I think the older one gets, the more one becomes aware that subtle cues and signalling in media shape the way we think about the world. What was once taken as de facto background to the way information is presented becomes, as one becomes more tuned to the ways of the world, an important part of the information itself – we simply become more aware that media is inseparable from the point of view of its creator, and that there are messages within messages. There needn’t be anything insidious or even simply deliberate about this (though obviously there often is) – but it can just be an inevitable aspect of the human creative process.
I often notice this in newspaper headlines, and this morning noticed a headline that grabbed my attention. The Globe is running a CP piece today on comments of Premier McGuinty yesterday on the Caledonia aboriginal land claims dispute. The headline reads “McGuinty pleads for patience as land dispute drags on”, and a subheadline on the Globe’s home page reads “Ontario Premier begs Caledonia residents for more time to resolve a dispute with Six Nations members”.
Pleading, and begging. Both, together. Now, ignoring the underlying story for a moment, the one thing one can say is that someone who “pleads” and “begs” is doing something more, or doing something in a different way, or from a different political position, than someone who “asks”. There’s a whole lot of signalling going on in those words and the shades of meaning that lie between them. We probably think differently about someone who “pleads” and “begs”, and probably make different calculations about what they are doing, the power they hold, the vulnerability of their position, and whether they are, for example, strong, weak, anxious, calm, and so on, than someone who “asks” or even “says”. You get my drift. So how does one understand this signalling – how does one discover what these cues are saying and what exactly they mean? Well, there is the story itself. And there is the reputation of the writer – a name in this case that I don’t recognize – or the reputation of the publication – in this case CP, an organization perhaps not known for any particular bias or point of view. The story says McGuinty “said” some things, and once says he “pleaded” with some people, though it doesn’t suggest how what he “said” amounted to pleading. Other people “said” some things, too. No one “asked” anything of anyone, though. I suppose it was the headline writer who decided that McGuinty also did some begging. The situation seems serious, and it’s getting a lot of media attention, and I could understand why someone in the Premier’s position might want to urgently ask something of someone, but ….
And it occurs to me that when all is said and done, apart from the content itself, this is ultimately all that any journalistic enterprise can bring to the consumers of its media – a brand that will help them understand exactly how to consume its media – for example, what to believe when the writer says “say” or “plead” or “beg” or “ask”, and so on. And it occurs to me that in the media wars, one of the most important tasks for creators of media, small and large, old and new, is going to be effectively creating that brand – that distinctive and identifiable voice – in a million channel universe. And it also occurs to me that the cost of doing that has dropped dramatically in the last 5 years, so everyone is going to trying to do it. And it occurs to me that this is going to be a very hard thing to do.