Zombie Media 85
preference, and this can often the case in terms of social issues such as
LGBT or women’s reproductive rights; yet in terms of economics and
underlying assumptions about American primacy in the world, they are
often much more conservative. Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro
demonstrated that common assumptions regarding the imposition of
ideological constraints on publications by their proprietors or even editors rarely happen in practice, but rather journalists tend to respond to
economic signals and incentives – that is, if their readers want certain
stories with a certain slant, that is what they will provide.
26
In recent
years, this has resulted in an increasing polarisation of the media between liberals and conservatives, driven even more by the realisation
that analytics can offer even greater levels of feedback into which stories
are more successful and thus highly incentivised.
In the post-war media landscape of the twentieth century, certain models of gatekeeping emerged that came to be seen as self-evidently true but
which now are beginning to seem as quaint as steam engine enthusiasts
in the age of self-driving vehicles. As news production became increasingly expensive, not simply in terms of broadcast media but also for the
production and distribution of print, so the tendency was to monopolise
and professionalise that production. A smaller number of outlets worked
hard to establish trust with their respective audiences, and as theorists
such as David Manning White (1950) and Pamela Shoemaker (1991)
demonstrated, their knowledge of which facts were worthwhile and
which were not depended on a series of factors – organisational structure, production cycles, editorial “instinct”, sometimes even overt political beliefs – that were treated as self-evidently true but were not.
27
This
is by no means to categorise such gatekeeping as propaganda: it was not
a systematic and deliberate attempt to change public perception in many
cases, but because there were relatively few outlets, it was much easier
to create a common understanding of what constituted good journalism.
This is not as straightforward as it first appears: as Shoemaker has noted
more recently, a fundamental tenet of American media law and policy
assumes that “more media outlets are better than few”, which is one
reason why in the USA (as opposed to Europe at certain points in its
history) there has been a reluctance to adopt state-sponsored outlets.
28
Even before the Internet became widely available for most users, however, for political journalism, there were a series of crises emerging that
were indicators of underlying structural problems. McNair, writing at
the turn of the century, identified the relative failure of traditional media organisations to deal with political spin as a determined activity to
shape news cycles, while outmoded models of impartiality had become
restricted to the attempt to “tell both sides of the story” (whether Labour versus Conservative, or Republican versus Democratic) without
a deeper understanding of the increasing plurality of social and political views. As with disruption, which was considered in the previous
preference, and this can often the case in terms of social issues such as
LGBT or women’s reproductive rights; yet in terms of economics and
underlying assumptions about American primacy in the world, they are
often much more conservative. Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro
demonstrated that common assumptions regarding the imposition of
ideological constraints on publications by their proprietors or even editors rarely happen in practice, but rather journalists tend to respond to
economic signals and incentives – that is, if their readers want certain
stories with a certain slant, that is what they will provide.
26
In recent
years, this has resulted in an increasing polarisation of the media between liberals and conservatives, driven even more by the realisation
that analytics can offer even greater levels of feedback into which stories
are more successful and thus highly incentivised.
In the post-war media landscape of the twentieth century, certain models of gatekeeping emerged that came to be seen as self-evidently true but
which now are beginning to seem as quaint as steam engine enthusiasts
in the age of self-driving vehicles. As news production became increasingly expensive, not simply in terms of broadcast media but also for the
production and distribution of print, so the tendency was to monopolise
and professionalise that production. A smaller number of outlets worked
hard to establish trust with their respective audiences, and as theorists
such as David Manning White (1950) and Pamela Shoemaker (1991)
demonstrated, their knowledge of which facts were worthwhile and
which were not depended on a series of factors – organisational structure, production cycles, editorial “instinct”, sometimes even overt political beliefs – that were treated as self-evidently true but were not.
27
This
is by no means to categorise such gatekeeping as propaganda: it was not
a systematic and deliberate attempt to change public perception in many
cases, but because there were relatively few outlets, it was much easier
to create a common understanding of what constituted good journalism.
This is not as straightforward as it first appears: as Shoemaker has noted
more recently, a fundamental tenet of American media law and policy
assumes that “more media outlets are better than few”, which is one
reason why in the USA (as opposed to Europe at certain points in its
history) there has been a reluctance to adopt state-sponsored outlets.
28
Even before the Internet became widely available for most users, however, for political journalism, there were a series of crises emerging that
were indicators of underlying structural problems. McNair, writing at
the turn of the century, identified the relative failure of traditional media organisations to deal with political spin as a determined activity to
shape news cycles, while outmoded models of impartiality had become
restricted to the attempt to “tell both sides of the story” (whether Labour versus Conservative, or Republican versus Democratic) without
a deeper understanding of the increasing plurality of social and political views. As with disruption, which was considered in the previous