in 2009 the [Sunday] talk shows told us (by their selection of congressional guests) that the people who matter are disproportionately white, male, senior, and Republican - disproportionate not just when compared to the American population overall, but also when compared to the population of Congress itself.
The broadest overview of the findings were shown in these two charts: the first broad-range overview of the demographics, showing that both women and minorities are dramatically under-represented in Congress:
And the increased imbalance on the talk shows:
There was also one chart showing the appearance of individual legislators--with no representatives, not even Speaker Pelosi--warranting individual mention. I decided to use this chart, combined with two measures of ideology--DW-Nominate and Progressive Punch--to provide a sharper picture of the ideological postioning of congressional representatives on the Sunday talk shows. Once again, these measures showed that what we're presented with on network TV is not the actual country we live in, but a center-right version, which has been subjected to sharp rightward tilt from reality:
The "score" columns take no account for how many appearances each Senator made. The "cumulative" columns multiply their scores by the number of appearances, allowing for aggregate averges to be computed.
The book Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression by Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto presents an organized overview of Social Dominance Theory (SDT), developed by the authors and their colleagues during the 1990s. As the publisher's blurb (from Cambridge University Press) explains:
Social dominance theory argues that the major forms of intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism and patriarchy, are all basically derived from the basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization. In essence, social dominance theory presumes that, beneath major and sometimes profound difference between different human societies, there is also a basic grammar of social power shared by all societies in common. We use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.
SDT argues that there are three main sorts of hierarchy observed in societies around the world: age-based (elders over the young), gender-based (men over women) and special groups (ethnic-based, race-based, religion-based, etc.) Significantly, a recent paper looking at the makeup of congressional guests on Sunday talk shows finds all three kinds of bias are present--although it does not consciously invoke the SDT model. "Guess Who Won't Be Coming to the Studio: An Unknown Congress" by Alex B. Mitchell, George Mason University School of Law; The Green Bag, found that:
in 2009 the talk shows told us (by their selection of congressional guests) that the people who matter are disproportionately white, male, senior, and Republican - disproportionate not just when compared to the American population overall, but also when compared to the population of Congress itself.
(Data covered most, but not all of 2009, as data collection began on February 22, 2009 and ran through December 20, 2009.)
The findings are so clear, and so striking that little is needed beyond presenting the tables of basic findings. Note that in addition to the groups I mentioned above, Republicans function as a dominant group over Democrats, in addition to whites over minorities, and that institutional seniority functions in place of actual physical age.
Here's the first broad-range overview of the demographics, showing that both women and minorities are dramatically under-represented in Congress:
And here we see the increased imbalance on the talk shows:
Which also applies to Senators (insitutionally senior) over Representatives:
Under the headline, "Some Things Never Fail to Surprise," Josh Marshall asks:
Can it really be true that the list of Americans who will appear on the Sunday shows this weekend is David Petraeus, Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and John McCain?
• ABC, This Week: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
• CBS, Face The Nation: Former Vice President Dick Cheney.
• CNN, State Of The Union: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM.
• Fox News Sunday: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of CENTCOM; former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA).
• NBC, Meet The Press: Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan; Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan.
Josh says: "I guess it really is a center-right nation."
his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.
The Pulitzers were announced on April 20, but somehow the Sunday shows just haven't been able to squeeze him in to discuss how they and their network bosses were in the tank for BushCo's criminally fraudulent war, that has actually inflamed hatred and boosted terrorist recruitment against the US. No, the Inspector General's report supposedly clearing BushCo of all wrongdoing was quietly withdrawn this week, and the only national TV interview Barstow has had was on Democracy Now!just this Friday.
And I guess they also won't be discussing former Afghan prime minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai's call for an investigation into charges that US soldiers are trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, following a report on Al Jazeera. That, too, will only be discussed on Democracy Now, as it was on on Wednesday.
These are two different stories that deal with the workings of hegemony and the military, and they won't get any discussion whatsoever in the corporate media, even though one of them won the top journalistic prize in the nation. What clearer demonstration of hegemony at work could you possibly ask for?
I just got an e-mail from LCV, which just launched an incredibly cool campaign to push the media to focus more on climate change. Check out this incredible fact from their research:
We analyzed the transcripts from all the debates and Sunday interviews that these top reporters--Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Blitzer, Bob Schieffer, and Chris Wallace--have hosted.
Even we were shocked by what we found:
Between the Sunday shows and debates, these five reporters have interviewed the candidates 126 times in 2007. They have asked the candidates 2,275 questions. In that time, the words "global warming" and "climate change" have only been mentioned in 3 questions. Three. All year. Even if you include global warming related questions such as fuel efficiency and oil subsidies, it is only 24. There have nearly been more presidential candidates this year then questions about global warming.
Now that is truly absurd. If Gore and virtually every scientist who has studied this are right, are even half-right, climate change will be the most catastrophic thing that has ever happened to the human race, and we don't have long to change things before we reach the point of no return. And none of these reporters is even asking about the issue? Insanity...
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