Television Truths
From Driscollwiki
- Hartley, J. (2007) Television Truths: Forms of Knowledge in Popular Culture. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
7. Reality and the Plebisite
"People like to vote." (126)
- Voting is pleasurable
- Incorporated into entertainment via interactive technologies
- e.g. American Idol txting
Plebiscitary format
- Negotiating traditional "mass communication" with "new demand for personal choice and direct participation"(127)
- "live experiment"
- "transitional form"
- "an experience of democracy"
- "catalyst for mutual modification of politics ... and entertainment" (128)
Why political scientists are slow to see this phenom:
- Focus on democracy within government
- Little attention to media beyond "news media"
- But news media a declining component of overall media mix
- And "escapist" entertainment may get people "fired up" for political action (129)
Con-fusion of politics, entertainment
No type of popular political participation is not also
- mediated
- spectacular
- irrational
- emotion-laden (129)
Semiotic leadership is required to "capture the popular imagination" (129)
- When the notion of the "informed citizen" took hold in 1880, political participation dropped (Schudson 1998) (130)
- Obama, brown
Entertainment and spectacle are requirements of representative democracy (130)
- No direct democracies on the scale of major world powers today
- Some elements remain in California state politics
- Likewise, the press is an essential "intermediary" between the populace and the representatives (131)
Politics as commercial activity
Three daily questions: (131)
- Will they vote (for me)?
- Will they buy (this product or message)?
- Will they riot (against what)?
Cottage industry
- Pollsters
- Consultants
- Surveys
- Media monitors
Consumer or Citizen?
"Modernist politics" "never comfortable" with the consumer
- Citizen seen as a "cause" of political process (132)
- "action"
- Consumer seen as "effect" of commercial process
- "behavior"
- barely seen as part of the political process at all
"Reducing culture to number"
Marketing, ratings agencies
- Convert "consumer preferences" to "measurable scales" (133)
- Establishing benchmarks for competition
- ("Consumer choice is essentially arbitrary" == ???)
- ("Use-value" in a Marxist sense? Because this doesn't account for Fiskean uses)
Ratings as the "bottom line" of television
- Various weaknesses in methods
- New radio methods rupture market in Chicago
- PeopleMeter fairs to account for internet, gaming
- Some effort to adapt to internet via click-tracking, p2p metrics
- Sample sizes tend to be very small
- Scientific language and method are borrowed to make them persuasive (134)
These tools, methods are needed for making broad claims about
- Truth, sovereignty, meaning
- In a culture that no longer trusts such assessments to experts (136)
Reality TV as a "closed expert system"
America's Next Top Model is not plebiscitary
- Neither viewer nor industry determines the winner (138)
Plebiscitary TV talent shows
Eurovision Song Contest
- Incorporates voting and viewer choice as part of the show
- They influence the outcome, events, plot (138)
- Over time, it has adopted newer communications technologies to this process
Idol innovations
- Previous talent shows were "hybrid" examples that combined home-voters with expert panelists
- In Idol, the panel merely "guides" home voters who make the ultimate decision
- Vote as a deux ex machina (142)
Idol election cycle (141)
- Follows the "rhythm" of political election
- Primaries
- Finale, greater participation
- Third-party plebiscitary industry manages the vote, ensures "fairness" (141)
- Anxiety over technical process
- Clogged phone lines
- Record-keeping discrepancies
- Text-messaging v. call hierarchies
Plebiscitary TV in less democratic nations
- 400 million viewers of a Chinese Super Voice Girl program
- "Felt democractic" to see everyday people getting "15 minutes of fame" (143)
- Propaganda officials criticized the show for being "too worldly", vulgar, "lacking social responsibility" (145)
- How might SVG reveal a "democratic consciousness" or offer a site for practicing democracy? (146)
"Pure" plebiscitary reality TV: Big Brother
- Viewers vote for contestants
- No talent component
Responding to claims of "political disengagement"
If the demos remain the core of democracy,
- Then it is the political/governmental apparatus that has disengaged from the demos (148)
- Citizens under 30 show decreasing faith in the efficacy of the legal/formal aspects of govt (148)
- Reality TV voting supports this version as people are engaged with voting but not politics
Disengagement as a political act
- Popularity of reality TV suggests that people participate
- IF they see themselves reflected in the process (149)
Voting for pleasure
- Not "work" or "duty" in the political science vision
- Countless voting opportunities provided by culture industries
- This activity is an uneven mix of democracy, pleasure
Passionate consumer
- Replacing the "passive" (158)
- "Opinion leaders"
- Sizable, motivated
