
Over
the past three-plus million years as the
economic, social and physical components of
human activity became more complex, information
became power. The first to grasp that
information was power were the “leaders” at
each level of primitive society. The
“leader” of bands, clans and tribes took
power by brute force and controlled shelter,
food, water and safety for the benefit of
his/her reign.
As
Organizations grew in size, more complex
arrangements were required. With complexity came
specialization of tasks and that included the
emergence of priests and shamans to help address
the mysteries of health, the future and
the-here-after. These new players found ways to
manage information (and generate misinformation)
to expand and perpetuate their own power. Priest
and shamans morphed to become Clergy and
eventually became powerful enough to be called
the “First” Estate.
The
Chief and his Household became Nobility, the
“Second” Estate. However, when push came to
shove, the Chief / King / Emperor often had the
last word over the Clergy. The First Estate
relied on its purported link to “the here
after” and to information management to
maintain (and regain) its “first” place.
With
the emergence of trade and specialization, the
evolution of urban settlements began. Urban
settlements, in turn, led to a growing
importance of craftsmen, traders and marketeers.
The leaders of these specialties became the
Third Estate.
By
this time -- 8,000 years ago -- a large percent
of the population had “dropped out” and had
no “Estate.” Ingenuity and information
processing ability allowed some to move up the
ladder from slave, serf or peasant and into one
of the Estates. Fairy tales are myths about the
possibility to leap, from having No Estate and
no status, into one of the Estates.
As
the social systems became larger and more
complex, the management of information and the
generation of myths became more important.
Evolution of verbal communication and then
written language facilitated storytelling and
myth propagation (First Estate), aggression,
defense and governance (Second Estate) and
accounting / business transactions (Third
Estate).
Communications became useful to
inform and delude the followers, to persuade
allies and to conquer enemies. This was the way
that those who practiced the precursors of
journalism came to wield power that far
outweighed their numerical representation in
society. As we shall see, when citizens gained
the power to communicate among themselves
outside the existing Estate structure, the power
of journalism began to wane. (See End
Note Twenty-four.)
In
a context where the Clergy, the Nobility and
Commoners competed for control of information,
“journalism” grew powerful and wealthy,
especially after the invention of moveable type
and competitive pricing for the distribution of
ideas and information.
Media
(at the time, print media) separate from the
Clergy, Nobility and Commoners was a necessity
when informed (later literate and eventually
educated) citizens were needed to support a more
complex Industrial and then Urban society.
Media’s
power and influence became the sine quo non of
democracy and market economies.
After
1400, information about opportunities “over
there” motivated those with
“get-up-and-go” who lived in northern
Europe’s Old World nation-states to move to
the New World. They created outposts of a new
order from South Africa to India, from Australia
and New Zealand to Canada.
Those
from southern Europe, less influenced by the
early stages of the Second Transformation
outlined in Part II and
with less access to “free press” because of
the domination of the First and Second Estates,
evolved different “new orders” in Central
and South America and in parts of Africa.
One
unique agglomeration evolved in the territory
that became the US of A. Geography, natural and
human resources came together to create the
foundation for the world's largest economy and
most powerful nation-state.
After the presidential
election of 1828 the smart money would have
called the US of A the nation-state of yeomen
farmers. A
few years later, it was a completely different
place in large part due to the Media making
available ideas and information about places to
move and ways to transition from subsistence
agriculture to urban industry and trade.
MainStream
Media was finally identified as “The Fourth
Estate” in 1837 and grew over the next 100
years to gain power due to the growth of
citizen literacy, cheap printing and top-down
management.
Ironically,
this power began to shrivel due to advances in
communications that put information transfer
and management into the hands of citizens.
The
telegraph, telephone, FAX, computers, cell
phones and the Internet – and now the merger
of the last three – represent an accelerating
shift from MainStream Media control and
management of information to control by
individuals and Households (citizens) as well as
by Organizations of every description. To
understand the scope of the shift, consider that
at this point:
-
When
one has a friend with a house in the path of
a California brush fire – or similar
circumstance – they go to Google.com or Ask.com to search for up-to- the-minute
reports by citizens who have ‘been
there’ or “are still there.” They do
not rely on the CYA “bulletins” of
Agencies, “news” layered with ads from
Enterprises or information from Institutions
packaged with appeals for money.
-
If
one wants to find out about election
returns, or any other evolving event (other
than a sporting event that is being broadcast
live), they go to a website, not to radio or
television “news” and especially not to
the print media, which has a built in an 8-
to 24-hour delay because of central printing
and region-wide hardcopy distribution that
still shackles MainStream Media.
The
shift to Enterprise control of MainStream Media
was accelerated by the growth in
“entertainment.” The shift to entertainment
programming was paid for by advertising.
Advertising grew because in order for
Enterprises to grow, citizens needed to find out
what they could purchase and why they “need”
to have a good or service.
Ironically,
the belief among
citizens that they had a “right” to be
entertained was driven by
advertising.
MainStream
Media dominated the Fourth Estate and flourished
in the top-down structure of the late 19th and
early 20th Centuries. The influence of
Journalism is now dying because it has become
just one category of Enterprise. MainStream
Media’s primary role is to advertise the goods
and services of Enterprises as noted in PART II.
Citizens
no longer see themselves as subject to the
constraints of a top-down world in which they
have to wait for the Fourth Estate to inform
them.
Journalism
started with one foot in the camp of priests and
shamans (the First Estate) and one in the camp
of Nobility (the Second Estate). The expansion
of the roles of Commoners (the craftspersons,
merchants and traders who became industrialists,
wholesalers, retailers, brokers and bankers,
etc.) allowed the Media to grow and eventually
claim its own Estate.
An
educated citizenry in a democracy turned society
up side down. Democracy with market economies
were powered by literacy and education.
Education and technology gave individuals and
Households the tools they needed build a home in
the Fourth Estate.
There
is a strategy that may provide a smooth
transition from “traditional journalism” to
citizen-based information systems. The problem
is that traditionally educated journalists will
not even listen, at least not yet. They are full
of themselves and chant the Journalism mantra
even though the market keeps telling them that
they are dinosaurs in a changed world. (See End
Note Twenty-five.)
Tech
marketeers are hot on “Web 2" but most of
these ideas suffer from Geographic Illiteracy
and the irrefutable need for direct human
interaction.
He
Said, She Said Journalism
As
noted in GLOSSARY there are three types of
Organizations beyond the Individual/Household
(a.k.a., Citizen) scale - Agency, Enterprise and
Institution. Citizens (individuals and
Households) can shift from Organization to
Organization. Agencies, Enterprises and
Institutions cannot function with a foot in more
than one Estate. (See End
Note Twenty-six.)
So
what can MainStream Media do? Media
Organizations are now Enterprises but are still
pretending to be in a separate “Fourth
Estate?” The “solution” they have settled
on is “He Said, She Said, Journalism.”
MainStream
Media’s response to the reality of declining
revenue and the need to promote Mass
OverConsumption has been to fabricate pseudo
“balanced reporting,” other wise know as
“He Said / She Said Journalism.”
From
an historic perspective, at one time there may
have been “two sides” to issues such as:
-
Mine
Safety
-
Railroad
safety
-
Pasteurized
milk
-
Slaughter
house and meat packing plant inspections
-
Restaurant
and other sanitation standards
-
Building
and housing codes
-
Drug
standards
In
the “Golden age of Journalism,” the
publisher and his editors believed they knew
which side was “right” and they led crusades
for Fundamental Change in these and many other
areas.
In
the last seventy years there were said to be two
sides to any story on:
That
is no longer the case on these topics. (See End
Note Twenty-seven.)
Advertisers
and special interest groups (e.g. sponsored-
agenda think tanks) insist / pressure MainStream
Media to provide “balanced coverage” (aka,
“two sides”) to every story that impacts
topics such as human settlement patterns and
resource conservation. Some of these topics
include:
-
The
impact on human settlement patterns on
Mobility and Access
-
The
impact of Alpha Community Balance and Beta
Community imbalance on Affordable and
Accessible housing
-
Scatteration
of urban land uses in the Countryside
-
Climate
change
-
Accelerating
consumption of natural capital
-
The
Balance of private rights with public
responsibilities
-
Mass-OverConsumption
This
is not to say good coverage does not exit on
many issues as noted in PART I. The instance on
“He Said, She Said Journalism” is focused on
issues that have a direct impact on Enterprise
bottom lines – especially Enterprises that
advertise in MainStream Media.
Professional
journalists are trained to write stories. Within
MainStream Media Enterprises, they are trained
to use those skills to “personalize” news
and provide news with “emotional content.”
These characteristics serve the purpose of
building readership while obscuring the
overarching frameworks and key relationships
that citizens need to understand to make
informed decisions in the voting booth and in
the marketplace.
Professional
journalists are trained to use simple words and
phrases and communicate in a way that fourth
graders can understand. Most believe that this
gives them a license to use Core Confusing
Words. They resist the creation of a Vocabulary
made up of words and phrases with specific
meanings. Many of the columns and Blog postings
cited in End
Note One focus on the impact of misused
words and phrases by MainStream Media. (See in
particular, the four columns “The
Foundation of Babble,” 28 November 2005;
“Deconstructing
the Tower of Babel,” 12 December 2007; “Babble
Postscript,” 3 January 2006; and “Words
Matter,” 20 March 2006. Also, see End
Note Twenty-eight.)
Attacking
Television -- So Last Century
The
beginning of the end of MainStream Media (MSM)
as the primary force in, and focus of, the
Fourth Estate occurred when television was added
to Enterprise Media’s news arsenal. MSM
(“network”) television is a medium suitable
for entertainment, not a source for
comprehensive information.
In
The Shape of the Future, the analysis
of television as a source of misinformation
focuses on the limitation of gathering images
and distorting the content to achieve
programming that will cause viewers to view
ads.
In
The Shape of the Future, Chapter 2
Box 7 (“Television, the Disorienting
Medium”) focuses on the fundamental limitation
of network television as a news medium: It is
often very expensive and sometimes impossible to
capture compelling, vivid images on many
important “news” issues. This leads to “if
it bleeds, it leads” news coverage. Along with
the need for advertising to pay for “free”
news, this reality makes providing the
information citizens need to reach intelligent
decisions in the marketplace and in the voting
booth essentially impossible for MSM television.
One
cumulative result of years of bad network
television news is that most citizens do not pay
much attention to news unless there is a
compelling disaster. The negative impact of
television news is more than just citizens not
paying attention to news on television. Citizens
have stopped paying attention to news at all –
unless they are somehow “involved.”
The
problem is no longer that the television news
is distorted, it is that few bother with news
at all, especially news that is not focused on
emotionally compelling events or
personalities.
This
leads to “Story Telling,” a mad pursuit of
“emotional content” and abandonment of
reality in the presentation of information.
Contestants eliminated from “reality” shows
taped months ago appear the morning after the
show is aired on “the news.” Could there be
a more blatant example of how far network
“news” has fallen?
The
goal of MainStream Media is now finding a hook
to pull readers / viewers in so they can be
exposed to advertising.
Online
news has the shortcomings of both print and
television. First, it is even easier on line
than with print media to pick and choose what
surfers see. It is easy to self-edit and avoid
the full scope of “news.” Second, like
television, advertising now makes “Internet
news” as conflicted as print or television
news. The goal is to maximize the number of page
views, not the clarity of information.
“Story” leads at AOL and other sites that
purport to provide “news” are now suggestive
/ seductive questions, not intelligent
summaries.
Looking
ahead, there is a new, more compelling danger to
informed citizens than MainStream Media’s
current ignorance, misrepresentation and
distortion of critical information. Many are
seeking virtual alternatives to reality in
places like Second Life. The challenge of
victual lives will be explored in Chapter 6
(“Virtual Unreality”) of BRIDGES
forthcoming.
Compounding
these threats is the fact that the frenetic
level of activity by citizens trying to
“keep up” means there is a lack of time to
consider a rational alternative to the current
trajectory.
Time deprivation is, in large
part, caused by dysfunctional human settlement
patterns – the scatteration of the origins
and destinations of travel demand.
As
documented in PROPERTY DYNAMICS – Part
I of ACTION PROGRAMS forthcoming
– the majority of citizens who are lodged
between the top five percent (“happy as
clams”) and the bottom 50 percent (“losing
ground”) of the economic pyramid are defined
as the “Running Hard as They Cans” (RHTCs).
Confounding the problems of not having an
interest in news, RHTCs have no time for news.
Over time, they reach the point where they have
no context for understanding news even if they
had time.
There
is a desperate need for a completely new
context for news coverage. News should not
start with what the president’s spin misters
told him to say but what is really of interest
in the citizens Dooryard, Cluster and
Neighborhood.
“The
level of information equals level of interest”
is an axiom in the same family as the governance
reform axiom – “The level of impact equals
level of control.” (See “One
More? Two More?” See again End Note
Twenty-four.)
Deceptive
Advertising
The
wall between the publisher’s economic interest
and the editors professional journalism is gone.
The one wall that does exist is between reality
and what is published and broadcast in
advertising.
“Professional drivers
on a closed course” autonomobile advertising;
thin, attractive models wildly gyrating while
drinking beer; middle aged man after middle aged
man testifying to the advantage of competing
drugs to “cure” erectile dysfunction and
enlarged prostates; testimonials for nasal
decongestants, over the top graphics depicting
space age, five-bladed razors, supersonic tooth
brushes and tile grout scrubbers – the race
for ever more compelling advertising “hooks”
is mind numbing.
Emotional and suggestive ads such as “The
Question is, when you turn on your car does it
return the favor?” are blatant attempts to
reinforce myths such as the Private Vehicle
Mobility Myth and the Autonomobiles Enhance Sex
Appeal Myth. Real estate ads support the
Large Homes on Large Lots Lead to Family Bliss
Myth. Advertisements for GPS systems
glorify and excuse Geographic Illiteracy. (Again, see the resources cited in End Note
One.)
While hard news stories in the
business section detail the short- and long-term
dangers of a housing bubble, sub-prime mortgages
and the credit crunch, the print,
television and online advertising of risky
mortgages runs on a continuous loop. The
same is true for deceptive advertising of credit
cards at a time when consumer debt is at an all-time
high and the dollar is falling like a rock.
These and other MainStream Media
advertising staples drive Mass OverConsumption. These ads are just as detrimental to citizen’s
health, safety and welfare as ads for foods with
excess sugar, sodium and trans fats or
misleading ads for drugs.
Even if
MainStream Media is now part of the Second
Estate, they must accept responsibility for
weeding out deception in advertising. Ads
for shelter and autonomobiles are especially
detrimental in creating the understanding
necessary to evolve functional human settlement
patterns.
It is clear there is
a need to end advertising-driven Mass
OverConsumption. How can this be done?
Some suggest a new federal regulation such
as:
“No citizen may be
intentionally exposed to an advertisement using
the radio spectrum or crossing public land for
any product or service that is not the direct
response to a specific request from the
individual citizen for information on the
specific product or service.”
This
level of information targeting was not possible
when advertising emerged as an accelerating
force behind consumer consumption made possible
by the Industrial Revolution. Response
Advertising is now possible and might be an
intelligent way to curb Mass OverConsumption. It turns out, such a regulation may not be
necessary. The market is about to take
care of the problem.
Not
to Worry, Advertising Will Be Dead Soon
A new regulation might seem to be a draconian
measure that “limits competition” but it
will not be needed if citizens come to their
senses.
If the current orgy of
advertising goes on much longer, the advertising
industry will self destruct. Already, few
citizens really believe ads, especially the full-page “image” ads that MainStream Media sell
to energy and oil Enterprises and foreign
dictators.
The ads that get
attention are now mainly entertainment. The ad agencies hope they can continue to cook
the survey numbers to convince clients that
viewers can recall who sponsors the Gecko and
similar characters. Only in this way can
ad-promotion Enterprises claim that the
advertisement they created helped sell an
insurance product. Few people really
watch ads, with the exception of Super
Bowl ads, which often more
interesting than the game.
Many
who read major Regional newspapers, listen to
drive-time radio or watch television on a
regular basis literally do not see or hear ads. (See
End Note 29.
Test this yourself when you are watching the
next “big game” (other than the Super Bowl)
with friends. After an ad has run during a
time-out, and without forewarning them, ask what
product was advertised by what sponsor.
It turns out that one of the things that
curtails improvement in television programming
is that the more interesting the program, the
less effective advertising becomes. During
breaks in the program, there is animated
discussion of the program (or a trip to the
facility) rather than paying attention to
ads.
Advertising still “works”
– in limited ways – because of genetic
proclivity to acquire, especially to acquire at
a bargain price – “order now and we will
include a second widget at half price.”
Another aspect of a genetic proclivity that
impacts information in all media is that many
will pay for tangibles but not for intangibles
like information.
The bottom line is that the more ads ones is
exposed to, the less they believe the content. At some point a majority will
wake up and realize that ads should not be a significant guide for their
activities in the marketplace or in the voting booth.
At this
point, Enterprises will realize that they need
new way of letting citizens know what they may
want or need. Of course, most citizens do
not “need” what advertisers seek to have
them “want”. Growth of Internet
ads is based on Enterprises being desperate to
find a place to spend money in the hope that it
will expand demand and increase
consumption.
The core problem is
citizens need to spend less, waste less and
consume less, not more. (See Backgrounder
“New Metric for Citizen Well Being,” 10
December 2006.)
What could
replace conventional advertising? How
about endorsements by the citizens who live in
Cluster X or Neighborhood Y and have actually
tried the product or service and find it
superior to others on the market? Why rely
on a movie star or a sports figure to guide
consumption? What do skinny models have in
common with the average citizen's needs?
In Chapter 16 Box 1 of
The Shape of the Future
the sources of revenue to support a more robust
structure for governance at the Cluster,
Neighborhood, Village and Community scales is
addressed. The suggestion is data –
information on actual activities of the
residents of Clusters, Neighborhoods and
Villages. The same strategy could be
applied to endorsements.
PART IV
will examine of ramification of citizens and
Households establishing an intelligent,
well-informed presence in the Fourth Estate.
--
December 27, 2007
Part
III End Notes
(24).
Again, refer to the role of “story tellers”
and other issues related in information transfer
outlined in the section titled “The Sources of
Information” in Chapter 2, pages 41 to 50 of
The Shape of the Future. This section
discusses the roll of entertainment and the need
for “story tellers” to understand the
reality of human settlement patterns before they
start to tell stories. Myths and rumors
are still important aspects of ethnic group
identity as the “urban” programming on some
radio and television networks attest. See the Op
Ed, “Talk Radio Can’t Handle the Truth” in
WaPo. 5 August 2007.
(25).
The concept for a bottom-up new media based
on Cluster, Neighborhood, Village and Community
scale structures is being developed by
SYNERGY/Planning.
(26).
Institutions can be a Public/Private
Partnership, but like any “partnership” this
is a multi-purpose activity and to function, all
components of the partnership must be in one
Estate or another and no party can be dominant.
If these conditions are not met, it is not a
partnership but a bogus Agency, Enterprise or
Institution masquerading as a Partnership.
(27).
On these topics, MainStream Media coverage now
tends to be, “How is it possible to overcome
the conflicts and improve the conditions?” and,
“Why is improvement not moving more
quickly?” News stories also note that
PCBs, DDT, as well as other pesticides and
poisons have been chased off-shore and are now
“Global” issues in developing nation-states
where an uninformed and / or unregulated market
can be found by multi-national
Enterprises. For a graphic example
of intelligent education on the first two topics
– Soil Conservation and River / Canal
“Improvement” see “The Plow that Broke the
Plains” (1936) and “The River” (1937).
These are Pare Lorentz documentaries with Virgil
Thomson sound tracks now available on NAXOS
DVDs. Although there is no science-based
debate about these topics, Agency actions have
not changed with respect to Corps of Engineer
water projects. See “Down Memory Lane
with Katrina,” 5 September 2005, and
“A Second Stroll with
Katrina,” 4 September
2007. To its credit, WaPo has
focused a series of articles on the Corps of
Engineers' wasteful and environmentally damaging
projects but to no good end as the recent veto
override on the current authorization bill
documents.
(28).
A good example of not understanding the impact
of Core Confusing Words is the practice by some
in the conservation community of sending out
quotes of MainStream Media coverage related to
settlement pattern issues without clarifying the
context or the Vocabulary used in the stories.
By
printing the quotes directly from MainStream
Media, conservation Organizations perpetuate the
use of confusing language. When someone
clicks on the link they get the "He-Said /
She-Said" version of reality spread by
MainStream Media and that leads to Geographic
Illiteracy. See APPENDIX
TWO.
As we document in “Quantification of Land
Resources and the Impact on Land Conservation
Efforts,” 28 August 2006, the
current trajectory of conservation efforts is to
have a 50 / 50 split between scattered conserved
land and scattered urban land uses instead of a
sustainable ratio of 5 percent devoted to
Urbanside and 95 percent devoted to Countryside.
(29).
Test this yourself when you are watching the
next "Big Game" (other than the Super
Bowl) with friends. After an ad has run during
the time-out, and without forewarning them, ask
them what product was advertised and by what
sponsor.
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