Customer Reviews

Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment

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The back-cover blurbs, title, chosen subject matter, cover art, and the use of scare quotes around terms like "liberal media" all contribute to an overwhelming but incorrect first impression: The book looks at first glance like a hand-wringing, liberal worryfest about how conservatives are ... well, talking. I'm a conservative, so I'll grant I'm a little sensitive to these things (just as liberals are sensitive to slander). However, I'm also a teacher and specialist in rhetoric, and quite interested in the rhetoric of opinion leaders like Limbaugh and Michael Moore.

So I read the book despite my initial cringe, and I have to say it's a sharp piece of analysis, fair to its subjects, balanced in its perspectives, and darned useful to those of us interested in studying or discussing the intersection of media, rhetoric, and politics. The authors approach the topic from the perspective of interested observers, rather than from a judgmental frame. They note at the start of their concluding chapter that they've probably disappointed both Left and Right readers, and I think that's a safe prediction. Unbalanced readers tend not to like balanced analysis. But I certainly appreciate it, as it's hard to come by, even when the authors are respected scholars. I'm sure I'll be citing this book in some of my future work.

The authors have, to my eye at least, accurately described the rhetorical strategies and effects of conservative, alternative media. The title alludes to the book's central conclusion, which is that these sorts of narrow-audience media use framing strategies that inoculate listeners and readers against alternative viewpoints, encouraging the audience to depend increasingly on the echo chamber while dismissing messages that seem to undermine the audience's philosophy. The authors, to their credit, note that liberal-leaning media have similar echo-chamber effects. (An aside: All media do, and not necessarily in ways that are political. For instance, print, Web, TV, and radio media often play this very same game with each other in the competition for a dwindling audience.)

The authors suggest that the effects of the emerging conservative echo chamber are neither all-beneficial, nor all-problematic, but rather mixed: On the one hand, echo chambers motivate people to participate in politics, and expose them to alternative viewpoints -- even if those viewpoints are refuted and framed at a disadvantage. The authors also see the rise of a conservative echo chamber as a kind of welcome correction to the previous era of mainstream media, in which all of the messages were similar. Now, at least, there are multiple voices.

On the other hand, the authors argue that echo chambers can be destructive when the opposing viewpoints they describe are ridiculed or subjected to ad hominem (personal) attacks, suggesting that these trends would be healthier if participants tried a bit harder to fight fair. Which brings me full circle: To date, a lot of the commentary and scholarly work on right-wing media has NOT played fair with the subject, leaning heavily on fallacy. So it is refreshing to see a piece of scholarly, constructive criticism that resists these moves, eschewing cocktail-party, partisan posturing in favor of learned analysis. I just wish the publisher, Oxford UP, had done the same when it packaged the book -- its cover material and blurbs are going to turn off a lot of readers who might otherwise have appreciated the text.

In `Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment,' authors Jamieson and Cappella take a much deeper and scientific approach to their study of the connection between Limbaugh, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages. Backed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, `Echo Chamber' is an exacting and through accounting of the detailed factors (framing, name calling, collusion) employed by the `conservative opinion media' to not only broadcast their message to a narrowly chosen demographic (white, older, southerners that make up the sweet spot of the GOP), but whose agenda actually reaches right into the heart of the Republican party to do everything in their power to either anoint, or deny political success to, candidates that pass their litmus test of Reagan conservatism (anti-regulation, gun rights, small government, anti-welfare, pro-life, etc.) Examples of those who have benefitted (Bush, Palin) as well those who have been attacked, or perhaps killed, politically for not being conservative enough (McCain, Huckabee.)

The missing piece in both books is the deep dive, where the authors look way under the hood at the true germination and funding of these messaging campaigns (lobbyists), the benefactors of the message (corporations) and the true innerworkings of the skunkworks who pull the strings on all of this (Frank Luntz, Dick Armey, RNC operatives, etc.) The opportunity here is for a new Woodward and Bernstein to emerge to get beyond the surface speakers of this movement and to reveal the real shadow players in this political agenda.

In other words, it's time for a new Deep Throat.

Analyzing conservative political outlets (primarily the editorial/op ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's radio show) is commendable, but Holy Moses, this is some seriously dry reading. The book should be applauded for taking the high road by truly trying to dissect and understand how these outlets function and the impact they have on listeners, viewers or readers. People looking for the authors to trash these demagogues are going to be sorely disappointed. In a bit of false advertising, the cover design's usage of harsh black-and-red attempts to connote an ominous conservative troika. Unless you are a political/media wonk or have been living deep in the recesses of the Amazon Forest for the past 25 years and have never heard of any of these people, you'll likely find this book pure drudgery. The writing does not even have a modicum of humor or pizzazz in its 250 pages. If you are an insomniac desperate for a cure, this baby may do the trick.

In an effort to be "balanced," an interesting modernist spatial metaphor in and of itself, the authors have completely missed the point of the philosophical response to sophistry. There is no balance between true and false. Yes, it is valuable to talk about media trends, rhetorical tactics, and ownership... many have gone before (Ben Bagdikian, McChesney for instance) and done a better job of analyzing the major problems of ownership trends, private interest and public bias. The Unification Church of the fascist Sun Moon bankrolled the Washington Times (along with Jerry Falwell's Liberty University!). And of course the naming of outlets by conservatives has been done in such a way as to confuse the public (New York Post... Washington Times). But what this book misses entirely is the issue of the truth (which will become urgent as now corporations can pour money into political campaigns -- Bagdikian noted 30 years ago the trend that corporations tired of trying to control journalists simply started buying the media and became their bosses firing unruly reporters). Limbaugh, et al., systematically present a distorted view of reality. Exposure of systematic distortion of the truth is painstaking and it is the proper function of science be it medicine pulling us out of the Dark Ages of superstition-based treatments that in fact did not and do not work, or sociology debunking the idea that race and gender correlate with intelligence. The fact is that the conservative media constitutes a relentless drum beat of distortion. They (Roger Ailes for instance) coordinate their messages with the GOP, which is the primary lobby of business interests. Al Franken and his band of Harvard assistants did a more entertaining and better job of exposing the lies. And the problem of the relentless and redundant drum beat is best explained by the cultivation effect introduced by George Gerbner 30 years ago. Critical thinking is a redundant phrase. The semiotic of Glenn Beck wearing a Soviet style hat on his book depicting the Democrats as fascists is easily refuted as the Dems, unlike the Soviet leaders, have been elected... and if anyone needs to be careful here it is Bush benefiting from a party-line vote in the Supreme Court to ignore the Florida Court on recounts and installing him in office rather than the popular winner Gore. Such obvious discursive activity is what is needed but it does require one to stop "balancing." The philosophical response to sophists was to test their claims of fact against reality and expose fallacies and falsehoods as such. Aristotle posited this as the best form of inoculation against systematic liars. The lifting of the fairness doctrine gave conservative voices the opportunity to spew lies without any challenge. The deregulation of ownership has allowed Clear Channel to purchase 2000 radio station instead of being held to seven. The essence of democracy, the dialectic has collapsed. This is the point. Irrational power has steamrollered any hint of public participation in debate. And with corporate control of channels we have the essence of bias (inoculatory framing... whatever the new moniker is for an ancient debate tactic or unrelenting propaganda to posion the well of alternative explanations). The authors are presuming a transcendental academic posture but the fact is their discourse becomes part of the landscape and the landscape they are playing at disinterestedly surveying is a battle ground over the truth. But as an impotent drone it enters the semantic field and immediately dies without so much as a whimper. Their book is a giant equivocation. It is more about their egoistic attempt to appear transcendentally disinterested than the truth and the struggle over power. This is a typical example of the American academic culture since McCarthyism chased principled stand out of the classrooms, and why it is irrelevant to the direction of the country. Another dust-catcher. Mere description unto death. I learned not one thing from this book. It's a waste of paper and ink. The old liberal intellectuals from the New York Group to Kurt Vonnegut to Terkel, and yes Moyers who takes a stand... are dying off. Outside of some narrower race-based social commitment (Cornel West, Mia Angelo, for instance) American intelligentsia stands for nothing. It balances above in pure abstraction soon to be replaced by corporate education ala Phoenix "University" (whose founder owns the most expensive house in America in San Francisco).

This book was very helpful in exploring the current climate of hate speech and politics.

At a time when the future of the nation is at stake the authors do an excellent job of identifying the methods of the rabid right wing in America.

Although, I haven't had the opportuity to read the book, from my browsing through it,I think it hits the nail on the head.

If this wants to be a general theory of media audiences and their contemporary fragmentation, it cannot be validated until it is tested against liberal and mainstream media. Do they live in an echo chamber? Do they thrive on slander, personal attack, and moral diminution of their subjects? If they do, then the book has something to offer. If they do not, then it is just another exercise of academic posturing.