THE POLITICAL-MEDIA COMPLEX

Let us stipulate that political communication in America—as practiced these days by government officials, political figures, advocates for interests of all kinds, news reporters, and even pundits—falls short of the liberal democratic ideal. Thousands of pages of scholarly work published over the last twenty years, reinforced by a rogue's gallery of recent egregious examples, make it clear that communication from whatever source about matters of public and political interest routinely is oversimplified, personalized, trivialized, and dramatized. Politicians, officials, and interest advocates try to manipulate reporters and editors in order to manage rather than inform public opinion; reporters try to expose the manipulation and assert their imperium as guardians of the public interest while digging in shifts for malodorous muck to rake; and the show is framed for popular consumption as a series of soap-opera morality plays with a chorus of pundits as the drama critics. © 1992, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.