The Democratic Potential of Television vs Television as a
Site of Hegemony. An Unsympathetic Reading of Gitlin’s Prime-Time ideology
Newcomb and Hirsch argue in 1983 that television, instead of
straightforwardly operating as a transmitter of dominant ideology, functions
much more like a cultural forum providing space for the discussion of a variety
of ideas from multiple perspectives—at least in the US context at the time. I
appreciate it that in opposition to "traditional ideological criticism” (p565),
Newcomb and Hirsch press the significance of what we might refer to as
authorship and as artistic and self-expression in matters of creating content
on part of the producers of TV shows (p568), while also emphasizing, to a great
extent, the flexibility, openness, and plurality of interpretation i.e. the
range of possible meanings to be constructed by different audiences.
The perceived complexity and richness of television is then connected
back, even if somewhat indirectly, to the context of capitalism: "only so rich
a text could attract a mass audience in a complex culture” (571)—so the
richness and complexity are, on the one hand, in quasi-allience with the
capitalist, consumerist system, as they are a great way to ensure a large
viewership and thereby securing large investments in advertising and
sponsorship. We may also argue, on the other hand, that this richness and
plurality entail quasi-democratic attributes in the form of a wide access to,
and a fairly great ability to create, reaffirm, criticize, and put ideas in
circulation via television, which is, consequentially, a potent site for a
constant renegotiation of "public thought” (p563).
Hendershot reflects on Newcomb and Hirsch’s optimistic theorization
of television in the post-network, niche-marketing era, which latter can be
seen as significantly reducing the potential of TV and specific programmes to
function as a cultural forum. Contemporary niche TV tends to operate more
according to the logic of "self-confirmation", as Newcomb himself comments (see
reference on p206). Nevertheless, Hendershot remains hopeful about what she
sees as TV’s democratic potential, offering the example of Parks and Recreation (broadcasted by NBC but these days available from
various online sources subsequently to its first broadcasting) as embodying and
realizing the ideal of an active civic participation in open public discussions.
In sharp contrast with Hendershot, and Newcomb and Hirsch, Gitlin draws a rather dark picture of
TV, according to which the latter basically functions, in a servilient and
almost seamlessly effective way, as yet another satellite of a seemingly
unbeatable giant, the "hegemonic commercial cultural system" (Gitlin, p251). My
choice of words and their personifying effect are intentional, and meant to
express my perception of (and concomitant disagreement with and slight
irritation about) Gitlin’s perception about power as tending towards being
monolithic, and the lack of clarification on his part on matters of agency,
intention, and loci of power, and thus, ultimately, of causality. Despite
Gitlin’s own humble qualification that his essay is "extremely preliminary” (p254),
and also, the fact that it was written as early as 1979, Giltin seems to
radically underestimate if not ignore factors other than those directly
connected to the workings of capitalist-consumerist hegemony—factors some of
which have been, if passingly, pointed out by Newcomb and Hirsh just a couple
of years later, such as the fluidity and lack of closure of meaning due to the
intellectual and artistic variance and at least occasional adventurousness and
originality on the part of the many people working in, or reflecting on or
reacting to, the TV industry and its products. Nevertheless, Gitlin at least
acknowledges the less-than-straightforward quality of transplantation of
messages into the minds of the audiences
(see p253). Despite this reasonable qualification, however, he does make
assertions such as: "By watching, the audience one by one consents. Regardless
of the commercial’s ’effect’ on our behaviour, we are consenting to its
domination of the public space” (p255). So, even if TV’s force on the audience
members’ minds may be not direct in the sense of a total submission to its
proximate meaning/message, it is nevertheless complete in the sense of more
indirect effects whereby our "time and attention” stop belonging to us, whereby "the social powers” would "colonize” our "consciousness, and unconsciousness” (p255).
In Gitlin’s curious and rather arbitrary logic, TV either
reiterates same old ideas and thereby reinforces hegemonic ideology, as you
should see in the mechanism of TV’s (relative) stability and constant formulas,
i.e. in its lack of change; or, alternatively, when TV does change, well, then
such changes "have in large part to be referred back to changes in social
values and sensibilities”, on which TV then "capitalizes” when it now prefers
to acknowledge such changes and decides to domesticate them (in order to
attract viewers and so on). So basically, when TV works in ways that would
reinforce the status quo, TV is evaluated by Gitlin as this proactive, powerful
enforcer of meaning; yet, when TV problematizes the status quo or raises
controversy, its workings are merely reactionary instead of proactive, i.e. in
such cases TV is only the mere site to mirror and take advantage of newer
social sensibilities already out there... In conclusion, whatever TV does, it
remains the evil site of cultural hegemony.
At some point, Gitlin seems to make a reasonable assumption
about hegemonic ideology being far from safely fixed and safely reproduced,
when he comments on the apparent multiplicity of interpretation: "Indeed, the
fact that the same film is subject to a variety of conflicting interpretations
may suggest a crisis in hegemonic ideology” (p262). Gitlin then offers an
argument that has been pretty widespread among theorists relying on the concept
of hegemony: "The hegemonic ideology changes in order to remain hegemonic; that
is the peculiar nature of the dominant ideology of capitalism.” Oh really? So
there is this ideology, which is willing to tolerate or even actively offer
public space for its own contestation by oppositional ideas, and it is, indeed,
capable of changing... Put it this way, it doesn’t sound that nasty after all;
actually, it is reminiscent of how "democracy” is imagined. Though Gitlin’s
argumentation never takes the direction which I just took, nevertheless, at the
end of the article, he seems to sense the instability of his arguments, and
feels the urge to somehow reassure why and how, capitalism does work as a
hegemony, that hegemony is indeed evil and effective in its intricate ways of
maintaining itself, and that television is a site for the workings of that
hegemony. First, he argues that when social conflicts are brought into the
cultural domain, the hegemonic process effectively frames them into compatibility
with dominant systems of meaning. Does he mean there hadn’t been significant
cultural shifts since the stabilization of the capitalist system as essentially
everything stays the same? That would not be what he seems to have demonstrated
so far... "Alternative material”, Gitlin continues, "is routinely incorporated: brought into the
body of cultural production” (p264). Does Gitlin suggests here that bringing
issues into the cultural sphere would entail some sort of sublimation, of
emptying out, of passivizing, or deterring it from the routs of real action? So
cultural imagery, public thoughts, shifts in public discourses, people’s
attitudes and opinions would not have any significant consequence on "real
life” or "materiality”?
Second, Gitlin identifies an "ideological core” that would
provide us with a foundation for being able to regard capitalist hegemony as a
sovereign entity despite all its flexibility and actual changes: "the notion
that happiness, or liberty, or equality, or fraternity can be affirmed through
the existing private commodity forms, under the benign, protective eye of the
national security state” (p265). This core is what "remains”, supposedly, "essentially unchanged and unchallenged in television entertainment.” I do not
think this was sufficiently argued for in the essay. In my view, Gitlin actually
argues more sufficiently even if indirectly against his own thesis of TV being
a satellite for capitalist hegemony, which latter would essentially be unchanged
and unchallenged on it.
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