Achieving Intersubjectivity in a Fractured Media Landscape - Research Paper Example

? Politics and Media al Affiliation) Inter ivity Hewes and Planalp propose that communication takes place when an individual’ behavior impacts another one’s behavior or cognitive state (1987). Hence the term intersubjectivity means that two or more people reach a common understanding or belief by means of shared knowledge, undergoing a common experience or through their social interaction (Hewes & Planalp, 1987, p.146). Without the establishment of these common grounds, communication cannot take place (Darwish, 2008). Hence intersubjectivity is both a contributor and a vital product of communication. In order to achieve this sharing of cognitions, one needs to understand the other’s frame of reference. For effective intersubjectivity, the producer of the message needs to adapt it according to receivers’ interpretive process. On the other hand in order to effectively understand the message, the receiver needs to interpret the message in accordance to its source. Key Challenges to Achieving Intersubjectivity in a Fractured Media Landscape The media landscape is changing. Presently people are shifting from traditional forms of media like newspaper and television to the web , blogs, RSS feeds and social media sites to obtain their news updates. Initially what had been a passive audience has now become active with the help of these non traditional media (Jisun. Et al, 2011). The users are now capable of filtering, sharing and commenting on news. Just like all walks of life, politics too has been greatly influenced by the new media. Since 2008, politicians would not think whether or not to use the new media, but how to incorporate it. President Obama is often cited as one of the key candidates who changed the face of political campaigning by utilizing networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Some even claim that President Obama’s success in Iowa had a great deal to do with his ability to mobilize young voters through the new media (Perlmutter, 2008, p.160). He was effectively able to achieve intersubjectivity through his campaign by truly understanding the needs of his listeners. The youth generally perceived politics are dirty and didn’t want to get involved, through his campaign President Obama attempted to make politics inspiring and interesting. He also chose the best media—the social website to aggressively deliver the message. The use of SNS cannot be applied in all instance because according to a survey it was found that the greater the political involvement of a voter, the less likely they were to use SNS for political information. This suggests that although SNS is significant in the US as a political tool for furthering the same thoughts in politics or for campaigns and for acquiring support, other resources also need to be utilized to gain favor of politically active voters. According to the intersubjectivity groundwork set out by Hewes and Planalp, a similar concept was propagated by Hawkins and Daly who proposed that communication depends on knowledge. And in order to have effective communication cognition is mandatory. The producer of the message should be capable of relaying their intent and the receiver of the message must be able to attach cognitive meaning to them (Hawkins & Daly, 1988, p.222). In order to reach a consensual meaning of the message both the parties should have shared meaning and cognitive variables. Selective Reinforcing and Challenge Avoidance As we have established that cognition is vital to intersubjectivity, any lack thereof can result in failure to achieve intersubjectivity. Once the receiver or producer is engaging in selective reinforcement of the messages, they are altering the cognition. Through selective exposure, the receiver or producer picks the elements from the message that suits them and filters out the rest of the information. This selective exposure can enable them to intentionally focus their attention towards structural features or physiological characteristics—and not look at the message as a whole (Hawkins & Daly,1988). This can result in defensive selection of message that is in congruence to their attitude. According to Garrett, the selective challenge avoidance is far more damaging to democracy than selective reinforcing. In terms of media landscape, in the 2000 campaign survey it was concluded that voters went online to seek like-minded persons as well as few persons with conflicting view-points (Garrett, 2009, p.669). However, it is noteworthy that during that time fewer people relied on the internet as their source of news which consistently improved by 2008.In suppot of selective reinforcement seeking, it was concluded that during those surveys Bush supporters relied greatly on conservative and Republican websites are opposed to Kerry supporters. But there were different approaches to selective challenge avoidance since both would willingly access sites to look-up challenging view points. Round the Clock News Coverage The media process involves three main steps. The first is the selection of the media and the determining the type. The second step involves the media exposure which relates to the cognitive processing of the message, this step is very crucial because here is where selective exposure takes place. The final step is to reflect on the information obtained and to discuss it with other people and act on the new information (Blumler, 1979, p.36). Presently the various media available are focusing more on minute issues and less on issue that really matter. According to Gaziano’s review of 58 students, there is a considerable Knowledge Gap that exist between the higher and lower SES (p.486). The higher SES tend to process intersubjectivity more rapidly and more efficiently than the lower SES. This leads for a hugs knowledge gap to appear between the two (Rogers, 2001, p.111). Thus when selective exposure is paired with media wasting time on minute issues, the filtered out information that actually reaches these lower SES, should be very incomplete. There I also a plethora of new resources, so the receiver is overwhelmed. The vast increase in the new resources would lead to an increased knowledge gap, especially if the lower SES has unequal accessibility and usage of the new media (Gaziano, 1983, p.486). The implications of the study on the strategy of the New Hampshire candidate are that several supporters might make more use of democratic sites or liberal sites that those in several other states and that they might support or engage in selective reinforcement seeking. There are also implications that there will be less selective challenge avoidance. This means that the supporters will have more ability to deal with challenging or conflicting information than in other areas. The findings also offer hope for intersubjectivity when it implies that there is a high usage of mainstream media, more than 80 percent when compared to less than ten percent having low usage. However, there are cautions for intersubjectivity as the study suggests that there is significant challenge avoidance especially for those who do not use multiple media sources and online news (Garrett, 2009). There is also a lack of consistency amongst the messages, a multiple sources are sending out the message it has become increasingly difficult to maintain consistency. Lang proposed the motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP). The message processing involves three sub-processes: encoding, storage and retrieval (Lang, 2006, p.24). These three are simultaneously occurring processes. Methods for Overcoming Challenges According to Herman, the mainstream US media depends extensively on elite information sources they also indulge in propaganda campaigns that serve the elite interests. Media has become solely a profit seeking business (112). They rely heavily on the information provided to them by the government and powerful businesses. Both of these pressurize the media by threatening to pull back on advertising, licenses or taking legal action (Herman, 2000, p.112). Automatically this has had an impact on impartial reporting and promoting the full-side of the picture. In terms of intersubjectivity this is selective exposure too—the professionalism suffers, there is less objectivity and control of external parties through domination of resources. Such weak points of the media enabled Cain to successfully put forth his liberal media attack argument. This has enabled him to get attention, challenge Perry’s approach, deliver an approximately $1 million message and most importantly take attention away from the weaknesses in his own policy. The key to overcoming challenges of intersubjectivity take roots from objective reporting, this form of reporting would not be conductive to the demands of the news media and deliver the message with responsibility (Udick, 199, p.157). In order to overcome this challenge of intersubjectivity, producers need to engage in “multi-perspectival journalism”, this form of journalism incorporates diverse non-institutionalized interpretations. They have potential of representing a larger audience’s opinion, incorporate varying constituent social groups, authentically represent the societal goals and have better access to intelligence. Routine of two- sidedness makes it difficult to report political events, as the development of argument of the events and the contexts requires the weighing of values and events and the use of judgment, something that limits objectivity (Udick, 1993, p.157). The limitation of objectivity also affects negatively intersubjectivity as it brings challenging or conflicting knowledge. One of the key elements in communicating the diversity of opinion is through diffusion of innovation. Diffusion is a process which enables innovation to be communicated by using channels over a period of time by members who belong to the same social system (Rogers, 1983, p.111). The tea party’s adoption taper off as its population is more than 80 percent among the republican voters, however, among the other voters its adoption takes off as it does not contain more than 25 percent of its voters. The party is a centralized innovation. The party also suggests homophily. The change agents in this diffusion are likely to be those individuals who are white, male, older, married, and conservative and Christians. The media plays a huge role in this diffusion in that its usage and networks of interpersonal communication determine whether the diffusion is an early adopter or a late one. The structure of the Republican Party has been affected by the adoption of the teas party by affecting its social norms, the social structure and system and by changing its change agents. By opposing innovation or promoting it, the tea party can influence the election of the next president, and by serving as a behavioral and social model (Rogers, 1983). Another means of delivering the truth is through the support of humor. It is able to achieve this through satirical commends which speak truth to power using comedy and humor. Satirical humor is brutally honest, insightful and non- threatening and, therefore, it can speak the truth to the power more than other media can (Fox, 2011, p.48). However the term “truth” is also vague from the journalistic point of view. Social science does not use words like “proof’ or “proved” such words are relative. One thing though, is for certain and that is there is little probably of reaching that truth with just one source. So the great options that the media today provides us with vastly increase the possibility of something close to the truth to reach us! References Blumler, J. (1979). The role of theory in uses and gratifications studies. Communication Research, 6(1), 9-36. Darwish, A. (2008). Optimality in Translation. Writescope Publishers Fox, J. R. (2011). Wise fools: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as modern- day jesters in the American court. In A. Amarasingam (Ed.), the Stewart / Colbert effect: Essays on the real impacts of fake news (136-148). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Garrett, R. K. (2009). Politically motivated reinforcement seeking: Reframing the selective exposure debate. Journal of Communication, 59(4), 676-699. Gaziano, C. (1983). The knowledge gap: An analytical review of media effects. Communication Research, 10(4), 447-486. Hawkins, R.P., & Daly, J. (1988). Cognition and communication. In Hawkins, R. P., Wiemann, J. M., & Pingree, S. (Eds.), advancing communication science: Merging mass and interpersonal processes (pp. 191-222). Newbury Park: Sage. Herman, E. S., (2000). The propaganda model: A retrospective. Journalism Studies, 1(1), 101-112. Hewes, D.E., & Planalp, S. (1987). The individual’s place in communication science. In C. R. Berger & S. H. Chaffee (Eds.), Handbook of communication science (pp. 146-183). 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