Journalism, public imagination and cultural policy

Abstract

Although the phrase ‘cultural policy’ would rarely form on journalists’ lips, the cultural results of journalism permeate national imaginations in the totality of their impressions, through processes of persuasion set‐up within an apparent framework of choice. Problematic cultural effects are produced through the mechanisms of gigantic markets whose very randomness seduces observers into believing that they are protected from conspiracy and manipulation. The paper explores certain mystifications within the ethos of mass market journalism, whose professional techniques beguile both producers and public in the way they suppress criticism or sympathy, and eradicate all but populist positions. The paper contends that many journalists are fuelled by an ethos of puritanical anti‐intellectualism. These themes are pursued by deconstructing some of the ‘professional’ codes in journalism and its didactic literature, in order to expose a mechanism for channelling public mentality that is condoned through the anti‐intellectualism of its techniques. The paper analyses media texts and processes of journalistic enculturation, engaging broadly with discourses inspired by the Frankfurt School and ideas of hegemony refined by Gramsci.