Media plays political part
In a tribute to my fellow columnist and roommate, Ian Bridgeforth, who announced last week that he would be leaving The Colonnade, this week I will be talking about politics, or at least a derivative of it. As a political science major this topic should be my native tongue, but I admit, politics even bores me at times; so please, if you cringe at the mention of politics, feel free to stop reading here.
For the rest of you brave souls who have stayed with me, think back upon the State of the Union Address. If you were watching it on CNN, like myself, then you know that directly after President Obama was finished, they cut away to an analyst who began to summarized what the President just said. Not only did he summarize the speech,but he also broke down the speech to the viewers as if we were fools. Immediately I changed the channel, feeling insulted by CNN.
In the age of interpretive journalism, the pundit seems to have emerged, especially in the political realm, as the face of media. No longer has the political conversation focused on the actual issues, the debate has moved to the critic’s interpretation of the issues. While I agree that interpretation of issues is important to fully understand the scope and depth of problems facing our nation, the central role that interpretation has taken in political discourse has blurred our vision as a nation.
No longer are we dealing with issues, but derivatives of the issues. And I feel that this has re-enforced the thought that politics is complex and the connotation that it is underhanded and shady. Perhaps this is my own experience, but it seems to be the case that more and more people are disengaging from the political process out of disgust for its increased complexity due to interpretative phenomenon that has come to be. I recognize that more and more of my friends on facebook have ‘apathetic’ as their political affiliations, and that shows such as “The Daily Show” and the “Colbert Report” have become a primary source (and often a very intelligent source) for some of the few who follow politics.
I realize that this article is now the derivative of a derivative (that’s acceleration, right?—haha, calculus humor), but no longer is this conversation about politics, it’s about the media’s role in politics. Are they trying to get more people interested by dumbing down and interpreting the speeches and actions of politicians? This may sound elitist, but If they engage less intelligent viewers who are more prone to accept interpretations per se, then can intelligent debates and decisions be made by the nation? Or through the pundits, are media corporations making the decisions for us? There is no doubt that the media plays an integral part in disseminating information, but they have taken up the role of the filter too. Hopefully, the media is benign, and has a benevolent intent, since they hold a great deal of power in the political sphere.
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