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The Role of Postmodernism in Influencing

Modern American Journalism News Conventions

Michael Smith

Regent University

College of Communication & the Arts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• I. Postmodernism: Some definitions
• II. Historic background of postmodernism
• III. Philosophical foundation for postmodernism
• IV. The basis of objectivity in the newsroom
• V. Postmodernism’s influence in the news reporting
• VI. Conclusion
• V. References

premodernism and modernism (p. 349). The theme for premodernist work is a unity of vision and “cherishes continuity, speaking with a single narrative voice or addressing a single visual center” (p. 349). It was characterized by sequence and causality in time or space and claims to represent a reality that is something else. Modernist work desired unity but is characterized by shifts among a multitude of speakers, perspectives and materials. Reality is called into question and the established order is criticized to emphasize the line between art and life.

Miller (1989) described the premodern world as the blend of Greek speculative cosmological ideas and Hebraic theological cosmology (p. 2). Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) dominated Greek thought by the first century and again with the fall of the Roman Empire. The premodern worldview stressed the separation of the celestial from the terrestrial spheres, a reliance on tradition as a source of authoritative knowledge and a view of humanity as central to the universe. However, over time the Christian theology fused with Aristotelian science until the issue of the earth’s place as the center of the universe was challenged in the Copernican-Galilean controversy and the attack on Aristotle became an attack on the theological authority of the Christian church.

With Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the modernist view of the world is said to have begun (p. 3). He divided the cosmos into matter and mind (or spirit) and suggested science be applied to matter and mind (spirit) to theology. This dualism became a cornerstone for a Western understanding for epistemology. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) modified this dualism to recognize appearance, phenom- ena, and the intangible, noumena, which covers those ideas that no sensory experience was possible such as God (pp. 4-5). This division of knowledge and faith marked modern culture; however, devel- opments in sciences with emphasis on a detached and objective search for facts led to the emergence of a new worldview (pp. 7-8). The idea of evolution suggested that “the world is not so much a creation as a creating” (p. 9). The acceptance of Einstein’s theory of relativity physics led to chal- lenges of absolutes in time and space; furthermore, quantum physics demonstated that the notion of objectivity can only be relative since “there is no observation in which the object observed and the subject observing are absolutely separate” (p. 10).

These influences contributed to the postmodern condition that says all knowledge is a cultural artifact (p. 11). Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) used this idea to argue that language is a form of human activity, a game, and the significance of a specific language game such as science is not that it captures something of the nature of reality; rather, it supports particular goals. In short, “knowledge is not so much found as made, or better, it does not grow so much as it is grown” (p. 11). Truth is considered relative and knowledge is considered incomplete.

With postmodernism, the search for unity as expressed in premodern times is dismissed (p. 350). “Instead we have textuality, a cultivation of surfaces endlessly referring to, ricocheting from, reverberating onto other surfaces” (Gitlin, 1989, p. 350). The present is the theme because everything has been done. “Modernism tore up unity and postmodernism has been enjoying the shreds” (p. 351). Mass media produce the images today that are mass produced and empty. Furthermore, all theories are comparable to all other theories; nothing is superior because all is discourse (p. 356). Discourse is the means for domination where “the dominated collaborate with the dominators when they take for granted their discourse and their definition of the situation” (p. 357).

Philosophical foundation for postmodernism

Foucault, one of the leading philosophers who contributed to postmodernism, was influenced by Marx’s idea that all of life is power relations (p. 357). Foucault challenged the idea that everything is structured like a language and argued for post-structuralism, which said power operates through

complex social structures. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) developed structuralism, a system for understanding the structure of language which said relationships between words, the sound, and the concept is arbitrary. Structuralism says that language becomes the reality rather than allowing reality to be created through language. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) taught that reality is constructed in the mind, as its own creation (Osborne, 1992, p. 113). Influenced by Hegel, Karl Marx (1818-1883) explained that the reality that is outside man, which is presented as freedom, actually enslaves people in a world of objects; however, people continue to imagine that they are free and project this impression into their understanding of the world (Urmson and Ree, 1989, p. 193). Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) added to the system by denouncing the Christian idea of good and evil, by arguing that no universal morality exists (Urmson and Ree, 1989, p. 223) and explaining behavior in terms of power relationships (Collinson, 1987, 121).

Waugh (1992) identified a number of other philosophers who influenced postmodernism includ- ing Heidegger (p. 1-2). Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) found that the radical split between a person and knowledge leads to a detached subjectivity. He discussed phenomena, those things that appear to the consciousness, and determined that existence is filled with anxiety and meaningless. Louis Althusser (1918-1990) reworked Marx and defined ideology as an imaginary relation to the real, which functions to structure the individual’s development. This idea influenced literary studies and Roland Barthes (1915-1980) who argued that all reality is a myth, a form of narrative. Jacques Derrida (1930- ) examined the hidden structures in language and suggested the use of deconstruction to attack the idea of a fixed meaning (Gache, 1987, p. 3); Veith (1994) defined deconstruction as the view that “all meaning is socially constructed on a particular view of language” (p. 51). Postmodernism says that every human creation is analogous to language, a text, making life a series of texts interacting with other texts, creating a jail of language (pp. 52-53). To get at meaning, deconstructionists try to break out of the language prison by identifying the ways societies construct meaning through language to expose the true significance of the idea that is beneath the surface masking the true intent of those in power (pp. 53-54). In the same spirit, post-structuralists reject the idea of an absolute truth and insist that terms construct meaning by suppressing or excluding other terms. Postmodernist ideas draw from a wide range of philosophical influences, which contributes to this philosophy’s tendency to spill over many boundaries including journalism.

The basis of objectivity in the newsroom

In philosophy, the notiion of objectivism is the belief that “there are certain moral truths that would remain true whatever anyone or everyone thought or desired” (Flew, 1980, p. 319). However, for journalists the notion of objectivity suggests an approach to gathering and reporting information that is impartial and fair. “A story is objective when it is balanced and impersonal; the reporter does not include his or her opinions, feelings, biases,” writes Mencher (1996, p. 89). However, Mencher cites Walter Lippmann who said as a tradition, journalism represents reliable and impartial informa- tion. These characterizations are not that helpful in getting at the essense of objectivity.

Knowlton and Parsons help some by explaining that journalism historians consider the introduc- tion of the telegraph in the United States in 1844 as leading to the convention of objectivity in the newsroom (1994, p. 89). The high cost of using the telegraph forced editors to pool their use of this high-speed technology and split the cost; however, the reporter who sent his news text to the various newspapers had to cleanse it of any undue partisanship to meet the varying standards of competing newspapers. “The modern idea of the unbiased story was born” (p. 89). Czitrom (1982) found that the use of the telegraph by New York publishers such as Benjamin Day and James G. Bennett before the Civil War helped change newspapers from personal journals and political party organs into a

concerned about increasing the speed and number of news articles and realized that both goals could be achieved by focusing on the material world alone, and avoiding the deeper questions that help explain the news of the day. By describing the who, what, when and where of the news, an article was said to be objective. The why and how questions that demanded interpretation were left unex- plored. With the rising interest in Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis, reporters began to question even the idea that learning who, what, when and where concern a person’s class-bound vision of a world that is presented as one thing but is something else (p. 63). Objectivity as a practice prevented the reporter from inserting his observations into the article for fear he might unduly bias the report. Instead, the reporter depended on sources to provide the observations. “Since a variety of views were strongly held, this belief suggested that probably none of them was right, but all of them might have some truth” (p. 63). This multiple subjectivities approach took no sides and presented all views, none of which was totally right but might possess some modicum of truth.

Schudson (1978) found that when reporters said that they were practicing objectivity, that meant that used official sources, thereby freeing them as writers of any responsibility for the content of their reports (p. 162). By using official sources, the news report constructs an image of reality that reinforces the official viewpoint of those in power (p. 185). During the 1960s some reporters who were frustrated with this convention pioneered New Journalism by writing their opinions into the news articles (Olasky, 1988, p. 66). This technique was discouraged on most mainstream, general- circulation newspapers, opening the door for reporters to feign objectivity by using the official sources approach but by carefully selecting quotations and evidence to build the kind of narrative needed to direct the reader to the desired conclusion (p. 67).

Postmodernism’s influence in the news reporting

Postmodernist considers knowledge and representation of knowledge as undergoing a shift (Waugh, 1992, p. 5). As early as 1948, Toynbee observed that disintegrating societies fail to exercise discrimination in all facets of life and drift into uncritical tolerance (pp. 432-439). Waugh (1992) wrote that Toynbee would consider the postmodern age to be the final phase of Western history where all knowledge is produced through discourse (p. 5). “There is no position outside of culture from which to view. There is no Kantian ‘view from nowhere,’ no conceptual space not already implicated in that which it seeks to contest” (p. 5). In the past, the critique of reason found in the Enlightenment was countered with an alternative, but postmodernism has given up on a replacement, given up on truth (p. 6). “We are always in a situatedness in world where knowledge can never be absolute because the object of knowledge is always expanded by the attempt to know it. Objectivity always arrives too late” (p. 8).

For postmodernist writers of literature, fiction isn’t used to highlight truth, fiction is a substitute for truth (Veith, 1994, p. 136). The historic linkage between fiction writers and news reporters supports the idea of crossover but the trend in newsrooms today is to use the techniques of a fiction writer and may include shaping the material according to their own purposes (p. 137). These writers defend the approach saying that in postmodernism, all perceptions are imaginative constructions of one kind of fiction or another.

This kind of thinking can lead to reporters arriving at opposite conclusions. When 20/20 broad- cast an hour-long show April 21, 1994 about environmental threats to ordinary people, the ABC program was panned and praised. Extra! Update, a publication of Fairness in Accuracy in Reporting that favors a liberal agenda, criticized the report because it “minimized or denied environmental concerns” (Grossman, 1994, p. 1) and suggested corporations such as ABC are bent on protecting the

status quo and the cross-membership of powerful people who support business as usual. However, MediaNomics, a publication of the Free Enterprise and Media Institute that favors a conservative agenda, praised the 20/20 report on the environment, saying reporter John Stossel “looked at the cost of exaggerated fears” (Gabron, 1994, p. 1). The report said the 20/20 program didn’t press for more laws, but urged that the audience to use perspective to avoid “hugh regulatory bureaucracies that not only take our tax money, they also take a little bit of our freedom” (Gabron, 1994, p. 1). Gabron ended his review noting that this hour-long show topped the Nielsen ratings for its time slot, suggest- ing that big audiences mean successful programming.

Print reporters also follow this strategy. MediaWatch (1995) found that a Washington Post report on Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s To Renew America and former Speaker Jim Wright’s Reflections of a Public Man, to be a filmsy comparison (p. 8). Wright’s book was never sold in bookstores and was offered in bulk to lobby organizations while Gingrich’s book was on the bestseller list for 12 weeks and is approaching the half-million sales mark. Other examples abound. Throughout 1995 print and broadcast reporters refer to President Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater Affair to be similar to President Nixon’s role in the Watergate scandal. While much of this kind of reporting is meant to be an attempt to avoid partisanship, the cumulative effect is that it reduces the concepts of truth and objectivity to constructions of reality after the postmodernist model. Anderson (1990) said constructionists do not have a God’s eye view of reality but say that people live in a symbolic world, “a social reality that many people construct together yet experience as the objective ‘real world’” (p. 6). The world is a collection of multiple realities with different stories and different languages and different ways of experiencing.

Conclusion

Schiller (1981) ended his examination of objectivity by noting that sociologist Herbert Gans called newspapers the “strongest remaining bastion of logical positivism in American,” a worn-out approach from bygone days (p. 184). In its place, Schiller’s idea for reforming the press was the following: “We must strive for a public sphere in which the people themselves, rather than undelegated groups from their midst, will be lord of the facts” (p. 197). That suggestion is so vague as to be useless. Does that mean readers should abandon mainstream efforts of producing news products and produce their own publications? Or does it mean that readers should practice the techniques of postmodernism and make their own meaning?

As more and more journalists rebel from the double-standard of objectivity as subterfuge, they may resort to the techniques of metafiction and meta-television, where the creators bring attention to the text as a text and ask the audience to become aware of their status as an audience and their role in this communication process (Olson, 1987, pp. 284-285). Reception theory says that the meanings of the audience are the only meanings there (p. 285), but Mumby (1992) found that meanings can be fixed (p. 579). This fixing can create “the conditions under which a certain form of ‘common sense’ prevails and allows one group to oppress another” (p. 580). Should meanings of a world without faith be fixed as normal and preferred, the opportunity to present news highlighting issues of spiri- tual import may be used only if the content suggests that no absolutes exist as is the case with reli- gions in the New Age Movment (Veith, 1994, p. 198).

However, the intellectual revolution afoot spawned by postmodernism offers many opportuni- ties to interject support for a system of absolutes as offered by Christianity (Allen, 1989, p. 2), including journalism. Allen wrote:

No longer can Christianity be put on the defensive, as it has been for the last three hundred

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