Page 27 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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12 Critical Theories of Mass Media
Bratich also applies this perspective of optimistic opportunism to
Reality TV:
Ultimately, I argue that RTV [Reality TV] is about power as it is
configured in the new society of control and communication.
Thinking of this as reality programming, we can dislodge reality
from its status as authoritative source of representation. This
milieu of transmutation (not stability) can be harnessed for
various purposes and interests; it is bound to the historical
changes in power and sovereignty. By understanding this, we
can envision the potentials these changes offer.
(Bratich 2006: 66)

Finally, still in this optimistic vein, Lisa Taylor makes positive claims
for the cultural effects of lifestyle programming:

Analysis of lifestyle programming undoubtedly reveals that
lifestyle ideas hold a measure of educational value for citizens.
They might also offer people the opportunity, within the
context of the commonplace routines of their everyday lives, to
mould the strategies and sites of lifestyle in ways which help
them to navigate their own relationship to social change.
(Taylor 2002: 491)

The rest of this book pursues a critical response to these types of
arguments, but at this point it is sufficient to point out how such
examples illustrate the risk of promoting the act of interpretation
while excluding considerations of what constitutes meaningful
empowerment. Purportedly radical interpretations may leave the
media’s conservative effects largely unchallenged, if not ultimately
reinforced. Hermes, for example, seeks to use even the naturally
conservative personality-based coverage of the British Royal Family as
evidence of counter-hegemonic potential. Previously, the audience’s
appreciation of news coverage was hindered by its unduly ‘abstract’
nature. Personality-based news such as reporting on Princess Diana,
according to Hermes, can literally put a face on the issues of the
day. He conceptualizes the role of the celebrity as an embodiment of
abstraction as an empowering development towards the creation of
‘a wider world of cultural citizenship’ (Hermes, in Alasuutari 1999:
83). Finding the personal in the abstract becomes, not a negative
development, but a positive means of breaking open ‘the modernist
discourse of quality news’. Hermes cites the media coverage of
Charles and Diana’s marital breakdown as an example of this
breaking open, but it is interesting to note what replaces modernist
discourse in this model: ‘the breakdown of their marriage has
spawned many a discussion of infidelity, personal freedom and
anorexia’ (in Alusuutari 1999: 83).

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