In 1945, sociologist Bernard Berelson took advantage of a newspaper delivery strike in New York to do some research, later published as What ‘Missing The Newspaper’ Means.
With 500 Aussie journos on strike (see their website), I thought it might be instructive to revisit a few of Berelson’s observations, to see how they held up today.
The striking journos manifesto says:
Quality journalism matters. It is important that working journalists at Fairfax are able to keep Australians informed without fear of retribution from their corporate managers.
Berelson starts his study by cutting away at that cherished professional myth of ‘keeping people informed’.
[P]ractically everyone pays tribute to the value of newspaper as a source of “serious” information about and interpretation of the world of public affairs, although not everyone uses it in that way. During the interview our respondents were asked whether they thought “it is very important that people read the newspapers or not.”
Almost everyone answered with a strong “Yes,” and went on to specify that the importance of the newspaper lay in its informational and educational aspects. For most of the respondents, this specification referred to the newspaper as a source of news, narrowly defined, on public affairs.
However, not nearly so many people use the newspaper for this approved purpose…
But what did missing the paper mean emotionally?
“I am like a fish out of water … I am lost and nervous. I’m ashamed to admit it.“
“I feel awfully lost. I like the feeling of being in touch with the world at large.“
“If I don’t know what’s going on next door, it hurts me. It’s like being in jail not to have a paper.“
“You feel put out and isolated from the rest of the world.“
“It practically means isolation. We’re at a loss without our paper…“
“Something is missing in my life.“
“I am suffering! Seriously! I could not sleep, I missed it so…“
“I sat around in the subway, staring, feeling out of place.”
Berelson concluded:
This need for the newspaper is further documented by references to the ritualistic and near-compulsive character of newspaper reading. Many people read their newspapers at a particular time of the day as a secondary activity, while they are engaged in doing something else, such as eating, traveling to work, etc. Being deprived of the time-filler made the void especially noticeable…
Now check out the website of the Sydney Morning Herald, where journalists are striking over plans to cut 5% of editorial jobs. Sixty-plus years on, would you expect anything like the emotional reactions Berelson listed above? And looking at the site, can you even tell there’s a strike on?
Yes, there are many new ways to fill the void…
What the hell are you trying to say?
Jock — What the hell don’t you get?
The desire to “connect” with the outside world and associate yourself with something larger (i.e. your country or favorite football team) is natural, not some sad attempt to fill your loneliness. Our ability to engage one another on so many levels is what makes humans so special — and newspapers so useful. Sure, the connection may be passive through print, pushed via email or pulled through online or mobile — but the connection is still there. In fact, their growing and evolving, more interactive and mutli-dimentional. Yet content remains at its core.
Of course. More mistakes, more rubbish stories and much, much more wire copy.
Adrian wrote: Sixty-plus years on, would you expect anything like the emotional reactions Berelson listed above? And looking at the site, can you even tell there’s a strike on?
Adrian — My gripe is that you bung in a few quotes but what you are contributing? You are using this industrial dispute to make some self-indulgent point, with your ending: “Yes, there are many new ways to fill the void…” But what is your point?
If you’ve got something to say, why don’t you say it? It seems to me you’re some kind of Buddhist. If you left me with that impression, which was probably not your intention, then you haven’t communicated clearly.
Meanwhile, many people in Sydney care about the paper and don’t want it run down; they have been supporting the journalists in the past week. The paper and the website are somewhat separate. The paper is more upmarket, while the website is run by a separate part of the company with a different culture and priorities. There is something of a tension between the two.
The answer to “can you tell the difference” depends on how familiar you are with the pre-strike paper and website, as well as the fact that the company has access to a large pool of strike-breaking labour from around the country (and wire copy, as noted).
Anyway, what do you think about this industrial action and the underlying issue of mass redundancies by a management apparently intent on harvesting market share?
I think the cost savings (redundancies) would be more digestible if management didn’t take half the gains made in bonuses and tell fibs about the impact on quality.
Toodle pip, old son.
@Jock — I don’t have a dog in this fight. I was really trying to draw attention to Berelson’s original — not widely available online.
Bernard Berelson, What Missing the Newspaper Means, in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, eds., Communications Research: 1948–49 (New York: Harper, 1949)
I was contrasting the visceral, emotional effects of removing a newspaper from people’s lives in 1945 with the less obviously visceral effects of removing one today.
I’d have thought that short of purchasing large display ads, the best way people can support the SMH is by encouraging friends to subscribe to it, or buy it.
Eric Beecher sums it up in Crikey pretty well. The SMH is going to be less than it was. But then Crikey wouldn’t exist to comment on its woes if the media landscape hadn’t changed fundamentally…
As for the website, well it just shows you how many news alternatives people have today. And friends in Sydney have observed that they found it hard to believe there was a strike on when looking at the website. But, @BillPosters, maybe they’re not sophisticated consumers.
I’m not a Buddhist — despite burgeoning physical similarities.
Fact is that unless you are an smh.com afficionado, and many people are, you couldn’t tell that the journos were on strike. That’s because the online product has a lot of ‘media bulemia’-type celebrity stories that attract all the attention away from the serious journalism that does appear on the site.
The weekend newspapers were, however, unreadable. Even the headlines were shocking, in a bad way, and it must have been apparent — even to the management — that a product of such shabby quality has a half life of weeks — hence the resolution of the strike early this week with a revised pay offer and capitulation from the union. On Saturday, with Mike Carlton unceremoniously dumped for the likes of Miranda Devine, I felt like Berelson’s subjects.
Mike, I agree with your analysis. And imagine how much worse the Saturday paper would have been if the foreign correspondents had not filed for that issue.
Adrian, thanks for your response. Regarding your comment “I don’t have a dog in this fight,” allow me to disagree. One dog is your Sydney friends. They and ultimately all Australians will suffer from a weaker Sydney Morning Herald. Public debate will suffer, democracy will suffer, alternative perspectives and challenges to power will all suffer.
Also, this is an international story, Adrian, dragging your dogs into it yet again. I see a link between cost-cutting media corporations and cost-cutting airlines, even the previously reputable carriers. We are all at risk from both prospects, in the media sense from many international versions of my SMH example, and in aircraft through a risk to our lives.
Similarly our wages are at risk. I wouldn’t mind if the world’s wages were rising as the West’s fell. But the Western trend is for capital to increase its share of the “pie” at the expense of labour. Apologies for using Marxist terms; I am more of a Buddhist than a Leninist. But the figures support this, at least within the Western countries.
As for your comment, Adrian, that “I was really trying to draw attention to Berelson’s original — not widely available online,” I appreciate your point because this is your blog and you can do what you will. I was angered though that someone was using this Fairfax fight for an unrelated purpose, in a way that I didn’t see as constructive. But I acknowledge you have contributed particularly by starting a debate.
It’s interesting that Mike saw less of the contrast between today and 1945 though, given your attempt, Adrian, to highlight that contrast. If you heard the conversations around Sydney cafes you might revise your thesis.
As for Crikey not existing “to comment on its woes if the media landscape hadn’t changed fundamentally” I would respond that many blogs, and perhaps smaller websites such as Crikey, could not exist without the huge output of information from serious media, which they often get for free now on the internet. All too often bloggers consume this information, and regurgitate it through the prism of their own opinion, along the way attacking or criticising the professional product that fed them.
None of that should suggest that I don’t have a critique of corporate media myself. Later…
Good luck with your expanding girth.
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