Care To Know? Celebrities or Foreign Policy
Published November 30, 2006
It is a commonly held belief that people are too busy to be informed about policy issues. The argument certainly seems reasonable given the oft-repeated assertion that people are leading increasingly hectic lives with little time for leisure. Except that assertion doesn't stand well to scrutiny. Americans, as I corroborate below, have ample leisure time and ample access to informational sources.
An average American child between the ages of 8 and 18 spends about 44.5 hours per week (six and a half hours daily) consuming media, according to a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation report. More than half of this time is spent watching television programs, movies and other videos.
The figures are comparable for American adults, who watch more than four hours of television each day or twenty eight hours each week on average, according to a Nielsen study. Even if we assume that Americans simultaneously do other tasks, say cook or clean, for part of the twenty eight hours, it is reasonable to conclude that Americans do have fair amount of leisure time which they spend primarily watching television.
Given that people have ample leisure time and access to information, why do people choose not to be informed about politics?
Some researchers have argued that people don't care about politics because they are rationally disinterested - they don't feel that they can make a change hence they don't care to be informed about the issue in question. But inarguably fan support is at best peripheral to whether a sports team will either win or lose, so if rational disinterest holds true why do people often possess close to perfect information on the teams (or sport) they follow, and argue passionately over the matters related to sports?
Americans are not information averse; they are surprisingly well informed about things they care to know about like celebrity gossip and football. They also spend fair amount of time and energy collecting, regurgitating and discussing this information. While talking about sports people show a surprising amount of talent for remembering and accurately interpreting statistics. So why is it that Americans are willing to spend time and energy in collecting entertainment and sports while showing little interest in foreign or even domestic policy?
Admittedly policy issues are generally more complex than celebrity news. Perhaps people's interest in entertainment news is driven by the fact that consuming entertainment news is less cognitively demanding. The explanation seems inadequate given people (perhaps mainly men) do keep track of elaborate sports statistics and present well articulated positions on why a certain team is better than the other.
One can perhaps argue that given the general lack of morally divisive issues in entertainment news, people feel more comfortable discussing celebrities than, say, abortion. But then certainly there are other policy issues that are bereft of morally divisive factors.
It seems though that most political information is presented in identity packets rather than idealogical packets. Choices are explained and understood as liberal or conservative choices. Choices marked with identity dissuade analysis and reflection. That fact, combined with the chronic lack of factual information on relevant policy topics on American television, means there isn't much hope that people will get to critically think about policy problems.
- Care To Know? Celebrities or Foreign Policy
- Published: November 30, 2006
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Media
- Writer: Spincycle
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Comments on this articleComments
Well, Diana, it takes all kinds to make a world go round. Politicians my all be a bunch of fakers and liars, handled to death and sold like toothpaste without a trace of humanity in them. Having gotten to know a few personally, I know that's not true, but that is what comes across on the boob tube.
BUT THE ISSUES THEY DEAL WITH ARE DAMNED REAL - AS REAL AS LIFE AND DEATH. And that is what makes politics interesting at all. My home is on the line. My life is on the line.
See what your husband has to say on the matter. His life is on the line, too, if I recall...
Sports are and always have been superficial and boring, celebrities good only when they do their art well. However, your article points to the terror of a populace content with absorbing a Net-full of entertaining information and avoiding more complex issues.
The thought that "Americans are not information averse; they are surprisingly well informed about things they care to know about like celebrity gossip and football."
"Information averse" -- I love it! America has problems, we seem to have lost our collective way -- but you have put it in perspective with this great turn of phrase.
Talk of mom and apple pie, the Ducks versus the Geese in today's big Bowl; but, as Ruvy and Diana agreed, the issues of substance are less immediate, less entertaining than first down or Mel's last stand but they really are about life and death. Politicians have a deep responsibility to work up a sweat and get issues across to the people.
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i'm not fan of sports or politics, but i can tell you why so many assert their disinterest in one thing when their reasoning is inconsistent with their interest in another thing...
sports offers something rarely seen in politics: the real deal...sure, there are replays and analysis, but first there is the game itself and the players themselves doing the thing they do best...too, what you see is what you get regardless of what anyone says about it afterward...you saw it, you felt it, you assimilated it...what someone says about it afterward rarely impacts the fan/viewer's first impression...
initially, and this is where the interest lies, the whole sports thing is between the fan/viewer and the players...it is this sense of one-on-one that draws the fans...what happens next (replay, commentary, commercial, etc) is as good as mute per the reason the fan pays to get to see the game in the first place...
no such dynamic exists in politics...the majority of the "game" goes on behind closed doors...there is no one-on-one...we are not privy to a first impression all of our own...it isn't between the constituent and the politician; it's instead between the reporter/commentatator and the viewer...this disconnect has an inherent "who cares?" factor built right in...
even when we're directly addressed (speeches, etc), we know the words were written by someone else, the speech itself is read from a teleprompter, and the whole thing has been rehearsed...
in sports, the players are practiced, but the game and how they play is not choreographed...in politics, there's very little improv, thinking fast on one's feet, or saying something that wasn't written for you and/or rehearsed...the viewer tunes in to see how the politician does under pressure...they want to see the politician's character shine through - be it good or bad...they can get this in sports from the players and even the coaches, but no such thing exists in politics anymore...
when improv and politics do mix, it makes for great fun and sometimes very embarrassing moments for the politicians...it also makes for rare one-on-one moments between constituent and politician such that the constituent gets a taste of the real deal...still, this happens too infrequently to be reliable, thus a lack of reliable interest...
anyone's idea that politics need not be entertaining to be interesting is ridiculous...it's tantamount to saying history is just names, dates and events when we all know it's much more than that...
politicians aren't real...viewers want what's real...while sports are practiced, they're not rehearsed...
if politicians want to rally constituents/viewers, they're going to have to give them something to see...for most americans, that means giving them something real...