“Habermas also notes a transition from the liberal public sphere which originated in the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolution to a media-dominated public sphere in the current era of what he calls ‘welfare state capitalism and mass democracy’ [...] In this transformation, ‘public opinion’ shifts from rational consensus emerging from debate, discussion, and reflection to the manufactured opinion of polls or media experts” (Durham & Kellner, 2012, p. 29).
I'm not exactly sure when Habermas initially made this observation, but I found it intriguing that something said by someone born almost a century ago still rings not only true but particularly relevant. Even though the media he discusses is drastically different from the media we take part in today. I'm currently taking an economics class that focuses specifically on the current political economy. In the class, we're reading a book that discusses this notion in detail. The most recent chapter we read was actually eerily similar to this concept. Expanding on Habermas' idea, the author of the book-- journalist Matt Taibbi, actually theorized that the opinions of the polls and media experts (in his case reporters) have become one and the same. He even goes as far as to say "'Polls say' is often just 'we say' in disguise-- in the same way a man-on-the-street quote is often just the first person found who agreed with the point the reporter wanted to make" (2021, p. 105). I think we see this a lot on social media. People become stuck in echo chambers regurgitating the same talking points circulated from their media conglomerate of choice. And these points always seem to reflect the views of the party they subscribe to and never those of the one they don't. This is a direct result of the media training us to view everything (at least in the mainstream media) as Republican vs. Democrat rather than promoting actually taking a step back and reflecting on the point to come up with our own solution or opinion on the issue. Regardless of what our political party has to say about it. One doesn't have to actually debate or discuss current events in their own words because they can just watch politicians do it and retweet the highlights. Another great example of this that we discussed in the class was the use of political think tanks in the 90s. They were designed to create quotable talking points of manufactured opinions from pro-corporate media experts that were in reality much more conservative than views of the general American public but nevertheless they were quoted often. The most popular think tank was quoted over 2,000 times in 1995 alone.
This is sort of unrelated, but I wanted to include it because I feel it goes along with the idea that text (in this case referring to art), even from over a century ago, is still as relevant as the quote I pulled from the reading. I couldn't find the artist's name, but this piece is attributed to a female artist from 1910-- 111 years ago! This piece recently started circulating on Twitter with almost 30,000 retweets and over 175,000 likes. Why it's all of a sudden going viral? People are finding it surprisingly relatable. When you think about how many facets of our lifestyle have changed in the last century, I think it's remarkable we can still find solace in the emotions and experiences of those from the past. I've included a link to the tweet below:
References:
Durham, M. G., & Kellner, D. M. (2012). Media and Cultural Studies (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Taibbi, M. (2021). Hate Inc.: Why today's media makes us despise one another. OR BOOKS LLC.
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