Assaulting media
Broadly, the shuttering of CNN Philippines further indicates the precipitous decline of politics in this country.
Wait. What? Isn’t that an outrageous claim, considering there are cacophonies of political noise, especially on social media? Unfortunately, that is the case. In fact, it so happens that the political noise you’re hearing on social media testifies to the fact you’ve been paying even less attention to the real political news.
Worse, your analysis of politically relevant issues has been impaired, probably even diseased.
Matters though aren’t yet beyond curable with the way things now stand. You can, by conscious personal effort, overcome clinical symptoms wrecking your present political condition.
But, no child of yours will be as lucky. If the present situation continues, your children won’t be able to grow up properly as they’ll likely exhibit impaired abilities like, for instance, not being able to distinguish fake news from true information.
As matters stand, fake news is so pervasive in our digital age that media experts tell us it is already indistinguishable from true information. You can’t tell the difference anymore.
Just last week, for example, international media reported that millions of deepfake pornographic images of pop supernova Taylor Swift were galloping across the internet.
At any rate, why does shuttering CNN Philippines make us even more nervous about the political decline?
Well, it’s because as CNN Philippines bites the dust it now means that the share of local television and radio in properly providing reliable and sufficiently diverse political information is going the same way as traditional print media.
We’ve arrived at that sad conclusion since TV and radio, like print, are still relevant media systems that enable Filipino citizens to acquire the necessary knowledge and information so that each citizen can form his or her opinion about problems in need of political regulation.
Should TV and radio also start losing that relevance, it leaves politically dominant the wild and woolly new media engendered by the internet.
Unfortunately, however, these algorithm-driven and personalized new media are not really “media” for a host of reasons. But that’s for another time.
What is important is that any further decline in the information roles of TV and radio will make the de-politicization of what German political theorist Jurgen Habermas calls the “political public sphere” even more severe.
In essence, the old media of print, TV and radio established a nationally centered public political sphere.
What that means politically is that the old media successfully made itself the only domain wherein competing political noises were condensed and were rationally validated if these were relevant and important enough for forming crucial public opinions.
In so doing, old media ended up having the role of advising citizens on how best to wrestle between selfish self-interests and the common good.
As responsible intermediaries in sifting through competing political interpretations, old media employed “technically and organizationally highly complex media systems requiring a professionalized staff that played the gatekeeper role.”
Old media systems, therefore, weren’t just about individual journalists or broadcasters but also about complex systems of “specialists who perform authorial, editorial, proofreading and managerial functions” which cost a lot of money.
Old media’s “gatekeeper” role, however, is being assaulted almost daily by internet platforms and social media, as well as by political actors imposing political control and seeking power.
Despite assaults on its credibility, old media nonetheless still stubbornly exercises its politically appropriate author role by emphasizing that it is still keenly aware of its deficiencies in gathering and communicating information. Correcting is a necessity in old media. A fact that can’t be said of self-proclaimed influencers on social media.
Anyway, old media wants to chug along in its responsible author role since there is still the obvious fact, “Just as printing made everyone a potential reader, today digitalization is turning everyone into a potential author. But how long did it take until everyone was able to read?” as Habermas acidly quipped.
“Old media’s ‘gatekeeper’ role, however, is being assaulted almost daily by internet platforms and social media, as well as by political actors imposing political control and seeking power.
“You
can, by conscious personal effort, overcome clinical symptoms wrecking your present political condition.