Television And The Crisis Of Democracy (Interventions--Theory & Contemporary Politics) [Paperback]

Douglas Kellner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813305497 | ISBN-13: 978-0813305493 | Publication Date: November 13, 1990

Douglas Kellner offers a systematic, critically informed political and institutional study of television in the United States. Focusing on the relationship among television, the state, and business, he traces the history of television broadcasting, emphasizing its socioeconomic impact and its growing political power. Acknowledging that television has long served the interests of the powerful, he points out that it has dramatized conflicts within society and has on occasion led to valuable social criticism.Kellner’s examination of television in the 1980s and, in particular, its role in the 1988 presidential election yields the conclusion that in our time television has worked increasingly to further conservative hegemony. In so doing, Kellner argues, contemporary television has helped produce a crisis of democracy.But Television and the Crisis of Democracy goes beyond description and diagnosis. In a discussion that is both analytical and comparative, Kellner presents alternative models to the existing structure of commercial broadcasting and shows how new technologies might be used to create a more democratic future for television—one that could enhance political knowledge and participation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ann Cvetkovich is associate professor of English and Douglas Kellner is professor of philosophy, both at the University of Texas at Austin.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (November 13, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813305497
• ISBN-13: 978-0813305493
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,653,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lost in the Funhouse, July 12, 2003

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Television And The Crisis Of Democracy (Interventions--Theory & Contemporary Politics) (Paperback)

In "Television and the Crisis of Democracy" the most valuable service postmodern popularizer Kellner performs is a quick but fair summary the major leftist theories of media over the past century. Then taking elements of each, he attempts to build a more comprehensive, realistic model of the media and its effects on social, economic, and political life. He shows that each theory tends to focus too narrowly on one cause, for instance that the Frankfurt school theorists represented by Adorno and Max Horkheimer, true to their Marxist backgrounds, tends to view media economistically as a tool of the capitalist, the means to upholding the bourgeoisie state. He also discusses the radical critique of Chomsky and others which charges that the media is almost purely a tool of government. He discusses Habermas briefly, noting his view that the images and stories in the media now constitutes most peoples' understanding and of the world. He touches on Baudrillard, neatly stating this theorists' view that in the postmodern world we now inhabit in which we hear people on television describing events they have witnessed personally as being like something they "saw on TV." A philosophical theory, which though interesting Kellner notes, fails to analyze it in economic or any other terms for that matter.

Then, after his summary, noting that television has never been "theorized" completely, he then attempts a synthesis of these various critiques, one that is reasonable and fairly straightforward: the media is captive to economic forces, but not entirely so. It does tend to broadcast and thus sustain the arrangements of both the economic and the political elite. At the same time, the media will give voice to counter opinions. Kellner points out that these counter opinions are usually other elites whose bull is being gored by the another set of elites and thus the "balanced" reporting technique so prized by journalists for its "objectivity" reinforces a fairly narrow discourse and leaves out any other non-elite or even radical elite viewpoints. Rather, the media prefers mainstream discourse from trusted representatives of the power elite to bolster their own authority and to curry favor with that elite. At the same time Kellner notes, certain stories sometimes arise, scandals, for instance, that do not serve the interests of any elites. He notes, however, that such events are relatively rare.

Kellner also gives a brief history of the hijacking of the public airwaves by big business, discusses Paul Lazarfeld's insight that what is "not seen" in the media is just as important, if not more so than what is seen, and shows with careful research how the conservatives scared the "liberal media" to a conservative center position during the Nixon, Reagan and Bush era while at the same time the deregulatory policy of the government with respect to the media transformed the media business into bottom line focused entities which quickly failed to uphold the public interest but instead upheld the interests of the corporations that own them. Those corporations desire profit, they do not desire lawsuits, nor do they wish to offend those who buy ads or those who control those who really control the broadcast licenses, the FCC, not the citizenry.

More than ten years old now, some of the examples Kellner employs here, as one might expect, may seem a little musty to some. But others may find, provocatively, that the examples he cites of the previous decades media mendacity, misdirection and misrule during the Reagan/Bush era are just as apparent, if not more apparent now. In fact, Kellner's last section in the book which discusses strategies for the public to take back the public trust of the airwaves is almost poignant now. The discussion that he had hoped for, where citizen groups would demand re-regulation of the airwaves that would involve more local control and more say in what is covered and not covered in the media, has not come to pass. Kellner in a postscript would have to say its only been more of the same since this book was published, more deregulation, more media agglomeration, more of the same non-coverage of real political scandal or alternative views of how society might conceive of itself. This "business as usual" activity in the intervening decade actually goes to his larger point that the media is closely aligned with conservative business and political elites more so than at anytime in the past century. See also Gitlin's Media Unlimited for another good take on the media as entertainment culture.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book about a very controversial topic, July 4, 2001

By 

Marie St. George and Anthony Garcia (Oceanside, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Television And The Crisis Of Democracy (Interventions--Theory & Contemporary Politics) (Paperback)

This is a book that if widely read, could possibly precipitate change in the way television works if enough people understood its well argued claims. It should not be brushed off as left-wing, ax-to-grind, [some unforseeable cliché like] drivel. The book should be read as a serious criticism of a controlled medium of information that is many times manipulated, filtered or presented in such a fashion that it reveals some anti-democratic tendencies in the very foundations of the American capitalist system. (Let us be clear, there are arguably many positive aspects to our capitalist system, but they do not negate the overt and covert abuses by corporations which are quite apparent in this and other analyses of television).

Douglas Kellner articulates cogent, rational critiques of many typical American opinions and beliefs about television. This particular piece is well worth reading to reconsider how we think about the effects of television on our lives and our perceptions of just about everything. The truism that Americans spend vast quantities of time watching television is not the point here. The point is that television is a means of communication which we think we can depend upon to present issues to us in a balanced, informative format. Well, if the control of television and its spectrum of analysis lies within the purview of relatively few influential individuals (which to some degree it really does), who at the very least share a corporate lifestyle and sit on the board of directors of several major corporations, then how are we to expect that the presentation of facts and issues on corporate run networks won't clearly reflect their interests even if those interests contradict those of the public?

Kellner here presents some historical evidence of the corporate influence and ultimate political influence that corporations and administrations have exerted over television and other mediums of communication. An important fact Kellner puts on the table is that corporate and political influence have resulted in less and less true diversity in presentation and content, thereby narrowing the spectrum of articulated opinion on network television.

He does account for the reality that there are conflicts between coporate interests and these do result in some (mostly superficial) differences in network content, however, it is also explained that the networks are part of larger conglomerates which include defense contractors, health care providers and other major corporations and their influence over network coverage or the lack of it are hard to deny.

The book covers many events or stories which were either presented in a narrow, half-truth fashion or ignored altogether because if they were revealed in their entirety, the public would have been outraged.

The weak point is that Kellner and other post-modernist writers use methods that are controversial which deter some potential readers, especially conservatives. I encourage conservatives to read and think about the issues as Kellner presents them.

Even if you disagree with his ideas, Kellner is worth a read. You must contradict his account if your contrary opinion is tenable.