Blog Prompt: Is Polarization a Bad Thing?

One of the issues Ronald Jacobs and Eleanor Townsley address in their book The Space of Opinion is the popular fear that the sort of partisan narrative and views aired cable opinions shows are contributing to polarization:

To the extent that these kinds of narratives reinforce the partisan political identification of viewers, and to the extent that they encourage those viewers to see the opposing party as morally weak or even evil, then it becomes more difficult to organize a public dialogue built around mutual respect, trust or openness.

      While these patterns are certainly problematic and justify much of the public concern that has been expressed about the growing influence of the cable news networks, we think it would be a mistake to simply condemn the newer formats. The audience for cable television's opinion shows has different levels of knowledge and media engagement than its general news audience...(Jacobs and Townsley 238). 

What do you think? Are the "newer formats"-- the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, The Daily Show, The Rachel Maddow Show, etc.-- contributing to political polarization and a breakdown of dialogue and mutual respect across America's various ideological divides?  Or, does such programming actually raise the level of knowledge and the political engagement of its audiences? Could the popularity of such shows actually be good for democracy?

Blog Prompt # 3: Expert Commentary, Academic Feilds and Intellectual Diversity

Last week, we spent class talking about who gets classified as a "public intellectual" and seemed to arrive at a consensus that the people christened "public intellectuals" are often older, male and white. We could probably add that they usually work for elite educational institutions (MIT, University of Chicago, the Ivy League schools) or for elite media outlets (the New York Times, CNN, etc.). In preparation for our discussion of The Space of Opinion: Media Intellectuals and the Public Sphere next Tuesday, I want to ask a slightly different question about the diversity of the commentators and experts we see, hear and read in the media. In your view, what academic fields or disciplines (Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science, English, History, etc.) are most well represented in the media and which tend to be less common or invisible? Also, how diverse are the intellectual or philosophical perspectives of the majority of commentators in the media? Are there certain perspectives that are over-represented in discussions taking place in the media? Are there perspectives that are under-represented or even stigmatized and actively scorned? I look forward to seeing your posts...

Blog Prompt #2: Who are the leading public intellectuals of our day?

In class this week, we will be discussing the concept of the public intellectual. As part of that discussion, we'll be talking about Posner's notorious list of the most influential public intellectuals in the American media. For this week's blog, I'd like you all to write a short post identifying the few thinkers and writers you consider to be the most significant or note-worthy public intellectuals of the present day and why. In class, we will spend some time discussing people's suggestions. Later this week, I'll post my own list. But for now, I am curious about who you identify as our leading intellectuals....

Blog Prompt #1: The Contemporary Public Sphere

Most writing about the public sphere tends to focus on the ways that contemporary public life falls short of the democratic ideals that theoretically inform it. Thus, Habermas bemoans the structural transformation of the public sphere in the era of welfare state social democracies, the decline of rational debate and the deterioration of the media from organs of public opinion to agents of propaganda. Nancy Fraser points out the way that the norms of the bourgeois public sphere as an ideology continue to obscure and legitimize class, gender and racial inequality. By contrast, Catherine Squires argues that critics -- like Dawson-- who say the Black public sphere is in decline are ignoring the diverse and lively discourse taking place in the rich variety of Black public spheres.

What do you think about the health of public life and the public sphere -- or diverse public spheres-- in contemporary America?  Do you think online platforms like blogs and social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that consume so much of our time and attention are functioning as public spheres, perhaps even as subaltern counterpublic spheres of various kinds? And, if so, are the multiple public spheres flourishing online a good thing or is this multiplicity/fragmentation helping to promote increased political polarization and conflict? 

I look forward to seeing your posts....

Introducing: Steve Macek, Course Instructor

At least a few of you know me either because you've had me as a teacher in a class at here at North Central or because you have seen me around campus. For those of you who don't know me, here is a short introduction:

I am a Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies here at at North Central. I teach courses on media studies, Freedom of Expression, gender and women studies and, occasionally, urban studies. This my 15th year at NCC.

Although I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I majored in philosophy.  While I was a student at UW Madison, I helped to start and wrote for a short-lived magazine of political and cultural criticism  and I have written for magazines and newspapers ever since. I earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies with an emphasis on Media Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2001 and taught for two years at a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, Wilson College, before being hired by North Central.

For much of my career, my academic research has focused on the political and ideological dimensions of media representations. I am author of Urban Nightmares: TheMedia, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), a critical analysis of media representations of and political discourse about American cities and the urban poor in the 1980s and 90s, and am co-editor of Marxism and Communication Studies: The Point is to Change It (Peter Lang, 2006).  I have written articles about Chicago’s radical and alternative media that have been published in A.R.E.A. Magazine and in the edited collection AMoment of Danger: Critical Studies in the History of US Communication sinceWWII  (Marquette University Press, 2011).  I have also published essays on academic freedom in First AmendmentStudies and Z Magazine and recently contributed two pieces about the news media's coverage of the Laquan McDonald case to a forum on the media, the police and the city of Chicago sponsored by the online media studies journal Mediapolis.   

I am currently writing a book on the history of film censorship in Chicago and in the summer of 2014 I co-curated an exhibit on the topic, Banned in Chicago: Eight Decades of Film Censorship in the Windy City at the Museums at Lisle Station Park

Outside the classroom and the archive, my main hobbies are watching and playing soccer, cooking, travel, attending live theater and watching movies, especially foreign films (every year I attend several screenings at the Chicago International Film Festival).  I also garden, though not very successfully. I am an active member of the American Association of University Professors and am somewhat active in a variety of other causes. 

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