Ong, J.C. (2009). “The Television of Politics, The Politics of Television: Reviewing the Relationship between Television and Public Engagement.” Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 4(3). more

Commentaries International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics Volume 4 Number 3. © Intellect Ltd 2008. Commentaries. English language. doi: 10.1386/macp.4.3.391/3 The television of politics, the politics of television Jonathan Corpus Ong University of Cambridge Talking trash about television is not a new thing. Pundits from the government, the Church and other social institutions have been known to sneer at the ‘idiot box’ since its inception. In academia, the prophets of doom hail from different corners – from the Marxist thinkers of the Frankfurt School to the positivist moralists of early American mass communication research to the sceptical postmodernists of French cultural thought. Although they have varied ontological and epistemological orientations, these unlikely bedfellows share a heightened fear of the rapturous snare of watching television and its resulting ideological drip-drip-drip, its effects on behaviour, or its consequences on identity construction. One interesting line of critique centres around the effects of television on citizens’ political knowledge and engagement. And the reason why it is so interesting is the trove of paradoxes that can be found in the debate. For one, a primary assumption of many media agencies is that television, and information and communication technologies in general, foster public participation. These organisations view citizens’ very access to television as inherently positive to democratic health. The Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership, for instance, strives to provide ‘under-resourced schools and communities with access to educational television and video’ to ‘stimulate a sense of community at a local and global level’ (Communications Initiative Online, 30 March 2007). And according to an International Youth Foundation paper, one key factor that differentiates in-school and out-of-school youth as regards their engagement in democratic practices is their access to ICTs (Tayo 2002). Indeed, much hope has been pinned on media intensification encouraging the possibility of a reinvigorated public sphere both within and among nations. However, other critics argue that mere exposure to television is corrosive to one’s persona as an informed, engaged citizen (see, e.g., videomalaise theorists: Putnam [2000]; Mutz and Reeves [2005]). And there are others who argue that it is not television as a medium per se, but the quality of modern political communication, as practiced and seen on television, that fosters civic disengagement (see, e.g., ‘crisis of public communication’ theorists: Cappella and Jamieson [1997]; Blumler and Gurevitch [1995]). Civic disengagement, for both camps, can be deduced from statistics that reveal a steady downward trend on electoral participation, opinion polls MCP 4 (3) 391–408 © Intellect Ltd 2008 391 that express citizens’ rising distrust on political actors and processes, and surveys that measure ordinary people’s knowledge about public affairs issues. Their thinking goes beyond the notion that television is a public good and worries about its negative impact on audiences. This article argues for a critical perspective in understanding the role of television in people’s political knowledge and engagement. Instead of starting from a determinist assumption that access and use of television leads to either more or less political knowledge and engagement, I argue that television, as with any ICT that has the ‘social behind them, the social in front of them, and the social embedded in them’ (Silverstone 1999: 145), does not determine; rather, it enables or disables in varying social, economic and political contexts. In addition, I wish to challenge both the advocates’ and naysayers’ traditional conception of ‘the political’ in this piece. As political information and engagement are typically framed within rationalist, even elitist, discourse, I subscribe to a more expansive notion of politics that breaks out of the common notion that it is merely one selfcontained part of public life. As Delli Carpini and Williams (2003: 161) assert, ‘Politics is built on deep-seated cultural values and beliefs that are embedded in the seemingly non-political aspects of public and private life’. Within this wider frame, we are then empowered to ask questions beyond news viewership, electoral turnouts, and campaign advertising and probe possible reasons why and how individuals who are ‘simultaneously citizens, consumers, audiences, family members’ (ibid.) may seek out routes to the public sphere outside the traditional domain of ‘the political’. In so doing, we may indeed gain a deeper understanding of how indeed producers and consumers of television can act towards a new media politics. Context clues Unlike researchers from the media development sector that are keen to use access to media platforms as an automatic indicator of democratic health, political communication scholars also pay attention to media content and audiences’ reception of this content. For instance, Cappella and Jamieson (1997: 31–34), find that contemporary journalistic culture employs a ‘strategic frame’ in political reporting, where the motivation for action of politicians is ‘reduced to a single, simple, human motivation – the desire to win’. With regard to television, they cite that horse-race coverage of election events is on the rise. Using experimental audience research methods, they deduce that a week of strategic news, whether in broadcast or print form, ‘consistently activates cynical response’ (1997: 231). Mutz and Reeves (2005) meanwhile express concern that the growing frequency of representations of incivility on television reduces political trust among viewers. The conflict format of television journalism, they argue, promotes interest at the expense of trust. Both studies are concerned of the resulting consequence of low trust levels on citizen participation and place television at the centre of the quandary. Indeed, it is critical to point out how the unique quality of the medium plays a role in this. However, as a whole, I find that the abovesummarised argument of television critics as too media centric. Instead of looking at the environment of individuals as a starting point, these scholars 392 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 begin with a ‘powerful media’ bias from which individuals’ identities – as citizens, consumers, audiences – are constructed and subsequently determined. Political communication scholar David Swanson (2004: 56) critically decentres the media from the equation and posits, ‘Is it possible that we have overestimated the autonomy of political communication and underestimated the importance of social, economic and political context in which citizens receive and understand messages about politics?’ Citing how the trust ratings shifted in the aftermath of September 11 in the United States, he pushes the idea that during seasons of broad national consensus, with no major crises, the public has little interest in the actions of government, as these do not directly affect them. Outside the canon of political communication, MacKenzie and Wacjman (1999) are correct in their assertion that technologies are shaped socially as much as they shape society. And Madianou (2005: 46–47) reminds us that it is crucial for empirical research to take into account this binary function and not simplistically privilege the model of powerful technologies (such as the videomalaise theorists) nor the model of sophisticated consumers (see, e.g., populists such as: Fiske 1987). In analysing television and its relationship with individuals’ political knowledge and engagement, perhaps a more ethnographic approach to studying television publics can provide thicker description and, indeed, greater understanding of its relationship with democracy. Comparative analysis, as Livingstone (1998) and Swanson (2004) both suggest, is also one other method by which we can shed a critical lens on the dialectic between socio-cultural contexts and media consumption. Politicizing the political In addition to being media centric, television critics have a traditional understanding of the notion of politics, which is ultimately underpinned by rationalist, elitist and masculinist biases. Crisis theorists Blumler and Gurevitch (1995: 1) lament how the democratic potentials of television have been undermined by its turn to popular culture. They claim, for instance, ‘The watchdog role of journalism is often shunted into channels of personalization, dramatization, witch-huntery, soap-operatics and sundry trivialities’. Videomalaise theorist Meyrowitz (1985) makes a bolder claim that it is not just the content but the very nature of television as an audiovisual medium – its use of close-ups and intimate tone – that has degraded political discourse. Television critics are then prone to delineate ‘hard’ from ‘soft’ news and the ‘popular’ from the ‘political’ in their broad critique of how television culture represents politics. It is not difficult to see traces of the Frankfurt School’s elitist distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture as well as Habermas’ (1989) equally snobbish privileging of the reading public over the viewing public in the hierarchies that they create in their writings. However, television entertainment – with its soap operas, game shows, and reality TV – is an integral part of a society’s political culture. For instance, Silverstone (1994: 77) critically rescues the politics of the TV soap opera by pointing to its unique, in-between location within suburbia: MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 393 ‘Politics in and of the suburb is still, mostly, a domestic politics . . . It is a politics of anxiety. It is a politics of defense’. In her content analysis of political news items, Van Zoonen (2003: 100–102) finds that soap metaphors and symbols are frequently used by reporters to criticise politicians just as politicians incorporate soap narratives and soap actors in the political campaign. She then argues that this eloquently testifies to the fact that ‘[popular] television culture has become a dominant if not the dominant means for interpreting social and political life’ (ibid.: 100). Using NBC’s The West Wing as a case study, she expresses hope, and not despair, that the soap opera’s ‘miraculous’ qualities of moving, engaging, and mobilising people may transfer to politics (ibid.: 112). Van Zoonen critically unpacks the inextricable link between reason and emotion in our identities as citizens, which these television critics overlook. Political marketing on television then ‘may possess intrinsic virtue precisely because, in principle, it makes politics more democratic’ (Scammell 1995: 18). And in principle, it really does. After all, ‘even under capitalist conditions of commodified culture, in which the public is governed by media technologies and through popular culture, the mediated public governs the government through the latter’s contradictory participation in popular culture’ (Simons 2003: 186). The intensified overlapping of news and entertainment, of the commercial and the political, of the elite and popular, within television culture, reflects the both/and-quality of audiences and publics, of public and private, of system and life world, of reason and emotion in everyday life. Previous research on television and its relationship with democracy, though laudable in its normative ideals, have been greatly disappointed because these ideals are seldom met. Yet adopting a broader conception of politics may shed light as to how the political–media complex in television today can produce dialectical sites of participation and withdrawal, of connection and disconnection, of containment and resistance, according to various historical and socio-cultural contexts. Allow me to juxtapose two projects with the first having a narrow definition of civic engagement and the second having a broader one. A famously depressing project was Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000). In this key text of the videomalaise canon, he curiously correlates television viewing with just about every type of civic activity. Deploying his artillery of statistical tools, he comments that heavy viewers of television are less likely to: (1) attend public meetings; (2) write to Congress; (3) make speeches; (4) go to Church and even (5) sleep well at night. Putnam vehemently asserts that television steals time and encourages lethargy and passivity. Furthermore he speculates that civic disengagement may be a result of the ‘psychological impact of the medium itself ’. In contrast, there is Couldry, Livingstone and Markham’s (2007) Public Connection project. An important assertion that they make is that, prior to any sort of democratic participation, there is, first and foremost, public connection. They characterise this notion less as a sustained attention to or knowledge of ‘hard’ political issues and more as a basic orientation towards a public world where public issues should be confronted. And instead of prescribing to their respondents a rigid definition of ‘public issue’, they leave it to them to define what it is. 394 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 Putnam’s work serves as an effective, unsettling reminder about the possible disabling qualities of television viewing to political engagement. Though he is ultimately unable to provide any causal links, he does leave us with a skeptical lens by which we can judge media representations of politics. But really, at its core lies an elitist and rationalist epistemology that leaves out the dynamics of politics in everyday life. Couldry, Livingstone and Markham’s (forthcoming) work, however, provides a more comprehensive picture to the topical problem of engagement than Putnam’s. By casting a wider net, they are able to see how some people seek routes to the public sphere outside the arena of mainstream politics. Civic action, they discover, is not directly linked to news consumption but is dependent on social capital and other factors. And free from Putnam’s masculinist frame, they are even able to see how public connection for some women may be mediated and framed through an ‘ethic of care’ (Couldry, Livingstone and Markham [forthcoming: 10]). Indeed, the Public Connection project allows us to see more fully how civic culture is mediated – and, more crucially – lived out in context. By empowering their respondents to define public issues on their own terms, they are able to explore how individuals’ identities as citizens are played out in a village shop, in meetings with neighbours, or even at home while caring for a baby. Some scholars from within the field of political communication have actually acknowledged the limitations presented by a narrow definition of politics, as it decontextualizes politics from other domains of everyday life (e.g. Dahlgren and Gurevitch 2005). The television of politics, the politics of television In this article, I have shown that previous work of both videomalaise thinkers and crisis theorists have studied political knowledge and political engagement of citizens as separate from the complex terrain of everyday life. Operating with a ‘powerful media’ bias and utilizing positivist tools, both groups have overemphasised the centrality of television in affecting their identities as citizens. This perspective however, while effective in alarming us of a current trend in today’s democracies, leaves many of the questions at the heart of this academic endeavour unpacked and unanswered. Highlighting the work of Couldry, Livingstone and Markham (2007) as a model, I argue that the study of citizens’ political engagement can be enhanced by greater dialogue between concepts and methods from political communication and cultural studies. Politics, while increasingly mediated onscreen, is after all an immediate, everyday experience. Whether we realise it or not, the to-ing and froing of power relations in the public and private, in the local and global, in the here and there, compose the symphony of daily life. And however television critics make it seem divorced, detached and distant from us, the political is nevertheless personal. And it is our task to see how. References Blumler, J.G. and Gurevitch, M. (1995), The Crisis of Public Communication, London: Routledge. Cappella, J.N. and Jamieson, K.H. (1997), Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good, Oxford: Oxford University Press. MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 395 Couldry, N.; Livingstone, S. and Markham, T. (2007), Media Consumption and Public Engagement: Beyond the presumption of Attention, London: Palgrave. —— (forthcoming). ‘Connection or Disconnection?’, in R. Butsch (ed.), Media and the Public Sphere, New York: Palgrave. Dahlgren, P. and Gurevitch, M. (2005), ‘Political Communication in a Changing World’, in J. Curran and M. Gurevtich (eds.), Mass Media and Society, 4th edn., London: Hodder Arnold. Delli Carpini, M.X. and Williams, B.A. (2003), ‘Let Us Infotain You’, in W.L. Bennett and R.M. Entman (eds.), Mediated Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fiske, J. (1987), Television Culture, London: Metheun. Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (T. Burger and F. Lawrence, trans.), Cambridge: Polity. Livingstone, S. (1998), ‘Relations Between Media and Audiences: Prospects for the Future’, in T. Liebes and J. Curran (eds.), Media, Culture, Identity, London: Routledge. MacKenzie, D. and Wajcman, J. (1999), ‘Introductory essay’, in D. MacKenzie and J. Wacjman (eds.), The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd edn., Buckingham: Open UP. Madianou, M. (2005), Mediating the Nation: News, Audiences and the Politics of Identity, London: UCL. Meyrowitz, J. (1985), No Sense of Place: The Effect of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, New York: Oxford University Press. Mutz, D.C. and Reeves, B. (2005), ‘The new videomalaise: Effects of televised incivility on political trust’, American Political Science Review, 99, pp. 97–114. Putnam, R. (2000), Bowling Alone. London: Simon and Schuster. Silverstone, R. (1999), Why Study the Media?, London: Sage. ——— (1994), Television and Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Simons, J. (2003), ‘Popular Culture and Mediated Politics’, in J. Corner and D. Pels (eds.), Media and the Restyling of Politics, London: Sage. Swanson, D. (2004), ‘Transnational Trends in Political Communication’, in F. Esser and B. Pfetsch (eds.), Comparing Political Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tayo, O. (2002), ‘ n Adult’s Dilemma on Youth Participation’, in S. Golombek (ed.), A What Works in Youth Participation: Case Studies from Around the World, Maryland: International Youth Foundation. Van Zoonen, L. (2003). ‘After Dallas and Dynasty We Have . . . Democracy’, in J. Corner and D. Pels (eds.), Media and the Restyling of Politics, London: Sage. Contributor details Jonathan Corpus Ong is a PhD student in sociology at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, where he is also a Bill Gates Scholar. He is also Lecturer in the Department of Communication at the Ateneo de Manila University and Graduate Student Representative in the International Communication Association. His research interests include media and morality, media and migration, and mediated public participation. Contact: Corpus Christi College, Trumpington Street, University of Cambridge, CB2 1RH, UK. E-mail: jo296@cam.ac.uk 396 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 Children, Internet, pornography and policy* Elisabeth Staksrud University of Oslo One should watch out. There are a lot of parents who don’t pay attention. Actually one should react a bit, but it’s a natural thing, everyone looks at sex as a natural thing right. So it should be natural for youngsters and adults to go and look at it, right. (Boy, 15 years)1 * This article is based on findings from research conducted as part of the SAFT (Safety Awareness Facts and Tools) project at the Norwegian Media Authority, a project supported by the European Commission Safer Internet Action Plan and the Norwegian Action plan for Children. The project ran from 2002 to 2006. The statistics presented here arrive from the representative survey conducted in 2005/2006 on children (9–16) and parents with children in the same age group and internet connection in the household. For the parents 802 interviews were conducted via CATI telephone interviews in the period from November 28, 2005 to December 11, 2005. The results were weighted based on gender, age and geography. The population was collected from the MMI Norwegian Media Index 2005.1. The target group for the two children’s surveys, the main focus for this report, was between the ages of 9 and 16. Collection of the children’s data was done by self-completion questionnaires filled out by the children One of the recurring topics in the public debate about child safety online is the linking of new communication technologies to the access to pornographic material. The debate and discussion is in itself difficult, touching upon sensitive topics such as parents’ responsibilities, the innocence of children, moral issues, and freedom of expression and information. The public part of it, taking place in newspapers and through broadcasters, is not so much a discussion as it is an ongoing description of incidents and their related fears. This is hardly surprising, given the stories’ journalistfriendly content. It does, however, as usual, tend to polarize and simplify the opinions and views that inevitably follow. The area is complicated further by the complex contextual factors influencing both the definitions and views of what actually constitutes pornography. In effect, one man’s smut is another’s erotic entertainment, and as such the term is relative to not only the containing culture, but also to whoever uses it. Definitions of pornography include US Supreme court Justice Potter Stewart’s ‘I know it when I see it’ (quoted in Thornburgh, Lin and National Research Council (US). Computer Science and Telecommunications Board 2002: 21), a definition in line with my former film classification colleague’s operationalization of his work: ‘If I’m aroused, it is porn’, while public labels attached to ‘pornographic’ content range from ‘abuse of women’ to ‘adult entertainment’. Even the definition of ‘children’ is unclear. While the UN charter on children’s rights has an 18-year limit, other will – especially regarding controversial issues – make distinctions based on legal, physical, psychological or cultural criteria’s (see for example Flekkøy 1992; Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry; Committee on Child Psychiatry 1989; Johnson 1992; Verhellen 1992). Traditionally a line is drawn between ‘children’ (below 12) as opposed to adolescents ( 12) or teens ( 13), the former being innocent and in need of protection, while the latter often being portrayed as a source for delinquency and deviant behaviour (see for example Cohen 1972; Finestone 1976; Leyton 1979; Muncie 1984; Sangster 2002; Wellford 1987). In many parts of the world, this whole body of issues and concerns is close to being a permanent agenda, and researchers are asked to both illuminate and nurture the issues so that policy can be created and implemented. The result has been a long and intense body of work inside MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 397 themselves during class at school. During the 2006 data collection period (January 23, 2006 to February 8, 2006), 946 interviews were filled out in total, but because of missing gender and age information used for weighting the results, the reporting on the results is based on 888 interviews. No teacher or parent was present in the classroom and the collection was supervised by a professional representative from the MMI Synovate team on behalf of the SAFT project. Schools were selected from all parts of the country and from both urban and rural areas. The results were weighted based on gender and age according to publicly available statistics. The author was the project coordinator for SAFT and professionally responsible for the surveys conducted. 1 Quoted in Bjørnstad and Ellingsen (2002), the qualitative section of the SAFT project. All following quotes from same source unless otherwise stated. various national and pan-national governmental agencies, pressure from NGOs, and attempts to develop technical solutions aimed at restricting children’s access to what is perceived as unwanted or harmful content. In contrast to this, these developments have been reviewed with concern from civil liberties groups. At the same time, as described by, for example, Livingstone (2008), there is a need for clarification about our worries: what are we afraid will happen after children see pornography? The end of innocence? The creation of future victims or offenders? Problems regarding their sexual development? From counting what not to do . . . . While analyzing the representative studies on children and parents’ relationship with Internet risks conducted in Norway in 2003 (Staksrud 2003) and 2006 (Staksrud forthcoming) and their accompanying in-depth interviews (Bjørnstad and Ellingsen 2002), it has become apparent that what’s lacking is a youth-centred view, as opposed to an adult-centric one. Not necessarily because the public and parental concerns and fears are wrong – fears such as these should always be treated properly, but more because the resulting efforts for example in term of legislation, awareness initiatives and educational tools might be misdirected, perhaps monumentally so. This shift in focus is a shift away from the parents’ assumptions about their children’s behaviour and feelings and towards the children’s actual online conduct and their attached coping strategies. Can research facilitate this shift? In the highly wired country Norway, where children’s access to and ability to use digital tools is officially acknowledged as a competence of equal importance to reading and writing (St. meld. nr. 30 Kultur for læring, 2003–2004), restricting children’s access to the Internet is not a viable option. Access to the Internet is considered a vital right for selfrepresentation, information and communication, and content filtering tools specifically warned against by the Norwegian government (Barne- og Familiedepartementet 2001). At the same time parents worry about their children accessing pornography online. In 2003 this was the number one concern among parents with children between the ages nine to sixteen with 24 per cent of the parents mentioning this. Although this concern had decreased significantly by 2006 to 12 per cent (accredited to the increased Internet skills and first-hand experience among parents realizing that pornography seldom is a push service but instead requires active decisions to be accessed), in was still the second most-mentioned concern by Norwegian parents, surpassed only by concern of the amount of time children spent online (Staksrud 2003; forthcoming). The situation is therefore at odds with both the immediate adult reaction and its accompanying official policy: let’s just cut off their access. On one hand, one wants the children to be online, on the other, one fears what they might encounter out there. So – can research provide helpful guidance to pinpoint alternative protection strategies answering the parental fears and the general concern in society? . . . to using research to create safety strategies As quantitative researchers in the field of children, risk and media have identified, one often ends up counting frequencies and types of Internet 398 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 usage, assessing risks according to general results, for instance on behaviour and accounts of exposure to pornography. But more in-depth questions help illuminate the issue of children’s access to online pornography. For instance, asking the children how they came across pornography proved illuminating. In 2006, 46 per cent of children (9–16 years) had visited a pornographic website, accidentally or intentionally. Of these, 31 per cent, said this happened because they typed the wrong address, making them instantly vulnerable to ‘copycat’ web addresses trying to hijack Internet users into their sites, sites often containing pornographic ads. Similarly, 26 per cent were re-directed from other sites, while 10 per cent received the link in an e-mail. These experiences were particularly common among those below the age of thirteen years. Asking this simple question had a direct impact on policy makers and awareness raisers, realizing that instead of restricting access to Internet or provide surveillance, the most effective tool would be to help children access the sites they actually wanted and teach them how to bookmark these sites, so that next time they did not risk to be ‘hijacked’. From the same survey it also became evident that pornography on the Internet might not be such a new set of questions as the ones among us not having grown up wired up might believe. Of those accidentally accessing pornography more than five times, there was a significant overrepresentation of older boys ( 13). When asked about intentionally accessing a pornographic web-site, 71 per cent of the children had never done this, while 10 per cent had accessed such a site ‘a lot’ (more than five times). Again, of those intentionally accessing pornographic sites, there was a significant overrepresentation of older boys. So, what do older boys have in common, other than access to the Internet? Pure biology seems to be a very common factor, how about those pesky hormones? The public display of pornographic material has always been illegal according to Norwegian law. Still, generations of youths, and perhaps boys in particular, have accessed, watched and shared pornographic pictures and movies. This is done out of curiosity, pubescent interests, and using media content to push boundaries and challenge the adult world. In the words of an observing female peer: Boys in the class think about nothing but porn at sex at the moment so that’s why they’re so interested in those kinds of sites on the Internet. It’s because they’re in puberty. Girl, 15 years In essence, the willing and wanted contact with online pornography is, to put it bluntly, controlled by body chemistry. Many pubescent boys want to look at naked women (or men, in some cases), to feed and explore their growing sexuality. One may also assume that girls do this, although with taking their level of statistical denial into account, the degree and intensity as well as type of content may be questioned. If you are a girl and you say that you look at porn sites then you’re completely dead, like socially. Girl 15, years MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 399 When asked about how the children felt after seeing such a site, most children had neutral or positive feelings like they did not think too much about it (33%) or they thought it was funny (20%) or cool (15%). Negative feelings were mentioned by 17 per cent wishing they had never seen it, whereas only 5 per cent said they were upset. In addition 14 per cent reported ‘other feelings’ which could or could not include sexual arousal, something that ethical considerations prevented us from asking the children, but something that was addressed by the children themselves in the qualitative interviews: I look at porn once a week, at least. It depends on what mood I’m in and then, of course. If I’ve seen a pretty woman on the street, right . . . Yeah, then I might want to see a bit more . . . Boy, 13 years The parenting paradox Throughout the surveys one can also detect the confusion Norwegian children feel coming from parents and other adult authorities: on the one hand pornography is generally perceived as something intrinsically negative and forbidden by law, on the other hand they are brought up to believe that nudity and sexuality is something natural. I don’t know if adults look at stuff like that. No clue. I don’t actually think so as they usually have their own girl, but I don’t know if men do it. But I don’t know about men who don’t have a girl. Boy, 12 years The level of contradictory signals can be illustrated by findings showing that of those intentionally searching for pornography, 5 per cent accessed pornography trough other people’s bookmarks. Following up with qualitative interviews with teens revealed several accounts from the children of accessing pornographic Internet content via their fathers’ bookmarks. So, to sum up: Most children never access porn intentionally, and some visit it a few times out of curiosity. But then again, some children in general and older boys in particular, access porn intentionally. For researchers to be relevant we need to address, even if it’s uncomfortable, some of these politically and socially tense questions – children and adolescents’ own motivation, curiosity and desire to seek out pornographic (as well as other controversial) content. This calls for a differentiated approach. We must take into account the different motivations for children to access online pornography. Because younger children might come across unwanted online material by accident, we must include them in our strategies, teaching them how to cope – for example by knowing how to navigate away from the site or ask an adult for assistance – and we as adults must be willing to explain. We must also realize that no matter our own views on the matter, for some children, the intentional exposure to pornography is a given. This also means that they have developed an understanding of pornography, based on experience, how they see their own role and their understanding of the different variations of the genre. 400 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 It’s a bit weird with all those age limits and all. It’s like not logical. When you are 16 then you are allowed to have sex but then you have to be 18 to look at it! That’s definitely not logical. I don’t know. I suppose it’s just some puberty thing that you want to look at it. It hasn’t hurt me, I am sure of that. It hasn’t hurt me at al . . . I’ve been in most things, except for stuff I really DON’T want to see. Gay stuff. That’s gross. I’ve seen a bit and then I’ve closed it. That’s GROSS! That’s sick, yeah! I just have to be allowed to say that. Boy 15 years Also, we need to realize the methodological limitations of our subject, given the social stigma related to the activity of encountering online pornography; one must assume a significant under-representation of children, and especially girls, reporting such experiences. This calls for a wide awareness approach, including all children. Knowing more about the actual views, habits, understanding and strategies for children encountering pornography online through a child-centred and open-minded approach should give us sufficient information to pinpoint tools for policy makers and awareness raisers. References Barne- og Familiedepartementet (2001), Tiltaksplan – Barn, unge og Internett, Retrieved 11.02.08. from http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/kilde/bfd/bro/2001/0014/ ddd/pdfv/136845-internettvern.pdf. Bjørnstad, T.L. and Ellingsen, T. (2002), Nettsvermere. En rapport om ungdom og Internett, Oslo: Statens filmtilsyn og SAFT prosjektet. Cohen, S. (1972), Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, London: MacGibbon and Kee. Finestone, H. (1976), Victims of Change: Juvenile Delinquents in American Society, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Flekkøy, M.G. (1992), ‘Attitudes to Children—Their Consequences for Work for Children’, in M.D.A. Freeman and P.E. Veerman (eds.), The Ideologies of Children’s Rights, Dordrecht, Boston and Norwell, MA: M. Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 135–148. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry; Committee on Child Psychiatry (1989), How Old Is Old Enough?: The Ages of Rights and Responsibilities, New York: Brunner-Mazel. Johnson, D. (1992), ‘Cultural and Regional Pluralism in the Drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child’, in M.D.A. Freeman and P.E. Veerman (eds.), The Ideologies of Children’s Rights, Dordrecht, Boston and Norwell, MA: M. Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 95–114. Leyton, E. (1979), The Myth of Delinquency: An Anatomy of Juvenile Nihilism, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Livingstone, S. (2008), Children’s Media—More Harm Than Good, Paper presented at the Miniseminar om barn, nye medier og skadelighet, Oslo. Muncie, J. (1984), ‘The Trouble with Kids Today’: Youth and Crime in Post-War Britain, London: Hutchinson. Sangster, J. (2002), Girl Trouble: Female Delinquency in English Canada, Toronto: Between the Lines. St. meld. nr. 30 Kultur for læring. (2003–2004). Retrieved 04.02.08. From http://www.regjeringen.no/Rpub/STM/20032004/030/PDFS/STM20032004 0030000DDDPDFS.pdf. MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 401 Staksrud, E. (2003), What Do SAFT Kids Do Online? Paper presented at the Future Kids online—How to Provide Safety, Awareness, Facts and Tools. ——— (forthcoming), SAFT 2006 Survey Findings, Fredrikstad: Norwegian Media Authority. Thornburgh, D., Lin, H.; National Research Council (US); Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (2002), Youth, Pornography and the Internet, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Verhellen, E. (1992), ‘Changes in the Images of the Child’, in M.D.A. Freeman and P.E. Veerman (eds.), The Ideologies of Children’s Rights, Dordrecht, Boston and Norwell, MA: M. Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 79–94. Wellford, C.F. (1987), ‘Delinquency Prevention and Labeling’, in J.Q. Wilson and G.C. Loury (eds.), From Children to Citizens (Vol.3, Families, Schools and Delinquency Prevention), New York: Springer, pp. 257–267. Contributor details Elisabeth Staksrud is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, and project director at the Norwegian Media Authority. She has initiated and coordinated several EC funded projects for raising awareness and providing professional training regarding safe use of the Internet, is a widely used public speaker, and serves as an expert adviser to the Norwegian government. More information is available at http://www.media.uio. no/om-instituttet/ansatte/vit/estaksru.xml. Contact: Elisabeth Staksrud, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, P.O Box 1093 Blindern, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: elisabeth.staksrud@media.uio.no 402 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 The Janus face of Greek radio discourse: conflict between tradition and modernization in the post-war era George Pleios University of Athens In this article, I explore the propagandistic use of Greek radio in the beginning of the Cold War trough the bipolar axis of Greek/western, modern/traditional. I am also interested in the ways in which radio broadcasting contributed towards the formation of structural characteristics of the Greek communication system. Several mass communication practices in Greece were formed during the Metaxas1 absolutist regime from 1936 to 1940, only to be reinforced during the Greek civil war (1946–1949), and later the military junta of the period 1967–1974. In short, the profile of Greek mass communication was being shaped by various political – ideological dimensions of a ‘cold war’ confrontation. Greece identified ideologically with the West (at first with Britain and later with the United States) as it was seen as a means to protect and safeguard its national culture. On the contrary, the neighbouring Slavic nation states under communist rule (and territorial enemies with Greece in its recent past) were deemed threatening for national security. 1 Ioannis Metaxas, was a former general of the Greek army, leader of a political party and Prime Minister by 1936. In 4 August 1936, under the pretext of communist threat and with the agreement of the King of Greece, he declared the country in a state of political dictatorship. Radio and propaganda in pre-war Greece Propaganda, as the political form of a broader propagandistic discourse (Pleios 2001: 67–106) became a crucial political and socio-cultural force and contributed to the rise of a centralized economic and social organization by the end of the 19th century (highly formatted in Germany or Italy), where the state played a crucial role (Polanyi 2001). In Greece, such a centralized political and socio-economic organization was reified by the absolutist regime of Ioannis Metaxas (Papadimitriou 2006: 217). It seems that in its first steps, Greek radio broadcasting favoured the propagandistic kind of content and vice versa (Petrakis 2006), whereas both broadcasting and propaganda were seen, in Greece too as in other countries (Cardiff and Scannel 1987), as a tool for the forging of national unity. During this early period of electronic mass communication, radio was seen as a device that could make the individual member of a distinct national community (Moores 1993: 70) whereas at the same time, it could help construct this community not only politically but culturally as well, like in the early days of Greek radio (Pleios 2005). The ideological axis of the Metaxas communication policy was the doctrine of a ‘Third Greek Civilization’. This referred to the uninterrupted continuity of the Greek nation from classical antiquity and the Byzantine era through the Metaxas polity. Thus, at that time in Greece survive not only the interpretative and identity aspects of tradition (Thompson 1995: 184–188), but several elements of its normative and legitimizing aspects as well. The development of radio by the Metaxas regime was seen as part of such a MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 403 2 Rebetiko was a type of contemporary Greek popular music, similar to the fado tradition in Portugal, and tango in Argentina (Cooper and Dawe [2005]). Rebetiko was banned by the Metaxas government because it was considered to be an oriental subculture – hence it run contrary to claims of modernization and represented an ‘outlaw’ culture in the eyes of the ruling class. modernization process. Furthermore, the bridge connecting the ideological restoration of tradition on one hand, and the technical and institutional modernization of Greek society on the other, became the linkage of anticommunism with nationalism. This linkage can be traced in radio broadcasting in various ways: following the example of the BBC, Sunday Mass was broadcast; collective listening and consumption of radio broadcasts were encouraged in an engineered attempt to construct a shared feeling of national togetherness and community; the BBC programme profile was also emulated in the form of broadcasts such as ‘The Hour of the housewife; the children’s Hour; the farmer’s Hour’ in an attempt not only to bring temporal measurement into the private sphere and delineate labour from leisure but also to reinforce a traditional understanding of them. In the meanwhile, popular music and other subcultures of the underdog, such as ‘rebetiko’ were largely ignored, if not banned from the airwaves;2 conversely, western music genres, such as classical music, dance hall and orchestral music, thrived on Greek radio. The formation of radio discourse in the post-war era In the beginning of the global Cold War (1947) and the Greek civil war (1946), the American radio station ‘Voice of America’ as well as the stateó ó A ´ , owned Greek ‘Athens Radio Station’ (P o founded in 1938 by Metaxas) and the communist partisans radio service, E ´ , founded in 1947) operated within the ‘Free Greece’ (E ´ Greek territory. The following year, the radio station of the Greek Armed ó ó E ó ´ , founded in 1948) Forces (P of was launched. In this respect, during the first years of the post-war period, radio in Greece came across, mainly, as a medium of propaganda. It is interesting though that immediately after 1945, Greek radio comprises a three-polar communication system: (1) a mainstream bourgeois-culture pole, represented by the Athens Radio Station; (2) a mainstream popularculture pole represented by the radio station of Greek Armed Forces and (3) an oppositional pole to the dominant culture, represented by the radio station ‘Free Greece’. Concurrently, a return to national culture can be attested, assorted with a departure from western cultural patterns on programme content. The structure of post-war Greek radio broadcasting Raging civil war meant that the government and the armed forces played a decisive role in the media as the necessity for internal ideological warfare led to a stifling control of radio by the state. Editorial and journalistic control over ‘what’ and ‘how’ was eventually broadcast was exerted by the Prime Minister himself as well as other ministers in charge, whether that involved decisions about the reporting of general elections in Britain; the Potsdam conference; or the way in which the speech of the leader of the Opposition was covered. Strict state control, either direct or indirect, over radio waves, was exercised even after the end of the civil war and for a considerable period of time thereafter. The propagandistic use of the Greek media was part of a widespread policy practice that was prominent up until the end of the 404 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 1980s – when the first private radio (and soon after, television) services were set up in Greece (Papathanassopoulos 1996: 259–298). In the aftermath of WWII, the interplay between tradition and modernization and the systematic resort to an anticommunist nationalistic spirit (ethnikofrosyni) against the ‘Slavic-communist danger’, supposedly represented by neighbouring countries under communist rule such as Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, led to the revision of radio content and discourse practices. The official radio discourse was twofold, resonating the national schism between the democrats and the monarchists of the pre-war period: at one end of the spectrum was the state-run Athens Radio Station, staffed and setup along a western European professional code (Ferousis 1989: 6). Modern English music, classical and light music, news and information programmes stood for a large part of the Athens Radio Station programme content. At the other end was the Radio Station of the Armed Forces, founded in 1948, with the explicit purpose to conduct ideological warfare in Greece. This service had adopted a more traditionalist profile, as illustrated in various programmes of folklore and popular music. To be more effective in the realm of ideological confrontation, the Radio Station of the Armed Forces relied on the least common denominator and was trying to forge mass taste, very much like a commercial medium. At the same time, it defended what was commonly understood as national identity in the field of cultural production (Giaitsis and Barboutis 2001: 68). Thus, programme content consisted predominantly of popular entertainment rather than ‘pure’ propaganda – as was the case in Germany and Italy during the 1930s (Reeves 1999: 83). Finally, there was ‘Free Greece’, with a format resembling more that of a radio newspaper, whereas its content focused mainly on information (news, current affairs and propaganda). During the Greek civil war, ‘Free Greece’ was used for the co-ordination of scattered partisan teams (Psimouli 1999). Trends in post-war Greek radio content Two main tendencies can be identified regarding radio content in post-war Greece: the persistent use of radio for propaganda; and the shift to classical and Greek popular music instead of contemporary western music. Propaganda on the Greek post-war radio helped build a phobic ideological and nationalistic profile, similar to that of American propaganda at the beginning of the Cold War (Henderson 2003). This profile was maintained until 1974, when a process of democratization took place after the collapse of the military junta. To illustrate, news and entertainment programmes between 1946 and 1950 made references to the ‘communist gangsters’, ‘puppets’ (communists acting as USSR agents) and so on. Such references were trivial in programmes such as ‘The activity of the Greek National Army’ (a current affairs programme about the activities of the nationalist army); ‘Pages from the activity of the Royal Gendarmerie’ (another current affairs programme about the activities of the nationalist police force); ‘On the spider’s web’ (an entertainment programme portraying communists as spies of the communist countries) etc. A detailed breakdown of the Athens Radio Station programme between 1945 and 1950 shows that in news and current affairs, pre-war levels of MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 405 3 In 1947, the US government sent significant military and financial aid to the Greek national(ist) government. Arguably, the American aid played a crucial role in the victory of nationalists in the Greek civil war. Kiortsi, F., Kordatou, V., Papachristou, E. and Tyrovouzis, N., ‘Radio Programming in Greece between 1938 and 1950 and Its Coverage by the Press’, in G. Pleios and M. Heretakis (eds.), The Role of Radio in Quickening of Social, Economic and Cultural Changes Between 1930 and 1950 in Greece, Athens: Unpublished final research report submitted to the Athens University Research Committee. overt propaganda were maintained, and in some cases, slightly reduced. On the other hand, there was a significant increase in hidden propaganda, which indicates that propaganda was altogether strengthened in post-war Greece. In as much as overt propagandistic content is concerned, an interesting profile emerges: • • The genre ‘news’ ranged between 8.37% in 1946 and 9% in 1949; by 19473 it had reached 12.5% (Kiortsi et al., unpublished).4 The activities of the King, the government, the army and other state services were at the top of the news agenda, in itself a possible sideeffect of the ideological war. A strong tendency towards English-language programming developed from 1945 onwards; by 1947 it represented about 10% of the total radio programming. A radio genre called ‘Propaganda and speeches’ (propagandistic talk shows on various socio-political issues), became a standard routine especially during the last year of the civil war (1949) (Pleios 2005). 4 • • Significant changes can also be traced within the hidden propagandistic content: • National tradition, especially religion, was used more intensely as ideological instrument. Live broadcasts of religious events and religious talk programmes constituted a new radio genre. This will survive radio (and later television) schedules until today in state as well as in private broadcasting. The ‘Hour of . . . . .’ programmes of indirect propaganda were extended from 0.65% of the total programming in 1945 to 3.02% in 1949. Moreover, new programmes within the same genre were launched. There was a significant increase in current affairs and other type of information programmes (e.g. programmes for the Armed Forces), representing 10–13% of broadcasting time in 1946 (Kiortsi et al., unpublished). • • As already mentioned, when it comes to entertainment, in music programmes the ratio of western music is reduced in favour of classical and Greek popular and folklore music, especially after 1947: • Until 1947, the percentage of classical music in Greek airwaves is growing (from 5.70% in 1945 to 10.64% in 1949), as is the percentage of Greek folk music (from 1.69% in 1946 to 8.03% in 1947). The proportion of Western music drops from 4.21 in 1946 to 3.18 in 1949, and so does that of chorus and orchestra music and ‘light’ music. The hidden propagandistic genre, ‘mixed entertaining programme, (which consisted of music, comments and information) reached 6.72% between 3 years of its launch in 1946, whereas the overt propagandistic genre ‘military marches’ stood for 1.50% in 1946 only to reach 10.74% by 1947 (Kiortsi et al., unpublished). Finally, an enormous increase of advertising for radio receivers (up to 20%) was recorded in 1947. Radio advertising in Greece addressed for MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 • • • 406 the first time the family as its target audience: the rise of affluence of the Greek petite bourgeoisie brought with it a culture of conspicuous consumption to which the possession of a radio receiver (and hence radio listening), among a variety of other consumer durables, was connected (Heretakis 2004). It seems that wide changes in social structure, community and family life as well as migration flows, urbanization etc., that were accelerated by the civil war, set a modern urban way of life in Greece, and an appropriate environment for electronic media (Williams 1991: 19–31; Thompson 1995), especially radio. Conclusion In brief, for a long time, radio in Greece was shaped by close political control and it was used for propaganda purposes. This is important because radio not only reflects but also concurs to the cultural and ideological confrontation as well the synthesis between tradition and modernity in Greece. Furthermore, it seems that this type of ‘radio culture’ influenced significantly the Greek television culture and the electronic media communications system as well. References Cardiff, D. and Scannell, P. (1987), ‘Broadcasting and National Unity’, in J. Curran, A. Smith and P. Wingate (eds.), Impacts and Influence, London: Methuen. Cooper, D. and Dawe, K. (2005), The Mediterranean in Music: Critical Perspectives, Common Concerns, Cultural Differences, MD: Scarecrow Press. Ferousis, D. (1989), Radio Broadcasting and Culture, Athens: self-published book (in Greek). Giaitsis, P. and Barboutis, H. (2001), ‘First Steps of Radio’, in H. Barboutis and M. Klontzas (eds.), The Sound Barrier, Athens: Papazisis (in Greek). Henderson, C. (2003), Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America, McFarland: Jefferson NC. Heretakis, M. (2004), ‘Advertisement and Radio 1935–1950’, Paper presented in the conference ‘Radio and Society: 1935–1950’, Astypalea – Greece, June 18–19. Moores, S. (1993), Interpreting Audiences, London: Sage. Papadimitriou, D. (2006), From the Law Abiding People to the Nationalist Nation, Athens: Savalas (in Greek). Papathanassopoulos, S. (1996), Television in the World, Athens: Papazisis (in Greek). Petrakis, M. (2006), The Myth of Metaxas. Dictatorship and Propaganda in Greece, Athens: Okeanida (in Greek). Pleios, G. (2001), The Discourse of Image. Ideology and Politics, Athens: Papazisis (in Greek). ——— (2005), ‘The Social Development of Radio. Reduction of Open Society and Cultural Nationalism’, Communication Issues, 2, pp. 66–82 (in Greek). Polanyi, K. (2001), The Great Transformation, Boston: Beacon Press. Psimouli, V. (1999), ‘Party’s Voice in Stone Years’, Arheiotaxio, 1, p. 15 (in Greek). Reeves, N. (1999), The Power of Film Propaganda, London: Cassel. Thompson, J. (1995), The Media and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Williams, R. (1991), Television. Technology and Cultural Form, London: Routledge. MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008 407 Contributor details George Pleios is associate professor at the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens. His work focuses on the relationship between media and media culture on one hand and modern consumer capitalism on the other hand. He examines visual media in relation to the symbolic commodity production of late modernity and their cultural and ideological dimensions in various fields such as: art, education, politics, economy etc. Lately, he has focused on the Greek television news discourse. He has been the prime investigator in more than twenty relevant research projects and is the author of ‘Moving Image and Artistic Communication’, ‘The Discourse of Image. Ideology and Politics’ and ‘Visual Culture and Education’ (in Greek). He has published extensively in Greek and non-Greek journals. Contact: Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens, Stadiou 5 Str. 105 62 Athens, Greece. E-mail: gplios@media.uoa.gr 408 MCP 4 (3) Commentaries © Intellect Ltd 2008