What does it mean to engage in public communication? Bitzer
lays out a theoretic framework for understanding the difference between public communication and simply communicating in public. Public
communication, as Bitzer defines it, has five key features:
1. Public communication is concerned with civic affairs.
So according to Bitzer, Mitt Romney making a stump speech on the campaign trail would
constitute public communication, but George Clooney
discussing his latest movie role on Letterman would not. Although both are
public figures using mass media to communicate a message, only one is actually concerned
with the people’s business.
2. Public communicators (and their audiences) represent the
public and serve its interests. When
Scott Pelley does a hard-hitting interview on 60 Minutes, he is engaging
in public communication, according to Bitzer. With her ‘10 Most Fascinating People ”
specials, Barbara Walters is not. Same
for a politician who casts her vote based on the wishes of her constituents. When a politican uses his position for personal gain, such as the case of Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich, he is not adhering to the principles of public communication by Bitzer's standards.
3. Public communication must observe the artistic principles of creation and judgment, as well as a commitment
to rigorous inquiry and a search for truth.
While the recent Republic
primary debates may help the public clarify the candidates’ positions, one
could argue whether a rigorous inquiry is truly at work. (Notice how ABC uses the tagline “Your
Voice/Your Vote” during its debate coverage.) Most debates are an opportunity for
politicians to engage in the kind of pandering and priming effects described in
the Chambers article.
4. Public communication requires both communicator and
audience to be participants.
A jury is a classic example, so too is the floor of the Senate or a City Council meeting (Here, I'm reminded of the concept of 'mini-publics' from the Chambers article). President Obama’s recent hangout session on Google Plus is
one example of how social media has made it possible for everyday citizens to
engage with politicians. But more often than not, there remains a
distinct separation between the communicator and the audience, as most of us don't have access to the machinery of the mass media system. Despite the extraordinary amount of options available to us today, media power is still relatively concentrated in the hands of the few.
5. Public communication has elevated the role of journalists
into a special class of rhetors.
If media communication was in its "infancy" at the time
of Bitzer’s writing (p. 426), it would have to be reaching adolescence by now. Bitzer’s description of the model journalist is high praise, if a little naïve. He
almost makes journalists seem like Plato’s philosopher kings engaged in a never-ending, Holy Grail –like quest for the truth. The best journalists may
live up to these lofty principles, but I question whether this is more the
exception that the rule. Is the news, as filtered through major media conglomerates, such as Fox News or MSNBC providing information that is essential to the public? Is it truly objective or impartial? Having been a journalist for 8 years, I know of many
journalists who are engaged in a thoughtful and responsible search for the
truth. But I also know of many so-called journalists who are just as interested
in a good story and will accept some facts and ignore others which support that story.
The Bitzer raises as many questions as it answers, but it
provides a good starting point for discussing public communication in the media
age.
John - I really liked how you tied in current events into what Bitzer describes. Something that I thought was interesting from the Bitzer article was when he discusses journalists and how they are the new rhetors of the twentieth century. I am sure there are those journalists out there that don't necessarily seek the truth and leave out facts. But I cant believe that they are all like that. If they are our new rhetors of the 20th century than I do hope that there are some that do seek the truth and wish to inform the public and keep to the standards of journalism.
ReplyDeleteI would like to hope that they aren't all leaving out facts, but I do know that journalism often hide bias agendas that most don't abruptly provide that identity. Often they shield the agenda, hence "hidden agendas". I'm sure there are those journalist that aim for the "absolute truth", but this is such a broad and abstract term. What is the truth to you, him, her, or me? Some facts are concrete, but the perception to that so-called absolute truth is where everything can very. Yes, blue is blue, but from what end of the spectrum did we start to reach "blue"?
DeleteI bet you and Joseph could have a pretty heated debate about the role of a journalist. I, do believe that there are those "hidden agendas" to reach a point of entertainment within a journalist's piece in order to make that piece seem more interesting to draw in readers.
DeleteThanks, John.
ReplyDeleteI think the framework Bitzer provides will be useful for our discussions of public rhetoric. What I find particularly interesting about Bitzer's characterictics of Public Communication is the idea of representative communicators. I find this characteristic a hard one to measure, and I think my concerns fall in line with Bitzer's argument: this attribute of public communication is often hindered by personal, ideological, personal and private interests (p. 425), and "we need, then, to study media industries, economics, and other factors influencing practice in order to discover how to safeguard and increase the representational character of public communication" (p. 426). These often unseen factors seem to make "voting on behalf of constituents" a suspect example of public communication, but the difficulty lies in being able to discern between actions made for ideological/"pocket-lining" political advancement or in a truly representative fashion. In addition, I wonder if we as audience members will be able to fully consider these factors while engaging in online discourse. The question of online authorship seems like a possible impairment here.
Finally, when considering Bitzer’s final characteristic of Public Communication regarding the rhetorical class of journalists, several questions arose for me as a reader. First, considering the publication year of the piece, 1987, I doubt Bitzer confronted notions of citizen journalists, or individuals who produce and circulate newsworthy information through social media sites including Twitter and YouTube. I wonder if Bitzer would have them occupy the same rhetorical space as traditional journalists. Since citizen or lay-journalists are not seemingly guided by the same “codes of conduct and communication…to observe high standards of investigation, news selection, and news presentation…” (427), are they not eligible to occupy this space in public rhetoric? Is the “art of news” (p. 427) suffering as a result of these individuals’ material? How might “journalistic sophistry” (p. 428) look in a digital format?
Caylen
DeleteGreat point, I didn't think about the timeframe of this article. I wouldsay that we get plenty of "journalistic sophistry" from various forms of online news. I was thinking more in the sense of CNN, MSNBC news broadcasts and didn't really think in terms of all the "news" sites on the internet.
One thing I would like to bring up is how money and pride really cloud noble pursuit of truth and common good. The third characteristic of public communication takes us back to the chambers article and how rhetoric becomes more of a sport than a civil pursuit of better ideas and principles. I think money is the factor that forfeits our elections from being an event that builds a better governmental system based on past experience and observation.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing goes for journalism. Journalist lose sight of being pursuers of the truth when issues a rise that might threaten their livelihood or give them potential for wide recognition. A good journalist is one who covers the most important parts of a story and presents that story in the most accurate way they can. A journalist’s duty is to inform, not entertain. In one of my other classes I read an article by Noam Chomskey about the five filters of hegemony and the last filter was about the vested interest news corporations have with the government and other corporations. Media’s reliance on the corporations that ultimately make them exist can inhibit journalist from being able to reveal the real truth, sparing no unflattering detail.
I know I sound like a broken record in my posts, but I believe morality and the ability to be selfless is the very basis rhetoric.
For a good example of a journalist serving the public good by questioning a politician's rhetoric, check out this clip from the Daily Show...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-1-2012/indecision-2012---mitt-romney-on-the-poor
John
Also, I wanted to say great work on the post John. I can't wait to check out the link from the daily show website!
ReplyDeleteBitzer's fourth characteristic of public communication introduces a problem for the advancement digital rhetoric. If the audience is required to possess the ability to engage the communicator on an equal level; at the time of Bitzer's article this was not a realistic option. No audience in 1987 could expect their voice to be heard as loudly as say, for example, Peter Jennings' or Dan Rather's. Fast forward to present day and my first reaction to Bitzer's fourth characteristic is that the audience can participate now more than ever before. But, on second thought, can they? With so much "truth" swirling around out in the digital realm it seems that the overwhelming mass of information might lead one to dismiss the bulk of it. I'm agreeing with John's post by asking, "we can participate, but can we be heard?".
ReplyDeleteI really like Caylen’s response to this article and the concept of representative communicators. From reading the blog post and the responses following it I began to interpret public communication as an evolving concept that is becoming comprised of citizen journalists and representative communicators who look at current events in order to uncover the absolute truth and hidden agenda.
ReplyDelete