{"id":646,"date":"2007-10-12T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-12T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=646"},"modified":"2007-10-12T08:02:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-12T14:02:00","slug":"double-standards-in-propaganda-journalism-and-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/10\/double-standards-in-propaganda-journalism-and-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Double standards in propaganda, journalism and life"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/span>eading Propaganda<\/a> by<\/a> Edward Bernays<\/a>. Although Bernays is popularly portrayed as an anti-democratic elitist, he was – by the standards of his time – liberal and progressive.<\/p>\n

He ends the book with a typical progressive sentiment – that more education, and better information will make public debate more reasoned and more enlightened: <\/p>\n

If the public is better informed about the processes of its life, it will be so much the more receptive to reasonable appeals to its own interests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s why he\u2019s a progressive. But then there\u2019s the kicker: <\/p>\n

No matter how sophisticated, how cynical the public may become about publicity methods, it must respond to the basic appeals, because it will always need food, crave amusement, long for beauty, respond to leadership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, our animalistic instincts will never cease being an express elevator to the psychological basement. That\u2019s why he\u2019s an elitist.<\/p>\n

This tension underlies the public service notion of modern journalism. It\u2019s the \u201cschizophrenia\u201d that Michael Schudson<\/span> talks about<\/a> when he writes: <\/p>\n

I propose that the news media should be self-consciously schizophrenic in their efforts to perform a democratic political function. They should both champion the kind of democracy that the political scientists say we have little chance of achieving and, at the same time, they should imaginatively respond to the realities of contemporary politics that the scholars have observed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Schudson is really just refining for the media what F.Scott Fitzgerald<\/span> wrote<\/a> in a self-lacerating piece for Esquire<\/span>, back in 1936: <\/p>\n

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Propaganda by Edward Bernays. Although Bernays is popularly portrayed as an anti-democratic elitist, he was – by the standards of his time – liberal and progressive. He ends the book with a typical progressive sentiment – that more education, and better information will make public debate more reasoned and more enlightened: If the public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[265],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-journalism-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}