[lit-ideas] Re: Rules of advertising and journalism
- From: "Torgeir Fjeld" <torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 18:43:54 +0100
On 12 Apr 2004 at 11:21, John McCreery wrote:
> On 2004/04/12, at 10:39, Torgeir Fjeld wrote:
>
> > Concerning the discussion of the aesthetic and communicative economy
> > of advertising, I'd just like to add that it's kinda difficult to
> > define the borders of advertising, and that this may have some impact
> > of how we relate to the issue. I'm thinking particularly of
> > advertising's relation to journalism.
>
> Ideally the journalist is the perfect objective witness and what the
> news reports is only carefully checked and tested facts. [As opposed
> to] advertising creatives who are seen as professional sophists for
> hire, employed to bedazzle and beguile naive consumers. In historical
> retrospect it is, however, clear that this scheme itself is a
> relatively modern development and one that is now being eroded by the
> same sorts of market forces described in my other messages.
I agree with your assessment of the ideological context of advertising contra
journalism. To muse further on the issue, and from the
perspective of a former practicing journalist (and still card-carrying member
of the journalist union), it seems that the traditional
concept of journalism was eroded both from the inside and outside at the same
time. Internally to the field it became increasingly
difficult to maintain the objective position, inaugurated by the USAnian
subjective journalism movement. (It should be noted
paranthetically that this form of journalism is still not wholly appropriated
by mainstream media, although the more assimilable parts of
it has -- "This is Torgeir Fjeld reporting from Parliament [but not in my own
voice]".) From the outside traditionalist journalism was
undermined by superior forms of the visually spectacular and some kind of
"consumerization" of the political field.
Much more could be added on the internal debates in mainstream media outlets
and organizations as to the rifts in the discourse, but I
think I only want to add one more point for now, and that is that
traditionalist journalism still holds the most concecrated position both
within the journalistic field proper and to the larger social field of those
"in the know", the "movers and shakers" all read New York
Times or Aftenposten or some such. (Cf. the efforts the New York Times went to
in order to whitewash and scandalize itself after the latest
"plagiarism" affair.) This form ("genre") endows its consumers with the highest
degree of symbolic capital. Yet, as has been pointed out on
this list multiple times, it's readership is small and its revenue negligible.
-tor
--
Torgeir Fjeld
torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx
http://home.no.net/torgfje/
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