TRANSPORT IMPACTS

What makes the public a public that cares and is willing to demonstrate this through both their citizenship and behavioural actions?

A campaign by a local newspaper pushing their agenda, a few seminars, public consultations and opening for submissions sponsored by the media…. or a restructuring of media corporations so they don’t rely on the money from many messages made by professional manipulators to make us want things we didn’t really want before.  Maybe we need a media that is there to sell information and empowerment to the public rather than sell the public’s attention to the biggest corporations of our time.

If we are to be serious about developing sustainable transport within our city, we have to acknowledge that the media is not a benign institution - and I’m not going down the track of media watch, looking at particularly nasty or incompetent pieces of work.  I’m talking about the way it functions from day to day.

My first point is that media sells attention

We go and buy the paper, turn on the TV or the radio, and we feel like we are being served.  The people and performances we are exposed to are there to make us want to watch, to keep us interested, entertained and if they are doing their job right - getting a good part of our attention.  That doesn’t seem like such a bad deal, you as the “consumer” of this production the media has put on for you, could almost feel like you were being very well attended to.  But why?  These media institutions are not purely, altruistic charities - just here for our pleasure.  They have your attention for a reason.  They are going to sell it to the highest bidder.  One of your most valuable assets is up for grabs and it’s going to be bought by a fast food chain, a toy manufacturer or the automotive industry.   It almost seems unfair that people are acquiring and selling something of yours while you are distracted by whether Darren will win the million dollar prize.

My second point is that media’s clients are corporations with special interests

So, the media industry is being paid by these big corporations in exchange for our attention.  How would this affect the content of the media?  Well, usually you don’t bite the hand that feeds you and this rings very true for our friends in media land.  While advertising dollars isn’t going to prevent any mention of opposing views, it has the potential to dull down these arguments and ensure that the point of view which is more interesting for the concerned corporation, will be heard.

This was a big issue in the anti-tobacco movement.  The debate may have pushed through certain barriers much faster if the media weren’t so reliant on the allegiance of tobacco companies as one of the biggest sources of advertising money.   It is worth noting that when tobacco advertisements were banned on TV, the tobacco companies diversified and bought up “advertisable” products so they could continue to “censor” the medias coverage of the tobacco debate.  Nowadays, media are probably more dependent on “Quit” advertisements, so the whole allegiance has gone full circle and may be even overly sympathetic towards the anti-smoking sentiment

My third point is that media employees don’t understand the power of their messages

You say one thing and you portray a list of statements and sentiments that would fill the rest of the news bulletin if you had to explain them all.  I will not talk about all of them right now, but will try and explain some of the more important.

Firstly, normative messages will arise from you innocent account.  There are injunctive norms which are all about what people ought to be doing.  Most journalists, producers and script writers are pretty aware of these norms.  They gather that when someone says this is good or bad, this is recommended or not, legal or not, sensible or not, responsible or not - people get a certain message about whether or not they ought to be doing it.  Descriptive norms, however, are often  alluded to without the knowledge of the person who presents the messages.  These are the norms that are all about the fact that other people are behaving this way - describing what is happening with no apparent judgment.  Descriptive norms are very powerful as we are more like sheep than we know.  We also are not consciously aware that we are following blindly.  So, every time we are told how bad it is that there are so many people doing such bad things, we are provided with the injunctive norm that we shouldn’t behave like this, but we are also provided with a descriptive norm that so many people behave like this that it is an accepted way to behave.  Maybe journalists have to think less about sensationalizing stories and more about the consequences of their messages.

(Note I may have unwittingly introduced the descriptive norm that most journalists don’t worry about descriptive norms and hence encouraging them to continue to carry on in this fashion - aaagh sometimes I feel like I just create traps of inevitable hypocrisy while just trying to benignly analyze the world…)

Secondly, messages often carry a sense of empowerment or helplessness, a sense of the public being free agents or mere products of the system.  Allocating blame for problems, responsibility of action and victims of situation leads us to potentially feel guilty, victimized, empowered or overwhelmed.  The truth is, usually these stories are not that simple, distribution of blame, responsibility and affliction of problems is spread across a wide range of institutions of which the public are included.  The media often simplify these stories and the public can often be given a passive role - this will lead to helplessness as they feel they can only merely watch as the stories unravel before them each day.  It is important that the stories in the media make the public feel empowered without feeling overwhelmed.  This is a potentially powerful tool the media possesses but lacks the confidence or competence to use.

So today, I have just had a brief (and incomplete) look at the media and the potential ways they could improve the people power for a more sustainable world.  I think I would like to continue this with a look at some other major institutions which have powers to help the people have power.  Who knows, one day we might be able to work together enough to push buses along like I witnessed in India.