Please note: I have heavily revised the questions below to focus more clearly on the "marketplace of ideas" analogy and deToqueville's theory that the press serves as an "incubator of civilization" by publishing information that made American democracy work.
Your assignment: Write a 2,000- to 2,500-word, publishable article in which you evaluate cable television networks including Fox News for their role in what is known as the "marketplace of ideas." While I am not requiring American Psychological Association (APA) documentation, I do want you to identify your sources and attribute quotes to them - both direct and indirect - according to good Associated Press (AP) style. The paper is due Monday, Nov. 30.
According to our textbook, "Media Ethics" by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, the Founders of the American political system "expected citizens to be informed and then to participate in politics," and they expected the media - the press, in the parlance of their day - to play an important role in the process. And as so often is the case, they saw the process as basically adversarial. In other words, good policy would emerge as a synthesis arising from conflict. "They expected that political debate, including what was printed in the press of the day, would be parisan and biased rather than objective, but they also believed that from this cacaphony of information, the rational being would be able to discern the truth," say Patterson and Wilkins. "Unfettered communication was essential to building a new nation" (175-76). Citing Alex deToqueville, they say in making this synthesis possible, the media were "an essential antidote to a culture that valued liberty over community" and "an incubator of civilization in such a society." Sometimes this theory is described as a "marketplace of ideas."
Although he didn't use the exact words, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. explained the marketplace of ideas in his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States (1919). Basically, it's an analogy to the free market system:
Your assignment: Write a 2,000- to 2,500-word, publishable article in which you evaluate cable television networks including Fox News for their role in what is known as the "marketplace of ideas." While I am not requiring American Psychological Association (APA) documentation, I do want you to identify your sources and attribute quotes to them - both direct and indirect - according to good Associated Press (AP) style. The paper is due Monday, Nov. 30.
According to our textbook, "Media Ethics" by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, the Founders of the American political system "expected citizens to be informed and then to participate in politics," and they expected the media - the press, in the parlance of their day - to play an important role in the process. And as so often is the case, they saw the process as basically adversarial. In other words, good policy would emerge as a synthesis arising from conflict. "They expected that political debate, including what was printed in the press of the day, would be parisan and biased rather than objective, but they also believed that from this cacaphony of information, the rational being would be able to discern the truth," say Patterson and Wilkins. "Unfettered communication was essential to building a new nation" (175-76). Citing Alex deToqueville, they say in making this synthesis possible, the media were "an essential antidote to a culture that valued liberty over community" and "an incubator of civilization in such a society." Sometimes this theory is described as a "marketplace of ideas."
Although he didn't use the exact words, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. explained the marketplace of ideas in his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States (1919). Basically, it's an analogy to the free market system:
... when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas ... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution.It is an open question how well the media, especially cable TV networks that appear to be geared toward building audience in particular market segments by carrying a mixture of news and comment, carry out that function. Fox News is perceived to have a right-of-center slant, and CNN and MSNBC are perceived to have a left-of-center slant.
For example, Fox News got the highest election-night ratings for its coverage of the Nov. 4 votes in Virginia, New Jersey and upsate New York. In class we'll read the story on the Politico.com website and the reader comments. The comments, in particular, can tell us something about who watches Fox - and why.
Not entirely by coincidence on Oct. 30, a few days before the election, comedian Jon Stewart broadly satirized Fox News for its right-of-center editorial policy. But on election day, he satirized practically everybody else in the industry for "inane election coverage." Focusing on the congressional race in New York state, he asked, ""Might the media, with really very few other elections to cover, be stuffing one hundred thousand pounds of their bullshit into District 23's five-pound bag?" We'll watch both segments. And I want you to go the Google news page, or any other sources you want, and see what you can find out about coverage by Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the usual suspects of Tuesday's elections, especially in New York's 23rd congressional district. Then, as a certain TV network likes to say, you decide.
Here are some related questions to get you started thinking: How well do Fox specifically, and the cable networks in general, fulfil their role as an "incubator of civilization" and political discourse in a society that has a strong free-market, libertarian streak? Do they promote community? Should they be expected to? How well, specifically, do different elements of the media live up to their ethical responsibilities? How might Aristotle, Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill react if they could come back and watch Fox or MSNBC? What would they say to the media execs? Do the codes of ethics have any wisdom to offer - i.e. the Society of Professional Journalists' for news coverage and the Public Relations Society of America's for commentary? (Most of the on-air talent probably are not members of those societies, but they do set standards for the profession.) What do Fox, MSNBC and CNN get right ethically? Where do they fall down? How might they do better? How much do you think the networks are driven by ideology, and how much by other factors?
In writing your essay, you'd go crazy if you tried to answer all of these questions. Instead, decide which ones you want to focus on and narrow your ideas down to a clearly stated thesis you prove by citing evidence in support of it. (See? It's like I keep saying: English 101 never goes away!) Here's the central question I want you to consider, no matter how you focus your thesis: How well does the "marketplace of ideas" analogy hold up? How well do Fox and the other media live up to their responsibility to maintain a free market in ideas?
Please note: If you have strong political views of your own, I strongly recommend that you try to be objective and let readers make up their own minds. I like to state them - so readers will be on guard for any bias I might have - but to try to overlook them and come to a position that puts the most charitable construction on people or policies that I oppose and at the same time acknowledges that I might not have all the facts, or the best interpretation of the facts, myself. It's hard to do, but I think it's essential.
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