Media vocabulary was enriched in 2009 by an Italian documentary about that
country’s 30- year descent into broadcast inanity. The film, entitled
Videocracy, was directed by Erik Gandini and established a paradigm: image
possesses power over society.
The film’s message was simple: controlling
images is a key to power. Those who effectively use media tools and understand
media codes, Gandini insinuated, become leaders of the new-fangled videocracy
and take control of society. The subtext of the film was the understanding that
“without television you can’t do anything.”
That is especially true in
Israel, where the media has been exploited not for economic as for political
gain.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University’s Earth Institute,
warned in October that people were becoming “vidiots” and that new media devices
have resulted in “countless ill effects,” including social fragmentation
stemming from “television-driven social atomization.” Politicians are now
brand names, packaged like breakfast cereal and sold with catchy
jingles.
Power passes through the TV channels. Some neuroscientists even
believe extensive TV viewing could rewire the brain and impair cognitive
capacities. In a recent research paper on the media and the politics of the
symbolic construction of reality, Sandu Frunza argues that the mass media plays
the same role in modern society that myth used to play in traditional
societies.
All of which provides backdrop to President Shimon Peres’
statement last month that the “fight for Channel 10 is fight for
democracy.” The closure of the channel, Peres said, would lead to “social
and economic bankruptcy.” He was concerned that if domestic media is
harmed, youth will “all go to the Internet, read foreign newspapers, and not
know what’s happening in the country.”
Waxing philosophic, Peres
continued, saying “democracy rests on two wings – government action and the
critical action of the free press. It’s not possible to separate the two
and remain democratic.”
Haaretz added that Peres viewed Channel 10 as
“imperative for the state, society and the strengthening of Israeli
democracy.”
THE MEDIA has the ability to weaken democracy by permitting
non-elected elites to become dominant.
In addition, even the Israeli Left
can criticize the media for being an indentured servant of the government. For
instance, on January 2 Merav Michaeli bemoaned Israel’s loss of what she called
an opportunity to achieve a peaceful solution to our conflict with the Arab
world.
“It is not only the regime that is displaying total disregard [for
the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative]. The Israeli media – frighteningly
establishment as it has always been – also almost completely ignored the Saudi
initiative.”
Left-wing media critics such as Keshev’s Yizhar Be’er say
military reporters serve as uncritical publicists for the IDF
spokesperson.
“The media’s coverage of the first days of the fighting
[during Operation Cast Lead] was characterized by feelings of
self-righteousness... along with support for the military action and few
expressions of criticism,” wrote Be’er at the time.
In a Knesset
committee meeting on January 4, Haim Yavin described current leftwing attitudes
towards the media. “We are in a kind of siege, suffocating... [but] our freedom
of speech will not be stifled,” he said.
Significantly, however Yavin
failed to demand freedom of speech for non-media types. This is ironic because
the media routinely blocks others’ freedom to express themselves. The most
powerful weapon the media possesses is the ability to prevent a true plurality
of voices from being heard, as per the law of the iba. studies published by the
second authority consistently show that certain sectors of the population -
hareidim, arabs, immigrants, women - are essentially shut out of the
“frame.”
PRESIDENT PERES’ remarks beg a fundamental question: Is
democracy adequately served by Israel’s media? Could it be that the media
undermines our democracy with unethical and unprofessional behavior?
At the
Sokolov Prize for Outstanding Journalism ceremony in November, Raviv Drucker,
channel 10’s investigative reporter, attacked Prime Minister Netanyahu,
insisting “it is the job of the media to attack” the political regime in a given
country. “This is not something personal. It is what the press is supposed to
do,” said Drucker.
But Drucker and comrades have, however, developed a
warped logical construction here - I am the media, and the media must
criticize. Therefore, I must criticize. In doing so, they have placed a
higher value on their criticism than on the intended result of their public
oversight of elected officials: Good governance and a functioning
society.
Benjamin Barber wrote in A Passion for Democracy that television
does not really “enhance literacy [so much] as render it irrelevant.” Do
Israel’s media consumers benefit from the programming they see and hear? Are
media ethical standards of fairness, balance, lack of bias, etc. at work?
A new
paradigm seems to have set in for Israeli media: Attack the corridors of power,
regardless of the credibility of the attacks. Instead of objectively reporting
the five "w's" - who, what, where, when and why - the media has chosen to mix
reportage and opinion. That establishes the media not as an aide to the citizen
or as a neutral observer but as an opposing focus of power which seeks to force
its own values, ideology, culture and economic view on the public. And it does
so undemocratically.
Politicians can and will be notorious. But they are
elected. The public has a voice and can turn them out. That is the basis
of democracy. Yes, the media should seek out and publicize their foibles,
inadequacies and crimes. Nevertheless, the public has little opportunity
to affect the media, the motives and behavior of which are, at times, no more
pure than those of politicians.
In addition, the media demands “rights”
not afforded to politicians or any other sector of society. The media regularly
demand the “right” of inviolability and the “right” to immunity. When media
owners fail to repay their debts, they demand a consideration not afforded any
other societal group. The media wish to be out of reach of normal
boundaries.
What is at stake in this Israeli version of videocracy is the
protection by media elite, as Dror Eydar phrased it recently, of “the immoral
advantage that the Left has,” not only on our screens but also within the legal
establishment.
This presents an additional danger to democracy, for while
the Israeli electorate votes consistently for parties that form right-wing
coalitions, the main power centers of the media, the judiciary and academia
continue to lie outside the democratic will of the people, in the hands of a
small group with a multitude of spokespeople.
In the democratic West,
media criticism supports the people. In Israel, the media supports the elitist
cliques and criticism of the media is a sin, one the media will never
forgive.
The authors are respectively vice chairman and chairman of
Israel's Media Watch. www.imw.org.il