Economics and Human Biology

The education of Walter Lippmann on the topics of propaganda and censorship during the First World War profoundly shaped the sober critique of the traditional theory of American democracy that appeared in Public Opinion. The war also shook his faith in the ability of the press to inform a public he increasingly viewed as hopelessly separated from ‘reality’. Yet, between the end of the war and the publication of Public Opinion, Lippmann still maintained a faith, tempered by critique, in the potential of the press in his lesser-known publications, Liberty and the News and A Test of the News. This article argues that there was an overlooked yet critical influence on Lippmann in the interregnum between the end of the war and the publication of Public Opinion that helps explain Lippmann’s evolving thoughts on the press; namely, the critical responses to Liberty and the News and A Test of the News. This analysis suggests that the dialogue between Lippmann and his critics provides a piece of the intellectual and historical context for the arguments relating to the press that appeared in Public Opinion.

Review of: The Language(s) of Politics: Multilingual Policy-Making in the European Union, Nils Ringe (2022) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 264 pp., ISBN 978-0-47205-513-5, p/bk, $34.95

A paradox haunts Lippmann’s critique of democracy running through his early work in Public Opinion up through The Public Philosophy. Liberal democracies, despite their claim to securing space for human dignity and freedom, can be sites of incredible cruelty. From the racial prejudices cutting through American politics, to the way Americans treated adversaries during war, democracy appeared to do little to vitiate the human propensity to inflict suffering upon others. This article examines Lippmann’s understanding of cruelty as a recurring feature of democracy and how he grappled with the question of how to curb the democratic public’s worst impulses. I argue that while Lippmann offers an expansive understanding of cruelty his analysis continually gravitates towards the role of cruelty in democracy and how the existence of mobs and demagogues represent democracy’s ever-latent potential for cruelty. Exploring his thinking further, I suggest there are at least two distinct views on the origins and dynamics of cruelty in his work – what I designate ‘callous’ and ‘joyful’ cruelty – influenced by James and Freud respectively. Finally, I contend that recognizing the gravity Lippmann assigns to the problem of cruelty is important because it can help us understand his puzzling turn to natural law in The Public Philosophy. Here I suggest Lippmann’s turn to natural law should be read as a radical pragmatist gambit in which the myth of natural law is mobilized to create a ‘tradition of civility’ aimed at curbing democratic cruelty. When we attend to this side of Lippmann we see a version of him that is less a conservative reactionary and more an anxious critic desperate to ward off the darker impulses of democracy.

By comparing the theoretical assessments of the effects of propaganda on liberal democratic discourse about the role of media in liberal democracy made by Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion in 1922 and Shoshana Zuboff in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) nearly a century later, this historically grounded article considers the two critics’ analyses of the threat posed by propaganda to the reproduction of free speech in a liberal democracy. The cross-century comparison of their respective critiques of media demonstrates the relevance of Lippmann’s ‘stereotype’ and his frustrated, but still useful, three-part dynamic of public opinion: journalism, the public and the government. For both scholars, the rehabilitation of the public ‘un-commons’ from domination by state and corporate-driven propaganda is paramount.

Review of: Latin American Adventures in Literary Journalism, Pablo Calvi (2019) Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 276 pp., ISBN 978-0-82294-565-9, p/bk, $50

The aim of this article is to contrast the understanding of elites by José Ortega y Gasset and Walter Lippmann. Although they both agreed in not seeing a conflict between elitism and democracy, they differed in three aspects. First, while for Lippmann the elites are the insiders, those who have privileged access to political information, for Ortega the elites are a phenomenon that has more to do with the moral and the psychological (those ‘egregious men’ who make an effort, who do not get carried away) and are not limited to the political sphere, but include other fields, such as culture or the arts. Second, they also differ in their conception of public opinion: whereas for Lippmann public opinion is the images that outsiders form from the stereotypes created by insiders, for Ortega public opinion is that which is held by everyone and by no one in particular, the well-known, the taken-for-granted. The third difference refers to the relationship between insiders and outsiders: while Lippmann fears the separation between pundits and the passive mass audience, the relationship between Ortega’s ‘egregious men’ and the ‘mass-men’ must be dynamic: the first must lead well, by example, the second must let themselves be guided.

Lippmann noted that analyses of public opinion must start ‘by recognizing the triangular relationship between the scene of action, the human picture of that scene, and the human response to that picture working itself out upon the scene of action’. This is certainly the case for crime scenes. The majority of the public will never be a victim of serious crime, and many people will not have close contact with law enforcement and the court system. Hence, much of what is learnt about crime is from exposure to news reports and depictions in popular media. Lippmann noted that crime is among the most important topics in terms of news output. Two case studies of persons who were initially convicted and later exonerated provide examples of how journalists report on eyewitness testimony when those eyewitness reports formed the main evidence for the prosecution. These case studies also provided opportunities to explore how pseudo-environments were developed by journalists to signify that the wrongfully convicted individuals were indeed guilty after such a jury verdict – without much, if any, reference to the possibility that those individuals were convicted based on witness misidentification.

Review of: Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History, Andie Tucher (2022) New York: Columbia University Press, 384 pp., ISBN 978-0-23118-635-3, p/bk, $28.00

The cultural dimension of politics is not secondary but rather a constitutive element of its social dynamics and of the logic of power, which must be visualized to be effective. Some authors, including Jeffrey Alexander and Randall Collins, have elaborated upon this dimension: the former with the concept of political performance, and the latter with rituals and social domination. The combination of the two perspectives is useful for us to look at the use of the inaugurations of momentous events and festivities with a new light – as a privileged instrument to legitimize a narrative of power and to create symbols of dominance embodied by political figures. This fabrication of narrative charisma in politics could be observed in Valencia (Spain) between 1991 and 2015, during the long political domination of conservative regionalism. Likewise, this case is a clear example of how almost absolute political dominance can fall apart, partly because of deficient performances and failed political rituals. This fact highlights the fragility, contingency of power and dependence on its symbolic performativity.

Jordanian cultural space has been dominated by the abstract figure of the nashmi, an Arabic word of obscure origin denoting chivalry, generosity, hospitality and courage. It has become indelibly associated with East-Banker Jordanian masculinity, specifically with national emblems including army, police, and civil defence officers, and national sports teams. Palestinian-Jordanian masculinities owe their cultural constructs to a different set of socio-economic and political contingencies that situate them in the much-poorer refugee camps of East Amman. This article aims to explore how the Jordanian channel Roya TV has afforded a platform to comedy productions that entrench the figure of the fringe masculinity of the dawanji (trouble-makers) as an antidote to the mainstream masculinity of the nashmi who dominates state-owned television and radio stations, and virtually all cultural media of representation. Adopting an affective-discursive approach through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the top 200 episodes of the most viewed comedy shows on Roya TV, the article will argue that the emphasis on the figure of the dawanji has resulted in high levels of physical and verbal aggression and extremely negative portrayals of female characters on these comedy shows which are widely watched by both adults and children.

Review of: Populism, the Pandemic and the Media-Journalism in the Age of Covid, Trump, Brexit and Johnson, John Mair, Tor Clark, Neil Fowler, Raymond Snoddy and Richard Tait (eds) (2021) Bury St. Edmunds: Abramis Academic Publishing, 330 pp., ISBN 978-1-84549-785-9, p/bk, £19.95

Besides a pure location policy, film subsidies are often justified with a contribution to artistic film quality and the diversity of the film supply. Selection committees deciding on film grants consist, to a large extent, of industry veterans who tend to prefer projects that seem familiar to them. In this study, we have drawn on the concepts of homophily and network theory to systematically study the impact of film subsidies in two empirical studies conducted in Germany. First, we had conducted interviews with film producers about their experiences while applying for a film grant and how this has changed over time. The results suggest an inter-organizational isomorphism resulting from a reproduction of norms and judgements. One mechanism at work here might be newcomers’ adjustments and the self-affirmation of veteran producers. Second, we had conducted a network analysis to assess how being connected to others, particularly members of a funding committee, affects a grant sum for a film. The more a film crew is connected to other industry professionals, the higher the amount of funding received; the presence of a former, current or future committee member on a film crew also enhances the sum. We conclude that the way German film funding is designed does not promote innovation or diversity as policy goals but serves as a means of self-reproduction of industry standards.

This article analyses the architecture of affective witnessing in the biographical film, A Private War (Michael Heineman 2018), representing the life and work of famous war correspondent, Marie Colvin. Focusing on the self-reflexive representation of affective witnessing in the film, the article discusses the ethical aspects of compassion in war reporting and the politics of trauma and moral injury with their dangerous impact on the life of the protagonist. Affective witnessing implies an ethical position of compassion and responsibility for the victims of war, but it also implies various levels of trauma, with maladaptive effects on the psyche of war correspondents. The analysis of the film is the basis for a theoretical exploration of the affective practice of witnessing and the dangers of trauma and moral injury that accompany the work of war journalists.