Maybe you heard that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting sparked a national conversation on gun ownership. Or maybe you heard that George Zimmerman's jury trial for killing Trayvon Martin prompted a national conversation on race. Or, with young Americans Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden being accused of espionage, perhaps you heard that we're conversating nationally about privacy and surveillance, or about freedom and safety. Amid any controversy now, pundits and the public readily declare or call for a national conversation about the issue.
What's more, these "national conversations" are often fueled by "competing narratives" of rhetors who, in the public debate, project certain "optics". We hear this kind of language in political news coverage more and more--language that implies open questions with no shared sense of answers, truths, or appeals to objectivity. This talk signals a shift or further slide in our worldview toward a wider, freer recognition of relativism and subjectivity as opposed to a shared sense of culture and identity. The news has never been totally neutral as it is vulnerable to a number of institutional biases (visual bias, narrative bias, fairness bias, etc.), but now it seems to be inching even further away from its attempt to describe one reality.The declaration that we're having a national conversation waylays news coverage of polarizing issues. Having a national conversation about an issue defuses and mutes the controversy by invoking the illusion of thoughtful, productive dialog held around America's dinner tables and water coolers. The declaration that we're engaged in conversation substitutes for real dialog or conflict resolution. We talk about problems; we do not solve them. We air grievances and arguments, but all for naught because the discussion and coverage of it simply exhaust themselves, and we're left with nothing but the next thing to talk about.
Using the word narratives invokes the idea of a story, a version of events. This is obviously wholly different from the truth. The reader can decide to accept it or reject it. There are dominant narratives and prevailing narratives, but no truth.
Another new term in political news coverage is the word optics. Optics refers to the perspective of the viewer, how things look, and the first surface-level impression a given issue or person(s) makes on the news consumer. A check for patterns is basic first-level analysis. This is something people with a even a passing interest in a given object do anyway, without the help of experts. At best, what is seen is equal parts wall and window, a distraction and glimpse inside. Here, the truth is traded for appearances. The truth or reality is a nonconcern. The impression is stated, and its ephemerality and inconclusiveness is informally recognized and sanctioned.
If this argument is valid, and if it signals anything, it would signal the further disintegration of shared sense of culture and identity.
Notes:
Or maybe this has always been the case.
Update:
Some historians say that, in the Progressive Era, journalism could unite public opinion which would push Congress to pass legislation fixing some problem. This is precisely what a national conversation prevents.
