Democracy without Citizens：Media and the Decay of American Politics

基本信息

Format:Paperback / softback 244 pages, tables throughout

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Imprint:Oxford University Press Inc

ISBN:9780195065763

Published:15 Aug 1991

Weight:340g

Dimensions:216 x 141 x 16 (mm)

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

书籍简介

罗伯特·恩特曼断言:“新闻自由不可能是自由的。”“不可避免地，它是依赖的。”在这篇对美国新闻业和政治进程的尖锐批判中，恩特曼认为“相互依赖的恶性循环”是记者和编辑面临的关键困境。他认为，要成为老练的公民，美国人需要高质量、独立的政治新闻；然而，新闻机构要想在经营的同时制作这样的新闻，就需要有一群老练的公民作为受众。正如恩特曼表明，要走出这种困境并不容易，这种困境不仅助长了民主公民的衰落，也助长了媒体不断未能实现自己的z高理想。Entman在谈到对总统竞选堕落的普遍绝望时说，媒体系统实际上迫使政客们进行煽动行为。

恩特曼面临一系列具有挑衅性的问题：媒体依赖精英群体和个人获取信息，尽管遵循客观标准，但这不可避免地会使新闻产生倾向性；为什么媒体要政府为其犯下的最严重的错误(如丑闻和海外灾难)负责，直到为时已晚；媒体和受众之间的相互依赖如何以任何一方都无法控制的方式塑造公众舆论；为什么更大的媒体竞争不一定意味着更好的新闻；为什么联邦通信委员会公平原则的废除会使事情变得更糟。恩特曼揭示了过去十年的重要新闻事件。例如，他将1980年人质营救失败的报道与1983年黎巴嫩爆炸事件的报道进行了比较，那次事件导致241名海军陆战队员死亡，里根总统在很大程度上逃脱了责任。他展示了各种因素无关的事件本身的现实，产生了两种截然不同的报道——里根和卡特的不得人心、两位总统公开陈述事件的方式不同、里根巧妙操纵而不是卡特新闻经理操纵的有力象征。

"The free press cannot be free," Robert Entman asserts. "Inevitably, it is dependent." In this penetrating critique of American journalism and the political process, Entman identifies a "vicious circle of interdependence" as the key dilemma facing reporters and editors. To become sophisticated citizens, he argues, Americans need high-quality, independent political journalism; yet, to stay in business while producing such journalism, news organizations would need an audience of sophisticated citizens. As Entman shows, there is no easy way out of this dilemma, which has encouraged the decay of democratic citizenship as well as the media's continuing failure to live up to their own highest ideals. Addressing widespread despair over the degeneration of presidential campaigns, Entman argues that the media system virtually compels politicians to practice demagoguery.

Entman confronts a provocative array of issues: how the media's reliance on elite groups and individuals for information inevitably slants the news, despite adherence to objectivity standards; why the media hold government accountable for its worst errors--such as scandals and foreign misadventures--only after it's too late to prevent them; how the interdependence of the media and their audience molds public opinion in ways neither group alone can control; why greater media competition does not necessarily mean better journalism; why the abolition of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine could make things worse. Entman sheds fascinating light on important news events of the past decade. He compares, for example, coverage of the failed hostage rescue in 1980, which subjected President Carter to a barrage of criticism, with coverage of the 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon, an incident in which President Reagan largely escaped blame. He shows how various factors unrelated to the reality of the events themselves--the apparent popularity of Reagan and unpopularity of Carter, differences in the way the Presidents publicly framed the incidents, the potent symbols skillfully manipulated by Reagan's but not by Carter's news managers--produced two very different kinds of reportage.

Entman concludes with some thoughtful suggestions for improvement. Chiefly, he proposes the creation of subsidized, party-based news outlets as a way of promoting new modes of news gathering and analysis, of spurring the established media to more innovative coverage, and of increasing political awareness and participation. Such suggestions, along with the author's probing media criticisms, make this book essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of democracy in America.

作者简介

罗伯特·马修·恩特曼(Robert Mathew Entman, 1949年11月7日-)，乔治·华盛顿大学J.B.和M.C.夏皮罗传媒与公共事务教授，国际事务教授。

Robert Mathew Entman (born November 7, 1949) is the J.B. and M.C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University.