Page 516 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Surve llance and Pr vacy |

the dialogue: “It was completely inappropriate and we can understand why peo-
ple were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are
sorry.” Imus, however, ratcheted up the anger when he appeared on the Rever-
end Al Sharpton’s radio program on April 9 and referred in passing to some of
his critics as “you people.” Plans were set in place for him to meet with the team
and its coach. However, due to the public anger, loss of sponsors, and complaints
from other African American employees at NBC, the network fired Imus and
ended Imus in the Morning immediately. The meeting with the Rutgers squad
proceeded, and their coach reported that the team members did not themselves
call for Imus’s firing.
Aside from the heat and fury of the moment, the question remains whether
Imus’s firing will trigger more focused attention upon shock jocks, but even more
if the possibility of censorship will extend to those of a more right-wing persua-
sion who engage in invective and rancor on as regular a basis as did Imus.

see also Government Censorship and Freedom of Speech; Hypercommercial-
ism; Media and the Crisis of Values; Media Watch Groups; Obscenity and In-
decency; Public Sphere; Ratings; Representations of Race; Representations of
Women; Sensationalism, Fear Mongering, and Tabloid Media.

Further reading: Colford, Paul. Howard Stern: King of All Media. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1996; Douglas, Susan. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. New
York: Times Books, 2000; Fisher, Marc. Something In the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolu-
tion that Shaped a Generation. New York: Random House, 2007; Franken, Al. Rush Lim-
baugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. New York: Random House, 1996; Imus, Don. God’s Other Son.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999 [1981]; Laser, Matthew. Uneasy Listening: Pacifica
Radio’s Civil War. London: Germinal Productions, Ltd., and Black Apollo Books, 2006;
Laser, Matthew. Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network, rev. ed. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 2000; Limbaugh, Rush. The Way Things Ought to Be. New York:
Pocket Books, 1992; Post, Steve. Playing in the FM Band. New York: Viking Press, 1974;
Savage, Michael. The Political Zoo. Nashville: Nelson Current, 2006; Shepard, Jean. In
God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. New York: Doubleday, 1966; Shepard, Jean. Wanda
Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. New York: Doubleday, 1976;
Stern, Howard. Private Parts. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993; Walker, Jesse. Rebels
on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America. New York: New York Univer-
sity Press, 2001.

David Sanjek

surVeillanCe and PriVaCy

The rise of an information-based economy and the threat of terrorism in the
post–Cold War era have created a climate in which individuals find themselves
subjected to increasingly comprehensive forms of commercial and state surveil-
lance. Debates over the consequences of an emerging surveillance society have
focused on the tradeoff between the perceived benefits of surveillance, includ-
ing security and convenience, and the potential threat to privacy and individual
autonomy. These debates take place amid shifting cultural expectations and
norms about privacy reflected in a media culture that increasingly portrays