Media and the Public Sphere

Agenda setters: So many streams of information nowadays that its hard to avoid a flood.

Since I’m exposed to mass media everyday, I could go about a million different ways with this blog, but I’ll try to stick to just one: the way people have organized around the various media in what Sturken and Cartwright refer to as “public spheres.”
In the Journalism and Communication classes I took last semester, we discussed the traditional theory of the media as “agenda-setters”, being responsible for setting the agenda and determining what people talk and care about that day. Just think about it. What kinds of conversations typically go on around the water-cooler? Whatever the headline of the day is, which is usually determined by newspapers or whatever the big story was on the evening news the night before. There’s also the talk about the developing prime-time storylines, what’s happening on Grey’s Anatomy, and of course, who was voted off American Idol. The media helps people figure out what they should care about, and helps them determine what they need to know if they want to carry out a conversation.

This was a lot less confusing a few decades ago, when there were much fewer sources of information to choose from. Everybody was pretty much exposed to the same stream of information, and had at least a similar media source setting their agenda. Now with all the different radio stations, TV networks, and most importantly the internet, there is a far slimmer chance that you are tapped into the same stream of information as the other people you might run in to that day. This makes it a bit harder to carry out a “water-cooler” conversation with that person. How do you know what to care about if it seems like all these different sources care about different things? The situation gets much more difficult. It pretty much depends on who you want to talk to, or which “sphere” you want to engage in.

The best example I can think of to illustrate or explain this comes from my experience with sports talk. Here at USC I’m involved with the TV station and sports radio department, yet I’ve found it incredibly difficult to figure out exactly what is that I should care about if I want to carry on an informed conversation with these guys. I don’t know which sports they like or teams they care about, and I’m not sure what media sources they are tapped in to, so I’m not sure what it is that I need to know if I want to be a member of their “sphere.”

Back in Connecticut, I knew exactly what I needed to know because I listened to New York sports talk radio on a daily basis. Here I feel like I am part of a group, not unlike the national audience Sturken and Cartwright describe, only on a much smaller scale. I am surrounded by newspapers, radio, and TV all with the same information about the major sports in the region. I know which teams are doing well, which sports I should care about, and what storylines I need to know to consider myself an informed fan and adequate member of the “NY sports sphere.” The talking heads on TV, the radio, and even in print all help me figure out what is important. In New York, I know which shows are on when, which stations cover which teams, and which columns appear on which days. It adds structure to my life, and makes me feel like I am part of a larger unit or community. Here in LA, I know none of that, and the fact that the students at USC come from all over the nation, even the globe, only complicates things further. For all I know, the people I want to talk to couldn’t care less about the California teams, instead favoring their own hometown heroes. With such a diverse group of students, everybody is sort of coming from a different sphere.

Where you live also determines which sports get the most media coverage, as different areas have teams that are better in different sports. For instance, in Canada, it’s hockey. You probably don’t get a lot of basketball talk, but if you live in Canada, you better know your hockey. It’s a similar situation in New York. While you may not get the biggest soccer fans in the world, when baseball season rolls around its nothing but Mets and Yankees. Since New York has some of the best baseball teams around in the Mets and Yankees, the media features them, while paying less attention to the struggling teams in the region. In California, the baseball teams might not be as good, but basketball sure is, so the Lakers and the Clippers get a lot of coverage. If you live in New York, you’re going to get baseball. If you live in LA, you better know your basketball. Different regions have different “public spheres” where they care more or less about specific sports based on how their teams are doing in them.

The different media create different communities around their respective sports as well. Going back to my New York sports radio example, when I’m back home I feel like I’m part of that community. I know the big names of the players on the teams, I feel like I know the guys talking on the radio, and of course you even get the “regulars” like Vinny from The Bronx and Leo from Brooklyn that call in every day. I’ve actually heard some broadcasters get worried when a frequent caller doesn’t call by a specific time, thinking that something bad might have happened to them. Primarily these guys talk about the sports and teams that they live and die with, but they also talk about their families, lives, and pretty much just about everything. They have organized a public sphere around a sport, and beyond that a specific media, the radio; building a sort of sports family.

In different states, you get entirely different radio ensembles. Each station has a different set of shows, different frequent callers, and essentially, different “families.” They talk about different things, yet no matter what state you go to, it’s still serving that specific purpose: creating a public sphere for sports fans to organize around.

So back to my initial question: how do you know what it is you need to know? Well that depends on the different group you want to interact with, or “sphere” you want to be part of. As awkward as it might seem, the best way to figure out what people care about and are interested in is to ask them what newspapers they read or media they consume. For instance, I asked the guys at the radio station what sports website was their favorite. They said ESPN, so now I read that frequently, and I know what I need to know to be part of their sphere.

The problem comes when you aren’t quite sure what “sphere” the particular people you want to talk to are part of. In my international relations class, one of the things we do is go over current events for the first fifteen minutes of class. The professor asks us what has happened in the week that passed since our last class, and we get graded based on our participation in the discussion. Now the world is a pretty big place, so how in the hell do you figure out what you need to know to carry out a discussion about what went on in the world in a given week? Sure, you check the major headlines, and sometimes you get lucky; there is one story that dominates the day and is being covered everywhere. But other times it is not as clear cut. Different newspapers talk about different things, different stations feature different stories. Since there are so many different media options out there and the class is so diverse, it is almost impossible to predict what we are going to talk about that day, so it is quite hard to make sure that you are informed enough to discuss the topics that will dominate that first fifteen minutes.

So with so many sources of information at our fingertips, what do we do? Well, the internet has presented me with an enormous difficulty. Do I go out and buy a newspaper, knowing that by the time I am done reading it, essentially everything I read has changed? Or do I turn to the internet, where I can get up to the minute content, yet the stories have no background or depth? Do I want to know what happened the minute it happens? Or do I want to know the importance behind it? In an ideal world, you could get both. But that’s just simply not the case. As a college student, I only have so much time to read about what is going on in the world, so I need to be selective with the stories I choose. Do I spend the time reading the story just published, knowing that it is still a developing story? Or do I wait until tomorrow when the story’s impact and implications have been sorted out? Should I read everything the second it is published, or wait for things to develop further? But by the time the final story is published and all the developments are over with, there is a new hot breaking story that I need to know about. It is quite difficult to figure out what to pay attention to, and makes choosing which stories to read and follow extraordinarily difficult, especially when you start asking questions such as these.

I find the internet to be both a blessing and a curse. It gives me up-to-the-minute information, yet there is so much of it that it is impossible to go through. So what do you do? One option is to simply read everything. Read the full length-feature that talks about everything the story means, and the late-breaking headline on the new and developing story. The other, less admirable option is to simply resort to apathy. There is too much going on too quickly to even begin to know what to care about or figure out what is important. Walter Lippmann said that “it was not possible for average citizens to keep abreast of political issues and events and give them due consideration given the chaotic pace of industrial society,” and that was in the 1920s. I think he would have an aneurysm if he saw the state of things now. The world-wide-web is so expansive and confusing that it is easy to spend the entire time you have devoted to reading the news simply clicking and clicking, trying to figure out just what the hell is important enough to take the time reading.

I’d be interested to hear what newspapers, websites, magazines, TV shows, radio stations, etc. everybody in the class watches, reads, and listens to. I think it is very interesting to see the variety of sub-spheres people belong to, and it is always fun to find out that you are a member of the same sphere of somebody else unknowingly. It feels like you instantly have a common bond and know that person so much better simply because you watch the same TV show or listen to the same sports radio show. You feel like you’ve been through the same things as that person and had a similar experience because of this shared source of media. Amazing that something thought to be cold and detached (technology) can actually strengthen the community and help people forge strong, familial relationships through public spheres.

Side Note: How the Media Helped me Overcome Homesickness

For the first few weeks at USC, I was incredibly homesick, and didn’t really know what to do. When I was home for Thanksgiving, I turned on the radio while driving around in my car, and realized just how badly I missed listening to NY sports talk radio. I’m not one of the “frequent callers” or any type of radio freak by any means, but it is something that I did every day before coming out here. I would listen to WFAN and 1050 ESPN radio on the way to and from school or to and from work every day. Here at USC I couldn’t do that since A) I don’t drive b) I don’t have a radio and C) Even if I did, it’s not New York. But when I was home for Thanksgiving I realized that this was something that meant a lot to me, so I had to find a way to stay connected to that sphere. Luckily, I found a solution: Podcasts! ESPN radio and iTunes both offer podcasts of all the New York shows, which I listen to while I’m at the gym or walking around, and it really has made a world of difference. Before I started listening to these podcasts, I felt somewhat disconnected and almost isolated. Now I feel much more grounded, like I have been able to tap back into that stream of information and remain a member of that NY Sports radio sphere, even though I am across the country.