News Story

With the presidential election quickly approaching, Media School Dean James Shanahan discussed news media’s effects on the public’s view of the candidates.

Shanahan introduced the film Idiocracy Nov. 1 at Cinema, a screening that celebrated the 10^th year after its release. The film is a comedy that discusses how mass commercialism can shape society. Shanahan used the film as a platform comment on news media’s influence on modern politics.

“Nobody would deny the importance of media in regard to politics, for better or for worse,” he said. “Probably both for better and for worse.”

Shanahan said society has historically thought that whatever is happening in politics at the time is the worst it can get. Even when Abraham Lincoln ran for president, Massachusetts state senator Charles Francis Adams wrote, “His speeches have fallen like a wet blanket here. They put to flight all notions of greatness.”

Shanahan said it is easy to claim that this election is the worst American politics will get, until people say the same thing in another four years.

Shanahan said he has “election stress syndrome” from all the press surrounding this election. He prescribed a political pyramid as the cure. Similar to a food pyramid, the political pyramid has different levels of news media—some you should consume regularly, others you should use as entertainment occasionally.

On the bottom of the pyramid with the most political nutritional value is interpersonal communication. Shanahan said it is important to talk to other people about politics, those you agree with and those you do not agree with. Interpersonal communication is all about deliberation, which is essential when talking about political views.

“The thing we know that’s great about interpersonal communication is that it’s much harder to flame out on your opponent than it would be in other settings,” he said.

The next highest forms of political media, according to Shanahan, are newspapers and forms of public media.

Social media follows with a much worse political nutritional value on the pyramid. This is because it is difficult to verify sources on social media to determine what is true.

The type of political media we should only consume occasionally?

Cable news.

It is vital to separate entertainment from news, he cautioned. The more cable news people rely on for political views, the more blurred those lines become. As those lines blur and eventually disappear, cable news will become mindless, entertainment television.

“Cable news should be treated like the deep-fried crab rangoons at Mr. Hibachi,” said Shanahan. “They are bad for you.”

In Idiocracy, Luke Wilson stars as Joe Bowers, victim of a government hibernation experiment gone awry. After beginning his hibernation in 2005, Bowers awakens in the year 2505 to find a society so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he is the smartest man in the world.

The film shows what could happen to society if people continue to consume only what is entertaining. This mirrors what may be happening to the country’s political ideas in this election if voters do not seek out valuable conversations.

Without valuable political deliberation, Americans may become a crab Rangoon-stuffed society without new ideas or ways to solve problems, Shanahan said.