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Introduction: S. Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda S. Lichter's The Media Elite
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10303 |
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Book World
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12 / 1986 |
1,694 Words |
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Is the old power elite being challenged by a new class? Who are the main contenders in the struggle for power in America? Where do they come from? What sort of society do they want the United States to become? To find out, the authors of The Media Elite undertook a comprehensive survey--perhaps the most comprehensive survey ever conducted--of American leadership groups. Over 1,500 key individuals drawn from business, labor, the military, religion, the federal bureaucracy, corporate law firms, "public interest" groups, the judiciary, and congressional staffs, as well as the news media, television entertainment, and the film industry were interviewed.
The results will be forthcoming in a series of books of which The Media Elite, described below, is only the first installment. This series will provide a fresh look at the escalating conflict between old and new elites in today's America, with special emphasis on the crucial role of the media.
As America becomes an information-based post-industrial society, the media play a central role in the struggle for influence. Journalists are the people who teach us most of what we know (or think we know) about the world around us. As gatekeepers for the messages contenders for social influence try to send, the media determine the images of society and politics that reach the general public. Thus the media's growing influence can be seen as part of a broader struggle for social leadership. The second volume in the series on elites will also explore the media. It focuses on the television entertainment industry. Titled The Odd Couple--America on Television 1955-1986, it examines TV's changing treatment of sex, violence, racial and ethnic relations, business and the workplace, religion and morality, and social and political authority. It is based on a content analysis of over 600 shows and 7,000 characters randomly chosen from TV archives. A key research question: Did TV take a political turn in the late 1960s that turned it into the entertainment equivalent of an adversary news media?
Everyone has something to say about the media, but almost nobody studies it scientifically. Doing empirical research means that after the results are coded and put on the computer, the predictions on which it was based can turn out to be wrong. Aside from presidential elections, we know very little about how the media actually cover the news. Comprehensive content analyses are needed to fill this gap. Without continued systematic research in this field, media criticism will continue to be a matter of opinion and partisan squabbling.
The research on which The Media Elite is based is grounded in social scientific procedures: The surveys of journalists used random sampling techniques and standard polling questions. They were conducted by Response Analysis, a commercial survey firm. The psychological tests were scored "blind" by trained coders. In other words, the coders knew nothing about the individuals being tested or the nature of the research project. By subcontracting these phases of the research, the authors tried to ensure that their own perspectives couldn't influence the results. Finally, the content analyses were directed by social scientists who were experts in each field. News stories were read independently by two coders who had to reach the same conclusions before the results could be used.
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