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| Sunday, 6 April 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Media myths and 'democracy' - 'Embedded': sleeping with the enemy Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA SARS in the East and War in the West and, AIDS and War (suspended) right here, among us - is it Armegeddon? Who, though, will be Saved in these 'end-times'? In times as these, the community needs much inspiration: a spiritual-psychic sustenance. Of course, it does not mean that one has to permanently have prayer rituals at every Cabinet meeting. I am sure that there are those who are so full of faith in the Divine that they do not need such frequent self-reminders of its presence. But when communities go into crisis or, are, at least, undergoing tremendous adversity, then one does pray often, individually and collectively. By 'pray' I mean the complete focus of mind and thoughts, or, if not mind, at least thoughts, firstly, in appeal, in hope and aspiration and, secondly, the fervent affirmation of faith in the fulfilment of that appeal and aspiration or, at least its fulfilment in some form, even if that form is not necessarily acknowledged and fully appreciated by the supplicant. variation and relativity In terms of moral and ethical norms, socio-cultural specificity and politico-economic significance, the focussing of minds and aspirations has tremendous variation. In terms of social value there is tremendous relativity. What one individual may see as rightful justice for the murder of a fellow, another may see as legal homicide. What struggling people's groups may see as violent State repression, the courts may rule as justifiable homicide. One person's desire for love may be another's betrayal. Likewise with community. Aspiration for nationhood may be so ethno-centric that it marginalises co-habiting ethnic groups. One conception of nationhood, ethnically exclusive, may conflict with another conception of an ethnically shared nationhood. Nationhood, thereby, negates nationhood. Collective prayer and collective consciousness is far more than the mere sum total of individual prayer and consciousness. It is a communal action done on the basis of a shared identity. The collective hope or aspiration is one in which each individual participating in that collectivity has a sense of hope that is more than one of individual 'hoping' or 'aspiring'. Rather, the individual sense of hope is one of participating in a hope shared by others with whom she/he has affinity and consensus in being members of that community. That sharing in the collective hope is, itself, a practice of community: of being communal. It is social communication, in all its forms, depending on the culture of the community, that facilitates the sharing of aspirations and prayers. No wonder that, in some social communication theorising, the early medieval Roman Church was identified as one of the early structures of 'mass' communication. The Papal Bull was (and is) simultaneously read out, on a single given Sunday, in every pulpit in 'Christendom' (in early medieval Europe the Roman Church was the ONLY Church). The Papal instruction, the core of the Catholic doctrinal discourse, is thus communicated on a mass level to very large populations. In doing so, while certain tribal and other ethnic differentiation did exist within that continental population, the common religious practice, indeed, the very practice of commonly receiving and obeying the Papal instruction, helped create and sustain that larger, continental community. commonality of continental identity Even today, mass media helps sustain that idea of Europe, and is actually furthering and expanding that idea geographically. Leaving aside the 'news', for example, in music, the Russian pop duo TATU, cleverly 'designed' and presented attractively as a young lesbian couple, is the rage of the European popular music scene. And European classical music is quintessentially continental with contributions ranging from Britten in Britain to Beethoven in Germany, Verdi in Italy and Rachmaninoff in Russia. While 'national' differences may be perceived or, heard, in these compositions, the awareness of, and comparison with the music of other global regions (the Asian and African, for example) indicates the commonality of continental identity. Thus, while it is possible to lump all of the Western mass media at the level of global regional origin, that level of 'community' is maintained in certain limited aspects with sub-regional media behaviour differentiating sub-regional community identities and interests, articulated as they are in prayers, hopes, aspirations and emotive-ideological reactions to events and trends. That is why in the setting of norms and standards in the behaviour of the mass media, as it originated in the West, the simplistic emphasis on 'objectivity' and the delivery of 'the Truth' or the 'Objective Truth' is so incongruent with other, equally vital aspects of political, cultural and social nature. Like the medieval Roman Church, the modern Western mass media may transcend, in its content, some forms of community differentiation, but it is only in specific ideological-social 'moments' such as in the Papal Bull or in pop music, or, in the sense of a continental civilisation as opposed to another continental civilisation. In other 'moments' or aspects or, at other levels, the difference prevails, as it does in relation to, for example, aspects of life-style, language and idiom, etc. 'global media' Last week I pointed out that, at the level of the 'global media', there was actually an important plurality: that the 'global media' no longer meant simply the CNN and BBC or Reuters and AFP but rather, an increasing plethora of media conglomerates, some very large (like CNN) and others small or medium size like the Channel News Asia. Significantly, it is not simply the organisational scale or geographical reach of media structures that matters but also the demographical reach in terms of sheer audience numbers as well as geo-political influence in terms of the sense of collective purpose of these audiences. Thus, if CNN reaches a billion people worldwide cutting across national boundaries and cultural and language groups, the almost billion Chinese reached by China's media (plus the millions of diaspora Chinese) within China and, the hundreds of millions of Indians reached by Doordarshan and Star News comprise far more cohesive and socio-politically responsive audiences. In terms of the mobilisational influence of mass media, China and India-based media structures are as potent as CNN or BBC despite the claims of those Western-based media systems as having far greater geographical reach and bigger volume of communicational content. In relation to the US-UK invasion of Iraq, I pointed out the divergence in the content in the Western-based 'global media' and the non-Western-based 'global media'. In fact there is considerable divergence to be seen within the Western media: between the North American and British media on the one hand and the European continental media on the other. subjectivity and bias In their participation as the audiences of these various mass media structures, a large part of the Earth's population is also participating in various ways in the global geo-politics that is portrayed by and even conducted through the global media. Whatever the American and British political leaders might say, there is a perception among most people in this vast global media audience that the geo-politics of the invasion of Iraq is not so much about issues of weapons of mass destruction and dictatorship but about US and British control of Iraqi oil and the suppression of the state that dissented from the diktat of the globally dominant Western powers. Thus even if CNN and the BBC yet strive to epitomise 'objectivity' and 'Truth-bearing', the very location of the journalists of these organisations have already defined that subjectivity and bias. To the British and American audiences (and perhaps to some elements of the social elites in other countries) the 'embedding' of journalists among the battle units of the US-UK invasion forces implies the wonderful ability of their mass media to generate news from the actual site of war. It is seemingly a democratic and civilised 'transparency' enabled by the fusion of technology and professional zeal and competence. But to vast numbers of the Earth's TV viewers, including large sections (perhaps a majority) of the CNN and BBC audiences themselves, these 'embedded' journalists are, by their very embedding within the invading forces, sleeping with the enemy (to recall a Hollywood hit movie)! invasionary force No amount of claims of strivings for objectivity by these, no doubt, brave Western journalists, can shake that perception held by probably over a billion, perhaps two billion, people, most of whom are non-Western themselves and are ethnically distanced from the journalists, in addition to their perception of the invasionary force. Thus when vast populations are moved by various geo-political events, the emotions as well as social and political reactions are not only so varied but also, the social communication of these feelings and reactions are equally varied. The variety of forms of behaviour by the agencies of the global media is therefore, as much an inevitable reflection of their audiences as it is a reflection of the policy interests of their owners. This explosion of expressions globally is putting to rest, at last, the myth of the mass media as propounded by the Western political society where it originated. The mass media is not and can never be genuinely 'objective' and neither is there an universally truthful account of events to be purveyed by it. This raises questions about the nature of the 'democracy' that the mass media was once envisaged as upholding by its supposed practice of objectivity and Truth-bearing. When billions of the Earth's citizens watch the Iraq war unfold on their television sets every day, different audiences cry and laugh and pray and hope and despair at different moments for different things. The global media is engendering a seething mass of global emotions, much of it conflicting, and it is doing so in ways and on a scale never before experienced in human history. |
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