(1) What do you think constitutes healthy deliberation in a large, complex, free, democratic society?
I believe that in healthy deliberation, people must discuss their opinions while at the same time truly understanding the other side’s point of view. Necessary to this mutual understanding is knowledge of the world at large and of world events. The world is so interconnected that without these, people cannot truly comprehend the implications of events. People also need to understand where the other person is coming from. This is especially important in coverage of political events.
People also need a place to discuss events. Small groups are the right place to start, if only because it’s the easiest place to start. You already know people and respect them. This respect is necessary if you’re going to listen to other points of view.
People who group together tend to be like-minded and may not be willing to argue an opposite point of view. This is where opinion pages and forums come in. The people participating in these discussions have a wider variety of interests, which most likely means a wider variety of opinions.
(2) How does your theory of responsible democratic deliberation relate to (draw on, disagree with) what you've read in Dewey and Lippmann?
I agree more with Dewey than Lippmann. Dewey holds that circumstances change so people’s ability to influence each other changes, and this holds to my argument that the world is so interconnected that we need a good understanding of it. I also agree with Dewey that citizens are capable of extended discourse, the subjects of that discourse can be a very wide range of events, and small communities are necessary to discuss them. Lippmann attributes the public a small amount of power, and I disagree. The public holds much more power than merely aligning itself to one side or another, and can positively affect the state in matters other than crises.
(3) What can the print media do to encourage this kind of deliberation among citizens?
The print media can more carefully analyze the events and make them interesting to people. They can relate the news to broader world trends and to the reader’s life. Most importantly, they need to convince the reader to care. What effect with the new Iraqi constitution have on me?
(4) Does the privatization and the concentration of media ownership affect print media's ability to fulfill the responsibilities outlined in question 3?
Yes.
(5) How do you find yourself agreeing with or disagreeing with McChesney, Alterman, and Nichols? How will you handle these (dis)agreements in your argument?
I agree that corporate interests affect what newspapers print.
(6) What will you analyze in this paper (what issue will you discuss, what media outlet will you analyze, what particular articles will you look at)?
I will examine the Austin-American Statesman, its parent company Cox Enterprises, and its coverage of the passage of the new Iraqi constitution.
(7, 8) What will you argue about this outlet's coverage of the selected event? Did the ownership of this medium affect its ability to contribute to healthy democratic deliberation?
I will argue, using several articles from the Statesman, that Cox Enterprises did affect the Statesman’s ability to promote democratic deliberation based on my criteria.
1) There are two essentials elements to effective media coverage. 1) what issues the media decides to cover & 2) how the media covers these issues. Issues directly connected to democracy and disruption of order should be given more coverage than sensationalist stories. When presenting the issue, the facts are most important. Information should be presented in a way that identifies the interested actors, explains their significance, background information of the issue, potential indirect consequences and is presented in a way that relates to citizens, not to special interests.
2) I tend to agree with Dewey that limited citizen agency is not due to inherent character traits, but rather to circumstance. If information was presented in a manner that drew in the audience, related the issue to their lives and explained to them how the issue could possible affect them, I feel there would be a Why? Because I said so.
3) Most importantly, print media must present the issue from a citizen's perspective, not a corporations'. How will these issue affect the public?
4) I absolutely believe that concentrated media has a negative affect on public interest. When print media is siding with corporations and pulling punches when they shouldn't be, the public are the ones left behind.
5) Yes, I agree with McChesney, Nichols, and Alterman. Media serves particular corporate interests. I see it every day.
6,7,8) So I don't know if this will work, but I want to do USA Today's coverage of electonic voting machines in the last election. Diebold, the largest manufacturer of electronic voting machines, has a chairman who was a big contributer to the republican party in ohio. I would like to argue that Gannett Co., the company that owns USA Today discouraged much critical coverage of the issue, but I can't really explain why? I can't connect Diebold and Gannett. So maybe this issue won't work, but I have found that USA Today has only covered the issue a little in the last year and a half, and that many editorials are pro-electronic voting machines.
1) What do you think constitutes healthy deliberation in a large, complex, free, democratic society?
I still think that media has to provide issues so that the public can first inform themselves, enabling them to partake in public deliberation. Otherwise, the public won’t know what to talk about, and will be left to bantering about cats and shopping carts. ] The public must furthermore be given reliable information which reports on all sides, giving consideration to a reasonable scope of interests. The media has to define what is a reasonable scope. And at its current state of organization under a corporate culture, the media is incapable of doing this responsibly. I believe reorganization (reform) is necessary
2) How does your theory of responsible democratic deliberation relate to Dewey/Lippmann?
Looking back to Lippmann’s theory on limited citizen agency, I think he would be in favor of government regulation of media. People cannot even understand the issues themselves, so if they were to try and control the media, they would just be meddling (p. 60). I am afraid that although the current media situation is bad, that the regime of rule has not been disrupted. People are content to watch their Kudlow and Cramer and be fed what they want to hear. We are not in a crisis according to Lippmann, so I think I have to go with Dewey
I think Dewey would be in favor of government regulation on media, as he commented on the competition of interests of farmers arguing for market price controls, while an “investor in stocks and bonds [sees governmental control] as foolish paternalism” (p. 133).
But unlike Lippmann, I believe that Dewey expects the public to have (some) ability to hold media accountable.
3) What can the print media do to encourage this kind of deliberation among citizens?
Print media can most importantly relocate its journalistic ethics. If the print media looks directly to ENRON as a source of organizational (un)ethical culture, then we have problems. To change this, I think the media has to be reorganized. The level of corporate conglomeration is unacceptable. I believe expecting that newspapers to be non-corporate owned is unrealistic. I do, however, think that media reform can and should first happen in the form of government regulation.
4) Does the privatization and the concentration of media ownership affect print media’s ability to fulfill the responsibilities outlines in question 3?
Yes, I find that privatization and the conglomeration of media outlets has negatively affected the way they cover the news. While it does happen, and I think it is sick, It is not always the case that newspapers are looking out directly for their parent companies. I believe that papers generally cater to corporate interests, and give unfair coverage as a result...
5) McChesney, Alterman, and Nichols?
...whether this is due to corporate lobbying for deregulation of media, or the general culture in the US that has come to romanticize corporations and CEO’s...either way, its bad. I find myself agreeing with both McChesney and Nichols, as well as Alterman.
6),7)
I will look at coverage of the more recent strike dispute by UT shuttle bus drivers and Capital Metro. I am comparing coverage by the Austin American-Statesman and the Daily Texan. The Statesman is not necessarily connected with UT or Capital Metro, but it is a paper owned by a large corporation, and I argue will cover the news accordingly. The Statesman will perhaps not give voice to the individual workers who have complaints about their employer, but will instead frame the issue as a dispute between UT and CapMet. They Daily Texan is a student publication and is not owned a large corporation. Though UT is a (huge) corporate entity, the Daily Texan is not affected by UT as such and would not play to corporate interests.
8) I will look at articles that appeared in July of 2005. One by the Statesman and one by the Daily Texan. ..more?
(1) What do you think constitutes healthy deliberation in a large, complex, free, democratic society?
Debate promotes healthy deliberation in a large, complex democratic society. I think that if the media provides the public with substantive arguments from multiple perspectives on a salient issue, the public will have incentive to debate and discuss the merits of the particular issue. Once we start debating, we form a public opinion which can then inform pulic officials about how the public feels/ wants them to act on certain policies.
(2) How does your theory of responsible democratic deliberation relate to (draw on, disagree with) what you've read in Dewey and Lippmann?
My theory agrees with Dewey’s argument that human nature is communal. I believe that while debate, by its nature, splits the public into opposing sides of dialogue, it also brings us together on our understanding/ the context in which we discuss issues. Debate as a method of deliberation also fits nicely into Dewey’s criteria of having the media help the public become critical. This point of view diametrically opposes Lippman’s contention that the public should not meddle unnecessarily into issues that are not crises. Instead of expecting the media to engage the public within an issue, Lippmann would argue that the media’s responsibility stops at providing necessary information about a crisis. I would disagree with Lippmann’s view because it over-limits how much the public can be involved in shaping society.
(3) What can the print media do to encourage this kind of deliberation among citizens?
To encourage debate, the print media can relate issues back to the public by using symbols that appeal to multiple communities within the public. By using these symbols, the media should be able to inform communities of how they may be affected by the issue and why they should care. The media should also be able to provide multiple voices (instead of the standard right or left perspectives). This could encourage people to think critically about and defend their community’s perspective against other competing perspectives.
(4) Does the privatization and the concentration of media ownership affect print media's ability to fulfill the responsibilities outlined in question 3?
Yes, privatization of media ownership encourages the homogenization of the perspectives given to the public on various news issues. This makes for poor deliberation and shallow public debates. Concentration of media ownership also makes media collusion with the government more likely because the particular media outlet has major stakes in keeping a good relationship with government officials in control of media regulation.
(5) How do you find yourself agreeing with or disagreeing with McChesney, Alterman, and Nichols? How will you handle these (dis)agreements in your argument?
I agree with McChesney, Nichols, and Alterman’s arguments that the media serves particular interests and does not always report with the public good in mind.
(6) What will you analyze in this paper (what issue will you discuss, what media outlet will you analyze, what particular articles will you look at)?
In this paper, I will analyze CNN’s coverage of Iraq leading up to the invasion of March 2003. Since one of the major justifications provided for going to war was Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, I will particularly look at articles discussing the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I will focus on coverage during the days leading up to the invasion.
(7) What will you argue about this outlet's coverage of the selected event? Did the ownership of this medium affect its ability to contribute to healthy democratic deliberation?
I will argue that the ownership of the CNN affected its ability to contribute to healthy democratic deliberation because it discouraged the reporting of all sides of the issue of going to war (specifically due to Iraqi possession of WMDs).
(8) What evidence will you use to support your evaluation as outlined in your answer to question 8?
CNN’s coverage was dominated by the fact that Iraq was likely to have weapons of mass destruction, and focused largely on the logistical operations of going into war. There is not coverage of the side of the debate that was opposed to going to war with Iraq—particularly, there is no coverage of the possibility that weapons may not be found in Iraq. This biased coverage stifles healthy debate by shutting out the view that disagrees with the government. The media had the incentive to report this way because it did not want to lose favor with the political powerhouses that supported the war.
oops wrong place!!!1)What do you think constitutes healthy deliberation in a large, complex, free, democratic society?
Healthy deliberation in a large, complex, free, democratic society requires regular, timely, and critical anaylsis of issues or events that may have an indirect consequence to the public. This involves conversations, debates, or deliberation on information concerning these issues. Citizens are actively engaged, rather than passively receiving information. It involves questions or connections to other issues or to main or major issues that involve freedom, liberty, or civil rights.
(2) How does your theory of responsible democratic deliberation relate to (draw on, disagree with) what you've read in Dewey and Lippmann?
It disagrees with Lippman in that citizens have much more responsibility for direct participation in democracy. I think ultimately they should be proactive in seeking out issues or events that may impact them. They should not be limited to either a crisis to take action and their action should not be limited to aligning with a candidate or leader.
It agrees with Dewey because it focuses on public interaction with information on issues or events. It requires conversation, debate, or deliberation. It presupposes that citizens are capable of critical analysis, and that their participation would not be meddlesome.
3) What can a specific new medium do to encourage this kind of deliberation among citizens?
Specifically it uses the ability of the many to many exchange of information to make sure that information on issues or events receive attention in a timely, regular manner with a brief opinion or synopsis. From there the issues are often repeatedly posted, connections are often made to previous issues that are related or to other similar issues/events going on. Conversations can be documented either through comment functions or by linking to other bloggers’ posts. It becomes quite easy to link to or access opposing views or information that may debunk arguments. It encourages critical analysis by bringing many issues and perspectives into the fray by linking to opposing articles and bringing a new viewpoint to it. The public contributes by either participating in deliberation in the comment section, or even if the blog has no comment section by sending in local, intriguing, or applicable bits of information. Ultimately they participate by becoming critical readers and participants in the media that carry the conversations to real face to face encounters.
(4) How do you find yourself agreeing with or disagreeing with McChesney and Gillmor? How will you handle these (dis)agreements in your argument?
I agree with McChensney in that there is a huge problem if the internet is controlled by conglomerates. This is troublesome and becomes especially so if free speech is curtailed. Certainly international laws become tricky as a blogger can be sued by someone that is from a foreign country with broader definitions of libel. It is also is troublesome if the government curtails blogger’s free speech here as well. However, ultimately I think bloggers will prevail and retain their potential to encourage democracy. I didn’t actually find most of the blogs I read by using a search engine but heard of them by word of mouth. If you read one blog, they frequently point to other blogs. Friends give me tips. Sometimes alternative news sources like City Pages in Minneapolis will do blog lists they find interesting.
I agree with Gillmor (see answers to number 3).
(5) What will you analyze in this paper (what issue will you discuss, what media outlet will you analyze)?
Bookslut blog and its coverage of media issues.
(6) What will you argue about this medium's ability to encourage or discourage responsible democratic deliberation? Did the medium affect citizens' ability to engage in healthy democratic deliberation?
I think it’s interesting because it is a popular topical blog for people that like to read books. People of all political ideologies like to read, so it could be kind of like the bowling leagues of yore – albeit a bookish, slightly more cynical group for sure.
I will look at the number of issues that are posted that have not just a connection to books but to larger political issues: censorship, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, media issues, etc.
If these issues come up regularly and link to other blogs that are also discussing these issues regularly, with plenty of access to other viewpoints, then bookslut has the power to encourage the citizens to do #1(as in see my answers to number 1, not as in the other number 1). Critical analysis will be encouraged.
By analogy then, if bookslut can do it, then other topical blogs can do the same. As a consequence, there is even potential for McChesney’s vision of different groups with different ideologies all rallying around the media as an issue.
(7) What evidence will you use to support your evaluation as outlined in your answer to question 6?
This isn’t fully fleshed out I have to admit, but I was thinking along the lines of tabulating and analyzing posts that link or connect to political issues that are beyond the scope of just “books”.