Upon first glance at today's media -- whether broadcast or print -- it would appear that the speaker is correct. However, in my view the media's emphasis on image is largely justifiable. Moreover, the speaker understates the extent to which the media also covers the substance behind those images, as discussed below. I concede that the media today do place considerable emphasis on image. Advertisements are increasingly resorting to fast-moving, sexy, images. In fact, advertisements which provide no product information whatsoever -- not even about what the product looks like or how it is to be used -- are becoming increasingly common. Also, while tabloid magazines and television programs abound, intelligent discourse can be found sparingly only on public television and a few other arts and education channels, and among the stacks of scholarly journals at our libraries and at obscure websites. And, despite television's tremendous potential for airing the vital political issues of the day, the brief sound bites from our self-conscious politicians today hardly meet that potential.
Whether this emphasis on image is justifiable, it is certainly understandable -- at least with respect to advertising -- for two reasons. First, products are becoming more and more fungible these days; consider automobiles, for instance. Since they vary little from one make to another today, marketers are forced to resort to image for product differentiation. The second reason has to do with the fact that we are becoming an increasingly busy society. In the U.S., for instance, the average work week is now over 65 hours, compared to 40 a generation ago. Meanwhile, the number of goods and services competing for our attention seems to grow exponentially. Thus, how can the growing number of businesses compete for our limited time except by resorting to attention-grabbing images?
However understandable this focus on image, is it nevertheless unjustifiable, as the speaker implies? Media critics point out that undue focus on appearances and images amounts to an appeal to our emotions and our baser, prurient instincts rather than to our intellect and reason. Taken to an extreme, argue the critics, such focus facilitates irrationality, and even sanctions demagoguery. The result is that we dissuade ourselves as a society from engaging in the sort of informed debate needed for any democracy to survive, let alone thrive. I might be convinced by the critics were the media to withhold the substance underlying the images; but they do not. Behind most newspaper headlines, magazine cover stories, and reputable Internet home pages is a wealth of substantive content; we simply need to look for it.
In sum, although I wholeheartedly agree that the media should not sacrifice substance merely to get our attention, the speaker overlooks that the substance is in fact there. Besides, without substance the products, services, politicians, artists, authors, and others behind all those provocative images eventual wither. Sexy cars that are proven unsafe are redesigned or discontinued; politicians who don't follow through on promises are soon defeated; musicians who lack artistry and originality fade into oblivion; and authors without important ideas eventually lose an audience. In the final analysis, it is not the media's job to wave ideas and events in front of us; rather, it is up to us to look for them behind the hoopla and the headlines.
