Manhattan.(1961 "vast wasteland" speech by Newton Minow)

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

There is a remarkable difference between television in 1961, when Newton Minow delivered his great "Vast Wasteland" speech, (1) and television in the current era. The difference is the increase in the number of channels. When Minow spoke, most Americans only had access to three or four stations. The big networks monopolized the system. In the modern era, most Americans have cable television, and this means that most Americans have access to about 100 or more stations. Indeed, many Americans have access to DIRECTV, which means that they have access to more than 500 stations. No one knows what innovations the future will bring, but it is clear that scarcity is a decreasing problem. Let us suppose, plausibly, that for the overwhelming majority of Americans, television will contain an extraordinarily wide range of options in the near future.

Certainly it is still possible to describe the fare of particular broadcasters and stations, on particular days, as a kind of wasteland. But it would not be possible to describe television in this way. In the modern era, television is much less like a wasteland and much more like Manhattan, in the sense that it contains an astonishingly wide range of options, suitable for many tastes. Those who want to see the news can watch the news all day, and on more than one channel (and C-SPAN is hardly a wasteland). Those who want to learn about history can watch The History Channel (not a wasteland in the least). Those interested in animals can watch Animal Planet (very far from a wasteland). Nor are children left out: the Disney Channel offers high-quality fare for children; so too does Nickelodeon. For consumers and citizens, what would seem to matter is the overall package and option set, not the offerings of a particular broadcaster. Does the idea of a "vast wasteland" have relevance today?

Consider an analogy: magazines. Many magazines are extremely low quality. They offer their readers little or nothing. Taken by themselves, they are not-so-vast wastelands. But the world of magazines is exceptionally diverse, with large differences in topics, points of view, seriousness, and quality. The world of television is not entirely different. Channel 71 might be akin to People, or occasionally even The National Enquirer, but channel 44 might be like National Geographic. Is this a problem? Or consider the more recent analogy of Internet Web sites. Many Web sites are a wasteland or worse; but the Internet is no wasteland. Television does not offer anything like the range of possibilities afforded by the Internet. But in its current incarnation, it is far closer to the Internet than was its 1961 version. Would it not seem odd for a regulator to complain that certain Web sites are wastelands if the overall package contains numerous options and if many of them are good?

We can go further. The idea of analogies itself might be misleading. The experiences of most people are not determined by any particular technology. Few people learn, or find entertainment, from only one source. Most people do not restrict themselves to magazines, or television, or the Internet, or, for that matter, radio, movies, DVDs, books, or newspapers. They tend to learn from, and to enjoy, some kind of mixture of all of these. And if they emphasize one of the available possibilities, it is because that is what they prefer. It might have been possible to express concern about the content of television in an era of three or four stations and a far more limited set of communications options. But in the modern era, people are free to choose among countless possibilities.

In these circumstances, it might be sensible to ask: What's the problem? If television viewers end up seeing a wasteland, it is because that is what they have chosen to see. In a free society, they are entitled to do exactly that. Of course the interests of children, much emphasized by Minow, cannot be entirely promoted by reference to choice. But parental choices surely matter, and good programming can certainly, and increasingly, be found for children as well. In short: Minow's concerns were relevant in 1961, simply because the options on television were so limited, but today's world is entirely different. Do his concerns have continuing relevance? Do any concerns have relevance, or should we see the communications market as mostly well-functioning and free from any need for substantive controls, or even moral suasion on those who provide programming? Why not leave the market alone?

FRAGMENTATION

I am not certain how to answer these questions. (2) But there are several problems with the emerging situation. The first involves fragmentation--not a problem for Minow in 1961, but for obvious reasons a problem for us.

To see this point, imagine that in a technological future, each person could devise, with great precision, her own preferred communications "menu"; imagine, in other words, that programming could be fully and not just partially individuated. In such a system, people could filter in exactly what they want, and filter out exactly what they do not want. Instead of having channels 4, 5, and 7, or even 2 through 90, people would be able to specify, on demand, exactly the programming that they wanted. If they sought to include only news, and indeed only news dealing with the Middle East, they would be able to do exactly that. If they wanted to see situation comedies, or for that matter situation comedies dealing with the romantic lives of people in their thirties, that would be feasible as well. If they wanted to encounter congenial political perspectives, and only congenial political perspectives, that would be possible too.

On the grounds favored by neoclassical economics, this would seem to be a striking advance, a victory for both freedom and welfare. But it also contains serious risks, above all because it may well result in a situation in which many or most are not exposed to diverse topics and views, but instead hear louder and louder echoes of their own preexisting convictions. (3) Like Minow, we should evaluate the system of communications in democratic terms, and not simply from the standpoint of neoclassical economics. And from the democratic point of view, one of the advantages of a well-functioning system of communications is that it supplies one or more genuinely public spheres. In those spheres, diverse points of view are presented and confront one another, and are offered to people who have a willingness to learn. And in those spheres, people cannot monitor, in advance and with precision, the topics to which they are exposed. In a way, the inability to monitor is irritating; but it is also a gain, simply because it ensures that citizens will be able to see a range of topics and perspectives.

Compare this to the situation in which Minow spoke in 1961, when general-interest broadcasters, newspapers, and magazines dominated the scene. An advantage of the daily newspaper, Time, Newsweek, and ABC Worm News Tonight is that typically they provide people with many subjects and points of view. For a democracy, it is important to make provisions for multiple forums of this kind. Of course I do not mean to suggest that scarcity is better than numerous options. A system with multiple channels, not to mention countless Web sites, offers countless advantages. What I am suggesting is that if a large number of options produces a great deal of fragmentation, real problems might arise, if only because people will be living, in a sense, in "gated communities" (4) in which they do not encounter their fellow citizens.

If, for example, liberals are mostly hearing from liberals, and conservatives mostly from conservatives, democratic deliberation will be harder to undertake. Such deliberation requires an ability to have some sympathetic understanding of the views of those with whom one disagrees, and such an understanding cannot come from a system of gated communications communities. Of course Manhattan has many extraordinary virtues; but fragmentation is a problem with Manhattan, both in its current form and as a model for communications.

Social science has underlined this point. (5) It shows that when like-minded people speak only or mostly with one another, they tend to go to extremes. More specifically, group polarization means that "members of a deliberating group predictably move toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by the members' predeliberation tendencies." (6) Thus, for example, those who think that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after group discussions, to think that global warming is an extremely serious problem. Those who reject affirmative action are likely, after talking with one another, to reject affirmative action with great vehemence. Those who tend to support gun control are likely to do so with heightened enthusiasm after talking together. By itself, these movements toward a more extreme position may or may not be a problem. The difficulty arises when a fragmented system of communications ensures that many people will live in a set of "gated communities."

It is not inevitable that a wide range of options will be seen as a problem here. Everything depends on what people actually choose. When perspectives and topics are easy to find, people easily can get access to opinions that diverge from their own. Fragmentation need not result. If people seek out new topics and views, society may see convergence rather than fragmentation. The problem will arise only if many people use the fact of great variety as a reason to limit their own horizons, at least as compared to a situation in which general-interest broadcasters provide an array of opinions and subjects. I believe that we have reason to think that many people are indeed using diverse options in this way and in many domains. Notice that the word is "many," not "most." My only suggestion is that a system of diverse options creates risks of its own; and that fragmentation is among those risks.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates