A Metaphor for How to Reduce Media Power and Increase Our Own

[s-cubed]

If you have not seen this essay on the media, check it out. It’s just as true today as it was in November 2002 when it appeared in the Rittenhouse Review. It’s not just the corporate control of our media today that is the problem, but also the power structure among the journalists themselves.

The essay is a wonderful analysis of how the media works, using the metaphor of the cliques of girls analyzed by Margaret Talbot in “Girls Just Want to be Mean,” an article in the February 24 2002 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

AL GORE AND THE ALPHA GIRLS
The Enduring Power of Cliques in a Post-High-School World

" And yet our punditburo, dominated, and heavily so, by men -- I guess because we talk louder, are more interruptive, and are less likely to hear the words coming out of others’ mouths, thus making us more “opinionated” and “provocative” -- shares many of the attributes, features, and pathologies of girls’ high school cliques we learned from Talbot. The media has its Alphas, its Betas, and its Gammas, but the members of those castes are neither uniformly nor even predominantly female. There are in the American media female and male Alphas, female and male Betas, and female and male Gammas, and the hierarchical relationships among them are remarkably similar to the society Talbot described. "
<snip>

" The media’s Betas, in their quest for higher professional status and a more public personal profile, fear nothing more than alienating the industry’s powerful Alphas. And for this reason, Betas hold back, mute their voices, temper their criticisms. Regularly. Consistently. Shamelessly. The Betas know who the gatekeepers are. They know that arguing too strongly against eliminating the estate tax would hurt their chances of appearing in The Wall Street Journal. They know that any hint of recognition that the Palestinians are human beings and not animals will result in their being permanently blackballed by the New Republic. And they know that expressing opposition to school vouchers or the privatization of Social Security will keep them from securing a plumb appointment in the Bush administration. The media consumer is poorly served by this rampant but well hidden journalistic deceit."
<snip>

" In stark contrast lie the Alpha Girls of the media, a clique dominated by preening and presumptuous conservatives. We are all familiar with their names, their visages, their biases, and their enlarged personas. About those that have become veritable celebrities -- all too many, all of them unworthy, I might add -- we know from various reports a great deal more: That Limbaugh, who lives like a fatted calf in Palm Beach, avoided military service during the Vietnam War because of a few troublesome boils on his butt; that the traditional-family-values-defining-and-mandating Schlessinger is divorced, cannot maintain civil relations with her mother or sister, was an unfaithful wife, and gleefully posed for nude photographs; and that Ingraham once shoved a running garden hose through the mail slot of the Georgetown home of a lover who spurned her unwanted attention, pulled a gun on yet another boyfriend who grew tired of her demented obsessions, and refused to let her claimed love for her openly gay brother stop her from engaging in some of the most homophobic and unethical activities of any journalist, real or imagined, of her generation. "
<snip>

The author contrasts the Alphas and Betas of the Media with a hypothetical blogger named Sally Smith, a Gamma:

" And that’s all because unlike her Alpha and Beta counterparts in the media, Smith doesn’t suck up to anyone. She never has and she never will. Her weblog’s readers know this, appreciate this, and respect her for it. On the other hand, the subjects of her recurring critiques, particularly Kristol, will kiss anyone’s ass, at least anyone, in the case of politicians, after whose name the notation “(R)” appears, and regarding Kristol’s friends in the media and at Washington “think tanks,” after whose names it can be assumed the notation would comfortably appear."

The most interesting point in the essay was the last observation, made by the author, not Talbot, that the Alphas, whether they know it or not, have a tendency “to define themselves in opposition to the Gammas, those who are, in truth but in secret, the Alphas’ most dreaded adversaries. The Gammas, though, are not cognizant of this latent power and therefore are consigned to operating at an unwarranted disadvantage.” (emphasis added)

Now, if we consider ourselves to be the Gammas, and have a latent, but hitherto unrealized power, over the Gammas, how do we seize and use that power and diminish that of the Alphas and Betas? One clue lies in the "define themselves" quote: they think of themselves as speaking truth and as being fearless, but in actually, they are insecure and gutless. Other ideas?

Full article:
http://rittenhouse.blogspot.com/2002_11_24_rittenhouse_archive.html#85714204
Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/magazine/24GIRLS.html?ex=1104814800&en=a86a28c3627c37e1&ei=5070

[spooked911]

1. We need to relentlessly promote our own media

(such as blogs, smaller news services) and avoid giving any money to mainstream media sources, as well as avoid their ads-- until they start providing us with what we want.

[Warpy]

2. I haven't watched TV news since 11/2

thus depriving all their advertisers of one sucker while keeping my blood pressure down by not being outraged by propaganda, tabloid horseshit, and lies of omission.

The odd thing is how little I've missed it all.

The local Pox station does reruns of The Simpsons during the propaganda hour. I find that this gives me a more accurate rundown of current events than the blowdried corporate bobbleheads ever did.

Let me know if they ever rediscover journalism.

[itzamirakul]

3. Really great information...

I enjoyed reading it have saved both links for further perusal.
It really makes you think.

Thanks