Kalinga
Lit. Fest. session on ‘Media, Medium, Message’, 17 May 2015
“Have media become the medium for message of the privileged and ruling
class?”
Yes, it
has. And why should the littérateurs worry about it?
Dr. Mrinal
Chatterjee
What is Privilege?
Privilege is the sociological concept that some groups of people have advantages relative to other groups. The term is commonly used in the context
of social inequality, particularly with regards to race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability and social class.
We shall in
this essay take in general the social class context.
Though the
concept of privilege dates back to 1910[1],
it was only from 1980s that it attracted attention of more social scientist and
studies were done from different perspectives and angles. Several theories
emerged.
Privilege
theory argues that each individual is embedded in a matrix of categories and
contexts, and will be in some ways privileged and other ways disadvantaged,
with privileged attributes lessening disadvantage and membership in a
disadvantaged group lessening the benefits of privilege. Some
attributes of privilege are ordinarily fairly visible, such as race and gender,
and others, such as citizenship status and birth order, are not. Some such as
social class are relatively stable and others, such as age, wealth, religion
and attractiveness, will or may change over time.[2] Some
attributes of privilege are at least partly determined by the individual, such
as level of education, whereas others such as race or class background are
entirely involuntary.
In the
context of the theory, privileged people are considered to be "the
norm", and, as such, gain invisibility and ease in society, with others
being cast as inferior variants.[3]
Privileged people see themselves reflected throughout society both in mass
media and face-to-face in their encounters with teachers, workplace managers
and other authorities, which researchers argue leads to a sense of entitlement.
Some
academics highlight a pattern where those who benefit from a type of privilege
are unwilling to acknowledge it. American sociologist Michael S. Kimmel describes
the state of having privilege as being "like running with the wind at your
back," unaware of invisible sustenance, support and propulsion.[4] The
argument may follow that such a denial constitutes a further injustice against
those who do not benefit from the same form of privilege. One writer has
referred to such denial as a form of ‘microaggression’ or microinvalidation
that negates the experiences of people who don't have privilege and minimizes
the impediments they face.[5]
What is
this media we are talking about?
We are talking about media both as disseminator and creator of
information. We are also talking about media as an interface. In specific terms
we are talking about news media: newspapers, periodicals, news channels in radio
and television and news sites. We are also talking in tangent about the entertainment
media: feature films, television serials and commercial theatre; also about serious
literature. Serious literature can also be part of entertainment media, but
then, there is always difference of priority, objective and style and form of execution.
Has it all become
an ally of the privileged class?
Yes, it has, to a very large extent. Unfortunate, but true. Media has
become an ally of the privileged class, partly by choice, partly by compulsion.
Entertainment media has always been an ally of the privileged class
because of several factors and reasons; primary of them of course, is
financial. Entertainment media needs more than just subsistence. The glamour,
the razzmatazz, the panache, which is all so integral part of entertainment
media, requires pots of money and the media needs to earn that. So it has
always been (barring some notable exceptions, of course) looking up to the
privileged class for patronage and therefore be its ally. This, unfortunately,
will be the scenario, always. It will
always sing peons to the values, aspirations, political view, even world view
of the privileged class.
News media at some point tried hard to address the under privileged
class. But, with the twin pressure mounting on them to play to the gallery and
to earn more revenue, they are also increasingly catering to the privileged
class. In fact they are catering to two types of privileged class: one, who has
disposable income, who can spend on products and services advertised through
media and two, who are their existing and potential users.
Serious literature never worked or conducted itself like the
entertainment media did, but it becomes an ally of the privileged class from
another angle. It tends to cater to the people who have a ‘taste’ for it. And
it requires certain training and environment to develop that taste. Therefore
though serious literature does not succumb to the pressure to be an ally of the
privileged class for financial gain or compulsion, it becomes an ally for other
reasons. But at the end of the day, ally it becomes.
What if it
has?
There is nothing wrong if media caters to a particular class or section
of people. But the problem is when the underprivileged class finds the absence
of media, they tend to feel neglected and as a reaction tends to develop their
own media, which more often than not becomes overtly antagonistic and
untruthful (if not outright lie). It tends to view all events and issues from a
particular angle and through the prism of a fixed mindset. It then creates an
alternative reality. Call it Rashomon effect[6]. Call
it in any other term. It often leads to hostility. In a multi racial, multi-religion
and multi-layered country like India this has potential to inflict much damage
to the social fabric.
That is what is worrying.
Why should
the litterateurs worry about it?
News media should worry about it. Entertainment media should worry about
it. But why should worry about it? In fact all of them should worry for
different reasons.
I shall in this essay only concentrate on the litterateurs or to be
little expansive – artists.
William Deresiewicz has written a beautiful essay in The Atlantic,
Jan-Feb 2015 issue titled The Death of
the Artist and the birth of the creative entrepreneur[7].
It talks about why artists need to remain aloof from the immediate goings on of
the society, like a hermit, and get on with their artistic pursuit with single
minded zeal. In an age of hyper media, that is not happening. Because both the
media and the artist need each other. The artist needs the media to project
his/her art and him/herself in order to survive in the cut throat ‘art-mart’.
Media in a hyper 24x7 breaking news environment needs art and artist to fill
the vast news space.
There are two problems for the artist here. The first one relate to the
very nature of serious art. In an era of modern media, such as television and
movies, people are misled into thinking that every question or problem has its
quick answer or solution, which is neither true in real life, nor in serious
literature. In real life and in serious
literature there are layers to be unpeeled by the writer gently, deftly. Like
the build of classical music it takes time. It cannot be done at the pace
modern news media with its instant-fixation would like it to be. Therefore, it
is impacting the very nature and build of serioius literature.
The second problem is that the artist is not geting the peaceful
uninterrupted space to create great work of art. Or, the artist does not
actively seek that space. On the other hand he/she tries to hog the limelight,
does networking to ‘promote’ the art. This leads William Deresiewicz to comment
that “The new paradigm may finally destroy the very notion of “art” as
such—that sacred spiritual substance—which the older one created.”
This is how he concludes his
essay: When works of art become commodities
and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a
creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word
that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal
pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may
disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we
need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Conclusion
That precisely is the problem for the artists, for serious litterateurs.
Or that precisely is the question with Hamletian undertone: to be media savvy
and be known instantly or to work like a hermit keeping away from media glare.
How do we litterateurs engage with our art? And how do we, engage with
media and via media with the privileged class. There is a paradox here. As a
writer you may engage with your art in private like a hermit does with his God.
But unlike a hermit an artist needs his/her audience and/or patrons for
sustenance, both physical and intellectual and emotional.
This is a very delicate balance to be done by the artists, all artists.
***
[1]
The concept of privilege dates back to 1910 when American sociologist and
historian W. E. B. Du Bois published the essay The Souls of White Folks, in
which he wrote that although African Americans were observant about white
Americans and conscious of racial discrimination, white Americans did not think
much about African Americans, nor about the effects of racial discrimination.
·
Sullivan, Shannon (2006). Revealing Whiteness:
The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege. Indiana University Press. pp.
121–123. ISBN 0253218489.
·
Reiland, Rabaka (2007). W.E.B. Du Bois and the
Problems of the Twenty-First Century: An Essay on Africana Critical Theory.
Lexington Books. p. 3. ISBN 0739116827.
·
Appelrouth, Scott (2007). Classical and Contemporary
Sociological Theory: Text and Readings. 304-305: SAGE Publications. ISBN
076192793X. [5][6][7]
In 1935, Du Bois wrote about what he called the
"wages of whiteness," which he described as including courtesy and
deference, unimpeded admittance to all public functions, lenient treatment in
court, and access to the best schools.
·
Kincheloe, Joe L. (2008). Critical Pedagogy
Primer. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. pp. 60–62. ISBN
1433101823.
In 1988, American academic and professor Peggy
McIntosh published the essay White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal
Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies, in
which she documented forty-six privileges which she, as a white person,
experienced in the United States.
[2] Sweet,
Holly Barlow (2012). Gender in the Therapy Hour: Voices of Female Clinicians
Working with Men (The Routledge Series on Counseling and Psychotherapy with
Boys and Men). Routledge. p. 71.
[3] Case,
Kim (2013). Deconstructing Privilege: Teaching and Learning as Allies in the
Classroom. Routledge. pp. 63–64.
[4] Kimmel,
Michael S. (2009). Privilege: A Reader. Westview Press. pp. 1, 5, 13–26.
[5] Sue,
Derald Wing (2010). Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual
Orientation. Wiley. pp. 37–39
[6] The
Rashomon effect is contradictory interpretations of the same event by different
people. The phrase derives from the film Rashomon, where the accounts of the
witnesses, suspects, and victims of a rape and murder are all different. A
useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found
in Karl G. Heider's work on ethnography. Heider used the term to refer to the
effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of
an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible
accounts of it.
·
Karl
G. Heider (March 1988). "The Rashomon Effect: When Ethnographers
Disagree". American Anthropologist 90 (1): 73–81.
doi:10.1525/aa.1988.90.1.02a00050. http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/gleazer/291B/Heider-Rashomon.pdf
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