|
|
Anthropology &
Journalism
James Lett
Excerpted from
1986 Communicator (Journal of the Radio-Television News
Directors Association) May XL(5):33-35.
|
This article was written years ago when I was
working as a television newscaster, and it was published in a journal
intended for professional broadcast journalists. The main focus of the
article is on the similarities and differences between anthropology and
journalism, but its principal significance for our course [i.e.,
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology] is its
discussion of the ways in which journalists unwittingly act as agents of
governmental thought control—i.e., the ways in which the mass media in
modern societies assist the political organization in its efforts at internal
social control.
|
Although trained as a
cultural anthropologist, I work as a broadcast journalist, which makes
me something of an anomaly among anthropologists and journalists alike.
In fact, however, there are fundamental similarities between the two
professions, and I find it remarkable that those similarities are not
more widely appreciated. As an anthropologist, I have been trained to
observe, record, describe, and if possible, to explain human behavior,
and that is the essence of what I do every day as a journalist.
|
Cultural
anthropology, for those who may not be familiar with an admittedly
esoteric discipline, is a social science, like sociology,
psychology, economics, or political science. In many ways, though,
anthropology is unique. Unlike the other social sciences, which
restrict their investigations to a specified dimension of human
experience, anthropology attempts to take into account every
aspect of human life, from language to politics to religion to
economics to sex. Anthropology alone among the social sciences is
comparative, historical, and evolutionary; anthropology alone
attempts to develop an integrated understanding of physiological,
psychological, ecological, and sociological phenomena. In short,
anthropology, like journalism, is eclectic. Anthropologists, like
journalists, are generalists.
|
There is, however, one
crucially important difference between anthropology and journalism.
Unlike anthropology, journalism lacks a systematic foundation of
explicit theory and method. What is the journalistic perspective? How
should journalism be practiced? There are no widely-accepted, consistent
answers to these questions among journalists. Indeed, there are no
standards of training and accreditation required for journalists. To be
recognized as a journalist, you simply have to work as a journalist--and
that’s true in very few other professions. Lacking both a reliable
methodology for gathering information and a sound theoretical basis for
organizing knowledge, journalists have little choice but to practice a
journalism that is both uninformed and unanalytical. From an
anthropological point of view, journalism is exceedingly uncritical.
|
Ironically, journalists
are popularly perceived as irreverent, disrespectful, and even
blasphemous critics of society--the “nabobs of negativism” who
delight in attacking long-cherished traditions--when in fact most
journalism unquestioningly supports the dominant cultural value system.
The members of every culture share a particular world view (an
understanding of how the cosmos is ordered and of how reality is
defined) and a particular ethos (a normative sense of how people
should behave and how the world should operate). Rather than question
their world view and ethos, journalists generally evaluate anything and
everything through the prism of their own cultural orientation, usually
without being aware that they are doing so. Like most people everywhere,
journalists tend to be, in anthropological jargon, ethnocentric. To
compound the problem, few journalists are knowledgeable about the
processes and causes of sociocultural phenomena, even though journalists
regularly report on human social behavior...
|
I think I can offer
convincing illustrations of these generalizations. On October 23, 1984,
one year after the bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters at the Beirut
airport, CBS News broadcast a report by correspondent Bruce Hall on a
memorial service at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. The report
dramatically conveyed the pain suffered by the bereaved relatives by
focusing on a single family whose nineteen-year-old son had been killed
in the bombing. Hall made very effective use of his audio-visual medium
to convey several levels of meaning simultaneously. The one-and-a-half
minute report included a closeup of a weeping eye, a shot of a small
child carrying a bouquet of flowers in a cemetery, another of an
American flag flying at half-mast, and a natural sound bridge of the
Marine choir singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The story also
included a brief sound bite from the Commandant of the Marine Corps: “Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” Hall’s
report was powerful, evocative, and moving--a solid piece of television
journalism.
|
What struck me most about
the story, however, was what the reporter did not say. Every
complex, stratified, state society in the history of the world (from the
pre-Colombian Aztecs to the kingdoms of medieval Europe to the
contemporary Soviet Empire) has relied upon thought control as one
important means of protecting the power of the ruling elite and of
persuading the general population to support the state’s policies. In
pre-industrial states, such thought control was exercised primarily
through magico-religious institutions. In medieval and Renaissance
Europe, for example, the absolute authority of the monarchy was
sanctified by the doctrine of the divine right of kings.
|
In modern, industrialized
societies (of which the United States would be the pre-eminent example),
a very powerful means of thought control can be found in the mass media.
Monuments and memorial services to honor the war dead fulfill several
important functions for a ruling elite interested in preserving its
power. Such symbols and rituals help persuade the general population
that the war effort was necessary and worthwhile and that the sacrifices
made by the fallen soldiers and their families have not gone
unrecognized or unappreciated. The bereaved family members can console
themselves that something of supra-individual importance was achieved by
their contribution. By direct emotional appeal to strongly-held
values--through the deliberate manipulation of highly-charged patriotic
symbols (flags, uniforms, songs, etc.)--such memorial services deflect
rational, dispassioned consideration of the state’s policies and
actions.
|
When the producers and
assignment editors at CBS made the judgment that the memorial service at
Camp LeJeune was newsworthy and deserved coverage, they presumably
thought that the citizens of the United States should be informed about
the consequences of American military involvement in Lebanon. The
resulting coverage, however, could not have better served the interests
of those elements of the government responsible for the U.S. experience
in Beirut. This is not to make a judgment about whether that experience
was good or bad. My point is simply that broadcast journalists did
nothing to challenge the perception of the episode that the state wished
to convey. In fact, broadcast journalists were the primary agents of the
state’s efforts at thought control.
|
One
other example--and again, this one concerns an analysis that
broadcast journalists failed to make. In his 1985 State of the
Union address, broadcast live by all the major networks, President
Reagan told the nation that Americans had rediscovered many of
their traditional values. Referring to the supposedly enduring
appropriateness of the Protestant work ethic, the President
asserted that “work ennobles us...no matter how seemingly humble
our jobs.”
|
I was
struck, once again, by the absence of a well-informed perspective
in the post-address “analyses” offered by broadcast journalists.
As in all stratified societies, there is pronounced economic
inequality in the United States. Also, as in all state societies,
there are police and paramilitary forces in this country whose
function it is to preserve the status quo and to ensure that a
large proportion of the wealth in the society remains concentrated
in the hands of a relative few. To persuade the majority of
American citizens to willingly accept the fact of economic
inequality, however, the state relies primarily not upon physical
coercion but upon diffuse means of thought control; hence the
persistence in our society of the work ethic.
|
Americans, rich and poor alike, are taught that the
poverty-stricken are responsible for their own plight. The work
ethic holds, against all objective evidence, that hard work,
thrift, and perseverance will guarantee material success. In point
of fact, of course, the world-wide supplies of food, water,
energy, and mineral resources are finite and insufficient to allow
even a sizeable minority to approach the standard of living
enjoyed by the economic elite, no matter how hard that minority
works. The surest way to wealth in our society is to inherit
money, and that, in fact, is the path to riches taken by the
overwhelming majority of this country’s most affluent citizens.
|
Millions of Americans have no choice but to spend their lives
working in low-paying, monotonous, unsatisfying jobs. Whether
such work is or is not “ennobling” is, of course, a value
judgment, and government officials, like everyone else, are
entitled to their values. In all probability, President Reagan
is sincere in his pronouncements about the work ethic. He very
likely believes that his world view embodies an accurate
representation of social reality.
|
In
point of fact, however, it does not, and that seems to me to be
an important part of the story about the President’s State of
the Union speech. If journalists have a responsibility to report
the truth, they have an obligation to call attention to the
intended and achieved effects of such official pronouncements.
|
My
point is that American television news generally does little to
inspire critical thought and reflection about American social
life. Television news rarely makes people examine their world
view or question their ethos. Instead, television news regularly
re-affirms their preconceptions and reinforces their prejudices.
There’s nothing new about the news.
|
As I
see it, there are three basic problems with American television
journalism. First, most television journalists are burdened with
the heavy baggage of unexamined ethnocentrism. Second, most
television journalists are uninformed and under-educated about
important aspects of human social life. Third, most television
journalists are laboring under a misguided and misconceived
notion of objectivity which blinds them to journalism’s true
purpose...
|
| Given
these problems, why have I chosen to work as a broadcast
journalist? For a number of reasons. First, because I would like
to communicate anthropological insights and perspectives to the
general public, and traditional anthropological media are
ill-equipped to serve that audience. Second, because I believe
that journalism could benefit from the infusion of a broadly
informed, analytical perspective in the ways that I have
outlined above. Third, and perhaps most importantly, because I
believe that the visual broadcast medium has the power and
potential to be the most important medium of mass communication
in the history of the world... |
|
|