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There is no public; there are only publics -or- You don’t represent me; I hired you

11 comments on There is no public; there are only publics -or- You don’t represent me; I hired you

There is no public; there are only publics

-or-

You don’t represent me; I hired you

: Jay Rosen hit a nerve — again — with his post about George Bush’s view that the press does not represent the public. Much talk ensued about who represents whom and how good they are at it; Glenn Reynolds links to and discusses much of it.

What occurs to me is that no one respresents The Public — first because there is not one public and second because that is not the essential relationship we have with the people claiming to represent us. Those are the assumptions that need to be questioned — and our world of citizens’ media begins to question them.

I am not a member of a single, monolithic American public. You and I are members of many publics. OK, that’s fairly obvious; we, the people, are sliced and diced by demographic and psychographic and opinion and geography.

Yet there are many who claim to represent us, The Public. Winning presidents and political parties do. The press does. But they don’t. Bush didn’t win the majority of votes; he doesn’t represent us. The same could be said of every President, since so many of us don’t vote. Nobody elected the press; they elected themselves. And they certainly don’t represent everyone since there are so many who don’t pay attention to them.

So the first fallacy is that there is one public. The second is that anyone represents us. But the third — the one the matters — is that the relationship is representative at all. That’s the misnomer.

The relationship, instead, is one of service. We don’t elect politicians to represent us. We elect them to serve us. We shouldn’t call our system “representative democracy” but, instead, mercenary democracy: We hire people to run the government. Sometimes, they’ll represent our views; sometimes, they won’t. But if they don’t do their jobs well, we fire them. And if the press doesn’t serve us well, we get our information elsewhere. All they have is our trust and if they lose that, they lose any claim on either representing or serving us.

What does citizens’ media have to do with all this? It reminds us that we are not one public but, instead, countless individuals and interests. And when a politician does not represent us well, we each have the power to say so. When the press does not inform us well, we each now have the press and power to compete.

That’s why I suggested that the White House should invite bloggers to its Pres conferences — because it would demonstrate that no one represents us. That’s why I so strenuously object to the FCC playing national nanny — because no one should presume to know what my standards are and how to protect them.

For anyone say they “represent” us is dangerous conceit; it is their effort to take over our soveriegnty and act on our behalf. For them to, instead, say they “serve” us is to restore the proper relationship.

11 responses to “There is no public; there are only publics -or- You don’t represent me; I hired you”

  1. bill Avatar
    bill

    WOW!
    We faithful readers need to get you a nice LIBERTARIAN T-shirt!
    As we old guys used to say: RIGHT ON, MAN!
    bill

  2. billg Avatar
    billg

    It isn’t the job of the press to represent the people. It is the job of the press to report the news to the people. But, it isn’t the job of any single press entity to report all the news, all the time. The press isn’t doing its job when it stops reporting the news and replaces it with entertainment packaged as news, i.e., pundits, magazine shows, talk shows, etc.
    The job of our elected representatives is, in fact, to represent us. By representing each of the usually conflicting needs and interests of the people who elected them, they serve the people by facilitating the democratic and peaceful resolutions of those conflicts. They fail us when we allow them to behave as if conflicting interests are an anomaly and play to an imaginary single consensus.

  3. Terry Heaton Avatar
    Terry Heaton

    There is no public; there are only publics
    This is an observation that needs repeating — over and over again. There is no mass market either, only the illusion of one.

  4. robtronik Avatar
    robtronik

    ‘For anyone say they “represent” us is dangerous conceit; it is their effort to take over our soveriegnty and act on our behalf. For them to, instead, say they “serve” us is to restore the proper relationship.”
    Well, it just so happens that this is what our representative democracy is.
    To change that means you MUST rethink the goals, objectives, and justifications for our government system.
    It may sound like a semantic difference to go from Representative to Service at first glance, but it is a fundamental shift in how we empower our representatives.
    What if the majority of people wanted slavery?
    But our representative elected officials felt otherwise?
    I use this example to show that there are times when the representative system can move the populace against its conventional wisdom into a better place.
    If we had a “service” philosophy then the state could never be better than what the common denominator (the majority) dictates.
    Fortunately, the “representative” approach also applies the ability to represent the good “for and to” the people as well….not just as the public sees fit.
    Its a good compromise in my opinion…as we can’t always rely that a “service” philosophy would do the right thing (that may be a minority opinion at the time.)
    :)
    rob.

  5. mary hodder Avatar
    mary hodder

    I don’t want representation but leadership. Leadership from the press would look like reporting with humility and accuracy and context. Leadership from those elected would look like service. Both of those theoretically should have some common sense.
    Bush isn’t leading or operating with common sense when he says the press doesn’t represent the public — that’s nonsensical, and the press isn’t leading in reporting or using common sense when it doesn’t take the time to get things right, and presumes that it knows what the public should know, if we would only listen.

  6. Ruth H Avatar
    Ruth H

    Jason at Iraq now has a very good take on this. Sorry I don’t have a link to post for you but it is about reporters who know nothing of the military, not even anyone in the military, and know nothing of Christian evangelicals.

  7. annette Avatar
    annette

    the press represents only themselves. they do not represent readers and viewers, the “publics” as you say, nor do they explore issues and events. instead, they lecture, they condescend, they try to herd the publics like the wooly-headed sheep they think we are, into narrow pens they themselves construct. frankly, tho i am a news junkie, i have quit watching most news programs and spent that time on the blogs and the net, gathering my own information from multiple sources and writers i respect. i doubt i am alone in this.

  8. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    The Press represents the Public’s Need-to-Know. This is the basis of their Rights under the First Amendment. They claim and are granted this right on behalf of all citizens of the world…The only true aribter of this need-to-know is competition. We, the various publics, will decide what is relevant and what is unnecessary. Bring on the competitors-!

  9. Ric Locke Avatar
    Ric Locke

    No, the press doesn’t represent us, in the sense that they serve as proxy; telling the press is enough, no need to tell the public. Our Government representatives do: that’s how they serve us, by taking care of the details so we aren’t bothered. (Yes, overly simplistic. Stuff it.)
    But if the press does its job the reporter does represent [a subset of] the public, in the sense that telling him/her means that the public gets told. Fine distinction, yes, but an important one. The press doesn’t listen for us, it listens in order to tell us what is said; it’s a conduit.
    Except that it isn’t. I don’t know that it ever was, but certainly today when the “Kerry’s opinions/Bush’s bullshit” duality is so clearly prominent it’s obvious.
    And if the press isn’t a conduit it deserves no special privileges. Bias is inescapable, but if the press doesn’t at least try to overcome it rather than cynically exercising it at every opportunity it’s only good as a vehicle for celebrity PR.
    Regards,
    Ric

  10. JG Avatar
    JG

    And don’t forget, each of us is a member of one or more minorities. For example, no state other than Nevada will have atomic waste stored within its boundaries.

  11. AST Avatar
    AST

    Well said!
    As I read Jay’s piece, it occurred to me that the body politic is like a piece of iron, composed of tiny particles oriented in many different directions, and that the press used to be like that. But somehow Journalism school and communications majoring somehow “magnetizes” them so they come out polarized and all aligned in the same direction. America as a whole is somewhat polarized but not nearly in the way that the media seem to be. Maybe we should disband all journalism and communications schools and go back to the days where reporters learned their craft on the job, without the cookie cutter effect.