The common-man pose of elite media commentators claims proximity to reality over theory

Evidence

As Simon Frith and Jon Savage long ago noted in their NLR essay, “The Intellectuals and the Mass Media”, which Owen Hatherley recently brought to my attention again, the plain common-man pose of the typical public school and Oxbridge-educated media commentator trades on the assumption that these commentators are far more in touch with “reality” than anyone involved in theory. The implicit opposition is between media (as transparent window-on-the-world transmitter of good, solid commonsense) and education (as out-of-touch disseminator of useless, elitist arcanery). Once, media was a contested ground, in which the impulse to educate was in tension with the injunction to entertain. Now –- and the indispensable Lawrence Miles is incisive on this, as on so many other things, in his latest compendium of insights — Old Media is almost totally given over to a vapid notion of entertainment — and so, increasingly, is education. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1216

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Bourdieu/Pierre Bourdieu analysis of the ‘common-man pose’ and to Alan Blum and Peter McHugh’s work on the rhetoric of media commonsense; Fisher elsewhere tracks the same media-education binary against education-as-arcanery — connects to: Media reproduce dominant ideology through impartial professional norms rather than overt bias — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 920; Media orient citizens by sifting out intersubjectively shared interpretations of the world — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 41; Comprehending the interrelation of experienced facts shatters false realism — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 801 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Media reproduce dominant ideology through impartial professional norms rather than overt bias #complicates (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 920
• Treating audiences as intelligent is branded elitist while material elites consolidate #corroborates (0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 599
• Media orient citizens by sifting out intersubjectively shared interpretations of the world #expands (0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 41
• Comprehending the interrelation of experienced facts shatters false realism #complicates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 801
• Formal balance and impartiality in media mask real dominance of prevailing interpretations #expands (0.72)