LYCHEE: Our Brave New World?

Ever read news and feel like you fell down the rabbit hole into some dystopian universe?  Maybe I just spend too much time reading this genre of novels for my courses, novels that are sure to provoke an opinion in even the most reluctant reader. For instance, today I read an article on Alternet.org in which Danny Schechter exposes the fallacy of the op-ed page as a place of free expression for personal opinions of non-journalist writers. 

 

The experts chosen to contribute still tend to come from elite think tanks, universities and big publishers. Increasingly, PR firms, speechwriters and political consultants ghostwrite op-eds for big-name clients and then "place" them with the editors who they are always cultivating. The editors are invariably drawn to top pols and celebrity writers. Who really writes their words doesn't seem to matter--and is rarely disclosed.

 

Moreover, the day of the glamour of the field journalism – bravely uncovering truths to enlighten the populous -- seems to be over.  Instead, through the success of marketing, it is much more admirable and prestigious to scurry to your office on your Madison Avenue in your Banana Republic business casual suit and Kenneth Cole shoes (ok, I am not hip enough about fashion to make an accurate analogy that is Alizarin’s domain).  Who cares if you know what you talking about as long as you look good?

 

There are three times as many pundits as reporters on the air, with more communication students opting for the higher-paid provinces of public relations than the more insecure trenches of corporate journalism. With marketing and packaging driving media businesses, it's no wonder that our newspapers themselves are doing more selling than telling.  (Schechter)

 

Much as I wrote in my entry about VNRs (LYCHEE: Corporate- and self-delusion), we again find the lines information and advertising blurring.  Moreover, it confirms that, in the mainstream media, those with the most money get to be heard.  Schechter extols the virtues of free speech on the blogosphere.  I agree.  But what about the millions who still do not know of the blogosphere and rely on newspapers to get their news.  What about the growing numbers of illiterate citizens our schools are pumping out?  Are the government, media, and marketing industry breeding a generation of unquestioning alphas, betas, and epsilons?  Now, I am not proposing a grand conspiracy, but are they all unwittingly working in the same direction? 

 

Consider this:

 

Earlier this week there was a report on NPR about using comics in the classroom.  Now, I am big fan of comic books as a great way to get students into reading.  In fact, many popular comic books are rich in literary techniques, extended allegorical storylines, and expansive vocabulary.  One of my most challenging scrabble opponents was a boyfriend who grew up reading comic books (and still does as an adult).  However, this story is about using comic style textbooks, specifically comics about science.  I feel this trend perpetuates the commercialization of information and the tendency to pander to the lower literacy rates in schools.  Perhaps I am becoming paranoid, but is this so far from the dystopias classic literature like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 415 warned us about?  How long before we, like Montag, will get our news comic-paneled papers?  Probably not in our lifetime, but it is still disturbing to feel that we are not as different from these fictional realities as we would like to think. 

 

Only by fostering a culture that values literacy, education, and truly critical thinking (a debate that is rarely, if ever, engaged in when talking about the media or education) will we be able to keep our newspapers from becoming propaganda pamphlets.