Mediapolitik: How the Mass Media Have Transformed World Politics / Edition 1

by Lee Edwards

Overview

Drawing upon his lifelong study of politics and journalism, political historian Lee Edwards offers the first scholarly examination of a powerful new phenomenon in world politics—the mass media. Edwards argues in his far-ranging and innovative work that the media have become as important a factor in determining the course of international affairs and the future of nations as economic prosperity, military strength, natural resources, and national will. The author calls this vital new component of world politics mediapolitik. He uses case studies from around the world to show how the mass media have influenced and even determined the outcome of major political acts such as the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, the ousting of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the political resurrection of South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

The author argues that these case studies show that the mass media can either enrich or enslave the human spirit, depending upon their moral foundation. If the media follow a liberal democratic model, as in the United States and Western Europe, they contribute to a free and just society. If they follow an authoritarian model, as in South Africa before Mandela, or a totalitarian model as in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Fidel Castro's Cuba, they perpetuate the regime in power and deny the fruits of freedom and democracy to the people.

Edwards addresses the question of how responsibly the American media, the most influential media in the world, handle their enormous power. Using the results obtained from his survey of 100 leading journalists as well as close analysis of major news stories of the last decade, the author confirms the rampant cynicism of the American media and its deleterious effect on American politics and government. The solution, he suggests, is that American journalists must practice moral responsibility and strengthen the liberal democratic model of mediapolitik around the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lee Edwards is senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and adjunct associate professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. He is senior editor of The World & I magazine and author or editor of numerous books, including The Collapse of Communism, The Conservative Revolution, The Power of Ideas: The Heritage Foundation at 25 Years, and Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

"Mediapolitik is a broad-gauged survey of what the mass media is, and how it works around the world. . . . There is scarcely an issue or debate within media and media watching circles that Mr. Edwards does not touch on and analyze with care and precision. Reading Mediapolitik is the equivalent of at least a semester's worth of J-School, and more fun."—Washington Times

"Mediapolitik is superb—a much-needed, comprehensive study of a crucial topic. It is full of insight in its analysis and wisdom in its conclusions."—Peter W. Rodman, former Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

"A revealing study of the mass media's impact on world politics. You may not agree with all of his conclusions, but Mediapolitik is well worth reading."—Hal Bruno, former political director, ABC News

"Edwards is a sterling advocate for more responsibility in journalism. His cogent insights are always worthy of study and debate."—Stephen Hess, The Brookings Institution, author of The Little Book of Campaign Etiquette

"The author's case studies are valuable. No one, to my knowledge, has presented such information and analysis in such a systematic fashion."—Prof. Marvin Olasky, Acton Institute

"A very plausible and reliable overview of the impact of changes in news and entertainment media on the politics of our world. . . . The

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813209920
Publisher:	The Catholic University of America Press
Publication date:	04/28/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

THE MEDIA BECOME TRULY MASS

UNLIKE TRADITIONAL ELEMENTS of national power like economic resources and military strength, the mass media are a recent development in political history. Johann Gutenberg invented the letter press in the latter part of the fifteenth century, but there were no true "mass" media until the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century.

    The two revolutions offer instructive contrasts in the vital role of the mass media, free and not free, in the practice of politics. Fiery Samuel Adams, America's first political journalist, declared: "There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a Free Press." The Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, headquartered in Boston under the direction of Adams, channeled a flow of essential information to the Sons of Liberty in every colony. Colonial newspapers were in the front lines of the Revolution, helping to produce the radical change in the "principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections" of the people that John Adams called "the real American Revolution."

    From 1765, when the hated Stamp Act was passed, to 1775, when the first shots were fired at Concord and Lexington, American newspapers led the struggle against British tyranny. They printed the names of those "Enemies to their Country" who imported outlawed British goods. British officials and their supporters were described as "serpents," "guilefulbetrayers,""diabolical Tools of Tyrants," and "Men totally abandoned to Wickedness." The Boston Tea Party was planned in the house of an editor of the Boston Gazette. News coverage was politicized, with papers throughout the colonies detailing the outrages of British troops, real and alleged. A Son of Liberty wrote in the Providence Gazette that "the press hath never done greater service since its first invention." In the pre-Revolutionary period, the media had essentially been controlled by government. Now the people freely used the media to express opinions and disseminate information against government control. Half a million copies of Thomas Paine's incendiary pamphlet Common Sense were sold in the thirteen colonies, which had a total population of only three million. Equivalent sales in today's America would be an astounding forty-two million. As usual, Benjamin Franklin offered an appropriate epigram: The press not only can "strike while the iron is hot," it can "heat it by continually striking."

    The colonial newspapers were not all rhetoric. They also provided reasoned arguments against the British attempts to control its wayward colonies. John Dickinson, writing as the "Pennsylvania Farmer," pointed out that the English Parliament had no legal right to impose the Townshend Acts because their primary purpose was to raise revenue, not regulate imperial trade.

    In addition to galvanizing public opposition against an autocratic, arrogant British government, the American press helped produce a new national consciousness. On the eve of the Revolution, colonists thought of themselves not only as citizens of New York, Virginia, or Pennsylvania, but as "Americans." They felt they were Americans because of a conjunction of democratic principles as enunciated by brilliant, dedicated leaders like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, and of an independent press committed to democratic principles. The profound influence of the American press on the Revolution was also made possible by the failure of the British government to exercise strict control over the press, a mistake the French monarchy was determined not to repeat.

CONTENTED AND CORRUPT

    French newspapers were among the most sophisticated in the world, inspired by the words of Voltaire: "It is as much a natural right to use one's pen as it is to use one's tongue." They were also among the most controlled in the world. Licensed by the king, they were forbidden on penalty of death to attack religion, infringe on the authority of the government, or disturb public order and tranquillity. In vivid contrast to the American press's abiding concern about the future of a young nation, the French press was most interested in its own future. Louis XVI maintained a corps of contented, corrupt journalists who reported only favorable news in the official press—even omitting any mention of the storming of the Bastille when it occurred on July 14, 1789. Having no principles, democratic or otherwise, these journalists cynically traded independence for security, and wound up with neither.

    On the other hand, as the historian Simon Schama points out, Versailles shops openly sold the most subversive publications, including Rousseau's Confessions and the London muckraking sheet English Spy. And the King's own younger brother was said to protect professional sellers of seditious materials. Such practices validate Alexis de Tocqueville's view that the Old Regime helped to bring about its own undoing by flirting with ideas it found diverting but only half understood.

    The result of this uneven government control was a frustrated public that rejected what it read in the official press and depended, in large part, on an angry underground press (libelles) that was so antisociety it even alarmed the iconoclastic Voltaire. "There has just appeared," he wrote, "one of those satanic works where everyone from the monarch to the last citizen is insulted with furor, where the most atrocious and most absurd calumny spreads a horrible poison on everything one respects and loves." The violent rhetoric of the libelles undoubtedly contributed to the violent nature of the French Revolution. Like the revolution itself, the revolutionary French press ran roughshod over anyone who got in its way. The bloody results of the French Revolution confirm that the media, if they are to contribute to the furtherance of representative government and democracy, must practice self-discipline and moral as well as social responsibility.

    Because of France's well-maintained network of canals and rivers, the libelles were read not only in Paris but in Lyon, Rouen, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. Their impact was heightened by the fact that the rate of literacy in late eighteenth-century France was high, reportedly higher than in early twentieth-century America. Whatever their location and social and economic station, French citizens became united in "their scorn of the ostentation of the mighty, passionate in their patriotism and enraged at the abuses of despotism." They were ripe for revolution and revolutionary ideas. "It was not want," wrote de Tocqueville, "but ideas, that brought about that great revolution."

    Writing from exile in Switzerland, Louis-Sebastien Mercier, an apostle of Rousseau, saw royal France rushing toward its doom and declared with satisfaction: "In two minutes the work of centuries would be overturned. Palaces and houses destroyed, churches overturned, their vaults torn asunder." Having no respect for the past and little understanding of the present, the French radicals waged all on the future. The French press, once the lapdog of the king, allowed itself to be taken over by revolutionaries and then controlled by anarchists who destroyed first the monarchy, then the republic, and finally themselves.

    Ironically, the revolution that brought down the Old Regime was caused, in part, by false news. The crowd that marched on the Bastille was inspired by an erroneous report that thirty thousand royalist troops were about to march on Paris. Outside Paris, country people heard exaggerated accounts of riots and destruction in the towns and assumed mistakenly that armies of brigands would soon descend on them. The Great Fear of the summer of 1789, which spread the revolution to the countryside, was created by the lack of reliable information and by the absence of authority at the heart of the French government.

    But the most important difference between the two revolutions lay in their goals. The American Revolution was an orderly transition to a new form of government rather than a violent break with the past social order. It sought freedom rooted in law rather than a tyranny subject to the impulse of the moment. It guaranteed the concrete rights of property rather than the abstract rights of man. The American Revolution was a rational revolution. It "was caused by a mature and thoughtful taste for freedom," wrote de Tocqueville, "not by some vague, undefined instinct for independence .... No disorderly passion drove it on; on the contrary, it proceeded hand in hand with a love of order and legality."

    In contrast, the French Revolution quickly turned irrational because it flowed from an unbridled passion for independence that rejected all inhibitions. The American press contributed significantly to the success of the American Revolution by respecting inalienable rights like life, liberty, and property, while the French press quickened the demise of the French Revolution by promoting utopian notions like the perfectability of man, total democracy, and collectivism. The essential distinction between the American and French Revolutions was repeated in the twentieth century in the protracted conflict between freedom and democracy on the one hand and fascism and communism on the other.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

    The Founders of the American Republic had a classical concept of democracy based on the notion that the power to govern and to decide political issues rested in the people. They believed that citizens can discover and maintain a common good through rational argument and debate. In this view of democracy, the media played a key role as middlemen between the government and the governed. The Founders essentially agreed with Jefferson when he wrote: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter."

    Included in the First Amendment of the Constitution was the unprecedented pledge: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," which made the American media the freest in the world. But what did the Founders mean by "freedom of the press"?

    James Madison's original draft of the First Amendment, as offered in the first Congress of 1789, was unqualified: "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable." He intended that such freedoms be protected against state as well as federal action, adding, "No state shall violate equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases." As adopted by the House of Representatives, the amendment read, "the equal rights of conscience, the freedom of speech or of the press, and the right of trial by jury in criminal cases, shall not be infringed by any state." To Madison's disappointment, the Senate struck out the provision restricting the power of the states, a move in which the House later concurred.

    The Founders, however, did not believe that freedom of speech and the press should be absolute, either in promise or practice. They accepted the traditional English law based on Blackstone that freedom of the press meant freedom from prior restraint and that the press was subject to the same laws as everyone else—i.e., to penalties for criminal libel. During a Pennsylvania debate on ratifying the Constitution, James Wilson said that "what is meant by the liberty of the press is that there should be no antecedent restraint upon it; but that every author is responsible when he attacks the security or welfare of the government, or the safety, character and property of the individual." Leonard Levy, a political scientist, has described the Founders' position as "an unbridled passion for a bridled liberty of speech." A clever phrase, but to put it more prosaically the authors of the First Amendment were practical men who sought balance and prudence in all things, including freedom of speech and of the press.

    A decade later, following the passage of the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, a much more liberal, even libertarian, theory of speech and press ultimately emerged. The acts were said to be designed to protect the country against alien opinion and aliens themselves. The Sedition Act, for example, did not forbid criticism of the government, "only" malicious and false statements that defamed officials. The historians Edwin Emery and Henry Ladd Smith ask, "Why should an editor be allowed to defame public figures, thereby discouraging decent men and women from assuming civic responsibilities in their communities?" It is a question relevant in our own times, when the mass media are so prone to feeding frenzies in their coverage of public figures.

    Aside from serious questions of constitutionality, the Alien and Sedition Acts lent themselves to prejudicial administration. Reacting to the bitter rhetoric generated by the Jay Treaty of 1794 (a treaty of peace with England which did not, however, stop the British practice of impressing American seamen) and the XYZ Affair (a scandal provoked by French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, who informed U.S. diplomats he would receive them as accredited ministers only after they had paid him a bribe), the Federalists, led by John Adams, unwisely used the acts to silence their Republican opponents, led by Jefferson. There was deliberate provocation on both sides. Not even the unrestrained tabloid journalism of the 1990s matched the venom and vitriol of the 1790s press. Benjamin Franklin Bache, William Duane, and James Callender wielded the poison pens for the Republicans (who later became the Democrats), while William Cobbett and John Ward Fenno responded in kind for the Federalists. Callender called George Washington and John Adams "poltroons" and "venal." And he described President Adams as a "libeller" whose "hands are reeking with the blood of the poor, friendless Connecticut sailor," a liar whose office was a "scene of profligacy and ... usury," and a "hoary headed incendiary" whose purpose was to "embroil this country [in a war] with France." Cobbett called his Republican opponents "the refuse of nations" and "frog-eating, man-eating, blood drinking cannibals."

    The Alien and Sedition Acts were soon denounced in resolutions adopted by the Virginia and Kentucky legislatures and written, respectively, by Madison and Jefferson. The two resolutions emphasized the central role of a free press in a democracy and declared that the press must be free from legislative as well as prior restraint. Blackstone's definition of a free press was not appropriate to the United States. There was an essential difference between the British government and the American Constitution that necessitated "a different degree of freedom in the use of the press." Because in the United States the people, "not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty," it was necessary to secure "the great and essential right of the people ... against legislative as well as executive ambition." Freedom of speech and of press were accorded constitutional protection because they are essential elements of the process whereby the people choose the members of the government. And "the right of electing the members of the government constitutes ... the essence of a free and responsible government." In a report to the Virginia General Assembly justifying the original resolution, Madison wrote:

This security of the freedom of the press requires that it should be exempt, not only from previous restraint of the executive, as in Great Britain; but from legislative restraint also; and this exemption, to be effectual, must be an exemption, not only from the previous inspection of licensers, but from the subsequent penalty of laws.

    Going far beyond the little he had said at the time of the Constitutional Convention and subsequently, Madison now declared that "no power whatever over the press was supposed to be delegated by the Constitution" and that the First Amendment "was intended as a positive and absolute reservation" of the freedom of the press. Conceding that there would be abuses of this freedom by the press, Madison nevertheless declared that "it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to this luxuriant growth, than, by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits." The wisdom of such a policy, he argued, had been proved by the many contributions of the press to the creation of the United States as "a free and independent nation." Had there been Sedition Acts a decade or two earlier, he said, might not the United States now be languishing "under the infirmities of a sickly Confederation" or "groaning under a foreign yoke?"

    At the same time, Madison made it clear that he and other Republicans opposed the acts because the limits on the freedom of political speech were imposed by the national rather than the state government. As Jefferson later wrote to Abigail Adams: "While we deny that Congress has a right to control the freedom of the press, we have ever asserted the right of the states and their exclusive right to do so."

    The Virginia Report became the classic statement of the Republican opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts and led to a new libertarian interpretation of the First Amendment that would flourish in the next century. Because it emphasized the constitutional means of "interposition" open to the states, the report would also be used by proponents of states' rights and nullification in the pre-Civil War period. For all the sound and fury they generated, the Sedition Acts were not repealed but simply lapsed at the end of the two-year limitation period.

    Levy argues that the new theory regarding freedom of the press encouraged "absolute freedom of political expression" and laid down the principle that only "injurious conduct" as manifested by "overt acts" or deeds should be criminally liable. It reinforced the idea that free government "depends for its very existence and security on freedom of political discourse." It is intrinsic to a republican government that its public servants be of the highest conduct and character and that a press point out, without fear of reprisal, any and all derelictions by those servants.

    But the First Amendment is not, as many modern journalists seem to think, a one-way street—all liberty and no accountability. True republican government requires journalists who take their responsibilities as citizens as seriously as do public servants. St. George Tucker, a prominent Jeffersonian, stated that a reporter "is bound to adhere strictly to the truth.... In his strictures on the conduct of men, in public stations, he is bound to do justice to their characters, and not to criminate them without substantial reason. The right of character is a sacred and invaluable right, and is not forfeited by accepting a public employment." The Americans of the founding generation were not radical libertarians, the political scientist Walter Berns points out: they well understood the difference between liberty and licentiousness. While they agreed that "freedom of discussion and the law of libel [inherited from Britain] were simply incompatible," they insisted that freedom of discussion and a law that provided for the punishment of the libel of public officials were not incompatible.

    Although there is no extended discussion by the Founders of the functions of a free press, the Continental Congress did address the issue in the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence. In the Quebec Statement of 1774, the Congress, whose members included George Washington, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, discussed the importance of the press as the principled middleman between the people and their government:

The last right we shall mention regards the freedom of the press. The importance of this consists, besides the advancement of truth, science, morality and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of government, in ready communication of thoughts between subjects, and in its consequential promotion of union among them, whereby oppressive officials are shamed or intimidated into more honorable and just modes of conducting affairs.

    The intent of the Founders was clear: Freedom of the press is an essential condition of republican government, imposing responsibilities as well as rights. It requires journalists who practice prudence rather than prurience, ensure liberty rather than licentiousness, exhibit courage rather than compromise, and seek justice rather than personal or political gain. Because of the power and privilege they enjoy under the First Amendment, American journalists must be held to the highest, not the lowest, standards of citizenship.

    Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in the 1830s, referred, in his classic work, Democracy in America, to "the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures" He gave the following reasons for the press's "immense" influence on public opinion and politics:

It causes political life to circulate through all the parts of that vast territory. Its eye is constantly open to detect the secret springs of political designs and to summon the leaders of all parties in turn to the bar of public opinion. It rallies the interests of the community round certain principles and draws up the creed of every party; for it affords a means of intercourse between those who hear and address each other without ever coming into immediate contact. When many organs of the press adopt the same line of conduct, their influence in the long run becomes irresistible, and public opinion, perpetually assailed from the same side, eventually yields to the attack. In the United States each separate journal exercises but little authority; but the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people.

    De Tocqueville perceived that despite its frequent coarseness and tendency toward license, the American press played an essential role in American democracy, being the main provider of information to the people about their politics and government. "When the right of every citizen to a share in the government of society is acknowledged," he wrote, "everyone must be presumed to be able to choose between the various opinions of his contemporaries and to appreciate the different facts from which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be regarded as correlative." The French political philosopher was restating the conviction of the Founders that the press should be an honest broker of information, providing the people with the facts about the actions of their government and elected representatives, and should also be a vigilant watchdog of the same government and representatives, calling immediate attention to errors, excesses, or illegal acts. In so doing, the press acts in the national interest as well as its own self-interest, seeking to preserve a free and democratic society as well as a free and responsible press. De Tocqueville believed that "the principle of self-interest rightly understood" was the best suited of all philosophical theories to "our time" because it disciplined people in "habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command"—habits that are unevenly cultivated in much of the modern mass media.

Editorial Reviews

Edwards, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, offers a theory of the role of 20th-century mass media and its interconnectedness with politics. His theory is cohesive and the case studies are insightful, alert to interesting detail, and provide convincing examples of how and in what circumstances the skillful use of mass media can change historical outcomes. Among the examples are Chile and the 1988 plebiscite ousting Pinochet, China's Tiananmen Square, Russia under Gorbachev and glasnost, and South Africa and F.W. DeClerk's decision to dismantle apartheid. Edwards's analyses of how the Chilean democratic opposition parlayed 15 minutes a night of uncensored television time into a victory over Pinochet, and the role of the South African press, once freed of constraints, in aiding anti-apartheid factions are particularly illustrative of the potentially awesome power of the media. As demonstrations of the resiliency of human beings in search of freedom, both examples are inspiring. Although not dramatic, the description of kishas, Japanese press collectives that self-censor and generally honor establishment preferences, provides a fascinating contrast to the American press. But in the end, Edwards's credible academic theory of mediapolitik is secondary to his distress over the failings of mass media in America. Warming to this subject in his last chapters, Edwards launches a jeremiad against the empty moral sensibility of American journalists. The attack has substance and will find sympathetic readers. But Edwards's approach is too didactic, paternalistic and simplistic (he enjoins journalists to "practice virtues like wisdom, courage and prudence" and to "accept the responsibility of power and believe in the power of responsibility") to influence members of the media. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Why did the United States intervene militarily in Somalia but not in the Sudan, where the magnitude of the human suffering has been at least as severe? Partly because of the intensive press coverage of the former and relative neglect of the latter. Edwards (senior fellow, Heritage Foundation; The Power of Ideas) examines the burgeoning influence of the print and electronic media in world politics. He finds that the media play a positive role when they support liberal democracy but that they can also be misused to support illiberal regimes, such as that of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. He raises the question of how to assure that the media uphold liberty rather than authoritarianism. To his credit, Edwards recoils from censorship; rather, he urges journalists to exercise moral responsibility and thus to refrain from sowing cynicism in the democratic nations. While many will quarrel with his conclusions, the insightful case studies comprising this work are a valuable addition to the literature on international relations. Recommended for all academic collections. James R. Holmes, Ph.D. candidate, Fletcher Sch. of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts Univ., Medford, MA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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