Values In Media - Part I
In light of my diatribe on the tripe the media is pushing upon us, I thought I would offer some ideas on how values are communicated in our entertainment media. Despite the criticism of many groups centered around so-called family values, and books written by critics like Michael Medved chastising the entertainment media industry for being “anti-religious,” there are shows that offer us insights into values and ethics, religion and faith, as well as how to deal with everyday circumstances.
VALUES IN BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT
The number one show that I like for demonstrating values in a corporate or governmental setting is Star Trek. Every episode in each Star Trek series brought us ethical questions that are pertinent to our social reality. While the original series did so with quite a bit of overacting, the integrity of the questions that were being explored remained intact. Star Trek TNG offered not only these ethical dilemmas that caused us to explore our social realities, but also modeled interactions and values that should exist in corporate, military and governmental activities. The modeling of these issues and values were so effective that some college instructors (including myself and some of my colleagues) have used episodes to provoke questions on labor-management relations, the value of the individual, the role of the corporation, the role of government, and how we should treat each other. The Deep Space Nine series offered us insights into intercultural relations, conflicts, war, faith, responsibility, intra-personal conflicts, as well as many other dilemmas and issues.
The West Wing offers us a view of what it might be like in the roles of government, complete with all the compromise, sacrifice, wheeling and dealing, and waxing/waning through hope and despair. It shows us that we can be imperfect creatures and still hold true to fundamental truths about how we want to live, be treated, work, and deal with problems. While only a drama, it takes on many of the questions that our governmental leaders tackle on a daily basis. Unfortunately, we can only hope that our political leaders and law makers tackle their tasks with the integrity modeled in this show. Alas, not many of our politicians have such integrity. What is especially good about West Wing is its ability to show how real circumstance can lead to real failure in our efforts to adhere to our values. Then too, it shows us how our failures do not have to remain failures, end our possibilities, or lead us into an abyss of hopelessness.
The Law And Order series are good as well. While these shows are constantly “ripping” stories “direct from headlines,” we still get insights into the decision-making, motivation, processes and challenges of law enforcement and criminal prosecution. While we are asked to be entertained, we are also asked to examine issues of racism, rage, domestic violence, poverty, mental illness, sexuality, social integrity, and more. In keeping with our adversarial system, we are asked to view our values in contrast. Do we value “law and order” as mush as we value mercy and hope. Does our legal system have an obligation to seek justice or effect revenge and punishment. While we are currently inundated with episodes from all the LO series, the show remains a model for our values and calls us to question what it is that we do value.
The Third Watch and NYPD Blue also called into question our values and modeled the effects our decisions have on our society, but in a more down-and-dirty interpersonal way. These shows called us to examine our concepts of “connectedness,” the value of belonging that Maslow identified as one of our basic motivators, when conflicts arise that cause us to be caught in a cognitive dissonance bind. We all know what SHOULD happen (the “ought”), but do we possess the integrity, will and backbone to make the system work, even if it means being perceived as disloyal and losing that connection? These shows ask us to recognize that the flaws within our systems are the flaws within ourselves. Watching the episodes puts to us, in dramatic form, the questions we might never ask ourselves.
NEWS & REPORTING
By far, in my view, the news program with the highest marks is The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Even after losing Robert MacNeil to retirement, this program continues to offer a much more in-depth look at what has occurred during the day. Recently, the integrity of the show has been challenged by the push for sponsorship, and a cutback of time spent on specific pieces, but it remains heads and shoulders above “Chicken Noodle News,” Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, etc. Other shows with longstanding reputations have been marred by their own inequities. CBS 60 Minutes, a long staple of supposed integrity, has had its reputation and integrity rocked by scandal. CBS 48 Hours is also tainted by the scandals within the CBS News division. The 20/20 program lost its sense of direction and integrity when Hugh Downs left the show. The offerings on 20/20 are now as bad as the offerings on Extra or Inside Edition. MSNBC has some in-depth pieces, but all of them display obvious bias and preferences. CNN, once considered an innovator in the industry, has whittled its reputation away by repeating itself over and over every 30 minutes, offering in-depth coverage that lacks depth, and sensationalism in the extreme. Fox touts itself as being “fair and balanced” and that has been the joke ever since it adopted that moniker. The BBC World Report has adopted such a fascination with bashing US policies that it has lost its appeal as being a good source for anything else. It’s not that US policies do not often deserve a bashing, its just that the BBC World Report shouldn’t be making that process its sole priority.
The CBS Sunday Morning is a nice way to look at things we don’t ordinarily look at in our daily lives, but I don’t view the show as news. The Sunday pundit shows, like Meet The Press and Face The Nation, are interesting, offer some news value, but are more often a pulpit for the politicians and scandal mongers. If I want balanced coverage of an issue, I look at Frontline. While I acknowledge the cries from my conservative acquaintances that this is a “liberal” program, I point out to them that Frontline makes every opportunity for the conservative side of the issues to be aired. In a recent show on torture, Frontline offered conservative and government officials the opportunity to speak their minds, but the offers were declined. I do not tout Frontline as being perfect, but it is in-depth enough to seek out the truth of matters. Almost every time I watch Frontline I am motivated to get online and dig deeper into matters.
FAMILY VALUES
I can’t think of any show that has been more in keeping with exploring and modeling family values than the Cosby Show. Cos offered us ways to deal with family issues that explored possibilities rather than limiting views. Was it comedy, yes. Was it all make-believe, yes. But it offered us insights into what a family relationship is about… connections in the face of conflict, adversity, limits testing, and instilling values to our loved ones.
Roseanne Barr (or whatever her name is now), offered us a non-traditional view of family in her sitcom. The Conner family was wrought with conflict, distrust, doubt, dysfunction, fluctuating economics, sex, health, poor decision-making, and a bad taste in our mouths from the deliberate needling that Roseanne offered in every episode. It was raw and not nice to look at, but it was in a lot of ways, more reflective of many families we actually know. Throughout the dysfunction, the Conner family remained consistently tied together. While thumbing its nose at so-called “traditional family values” offered up by conservatives, and slamming the extreme liberal view of the family at the same time, Roseanne offered us a bit of unreal reality that made us laugh at ourselves while still questioning what family is all about.
Seventh Heaven is a show that appeals to the “family values” folks. I like it as well. It asks tough questions and deals with developmental ideas about family as children grow, parents mature, and life moves along. As with the Cosby show, there is significant amounts of modeling occurring in the process. Annie and Reverend Camden deal not only with their issues and problems, but invite others into their world while offering support, kindness and love. The Camden family still has its moments of dysfunction, disaster, tragedy, but also has hope and faith. In my view it offers us insight into the issues that keep most Christians from really embracing the faith. Again, it is not real, but a reflection of what is real for many of our families.
The Gilmore Girls offers us insight into a much different family structure, that of a single mom raising an only child. While the premise offers circumstances that may not reflect what we know and understand for most single mothers, the show does model values and keeps us entertained. While not scoring high on my list of shows, it is decent enough to get mentioned.
VALUES IN GENERAL
When I think of values in the media I like to refer to the words of St. Paul: “We are called to be in this world, not of this world.” What St. Paul is getting at is that we must put our values in front of what we do and not look for them after we have done something. We can find our values in the world only if we are willing to put them there in the first place. In order to accomplish a values-based society, we must look for the definition of our values and actually see them when they are modeled for us. We need to make our children aware of values, how to define them, how to see them in our society, model them, and provide opportunities for them to practice those values.
Any approach to values that seeks exclusion, elitism or negativity is in itself problematic. Values are what they are because there is a sense of inherent universality. Even when we disagree with decisions made upon someone’s values, we can at least identify the values upon which the decisions were made. Many times we can disagree but admire the process for being true to a value system. We need to seek values in our media and compel the elite powers-that-be to put these values first. But, before we can do any of that, we need to make sure we understand our values explicitly.
Understanding our values requires us to examine our lives, our families, our communities and our society on the whole. We cannot go forward without doing so. And we can only prevent failure and slipping back into previous errors by doing so. We must take care to learn from our history, but not let our history be the definition of what we value.
October 24, 2005
VALUES IN BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT
The number one show that I like for demonstrating values in a corporate or governmental setting is Star Trek. Every episode in each Star Trek series brought us ethical questions that are pertinent to our social reality. While the original series did so with quite a bit of overacting, the integrity of the questions that were being explored remained intact. Star Trek TNG offered not only these ethical dilemmas that caused us to explore our social realities, but also modeled interactions and values that should exist in corporate, military and governmental activities. The modeling of these issues and values were so effective that some college instructors (including myself and some of my colleagues) have used episodes to provoke questions on labor-management relations, the value of the individual, the role of the corporation, the role of government, and how we should treat each other. The Deep Space Nine series offered us insights into intercultural relations, conflicts, war, faith, responsibility, intra-personal conflicts, as well as many other dilemmas and issues.
The West Wing offers us a view of what it might be like in the roles of government, complete with all the compromise, sacrifice, wheeling and dealing, and waxing/waning through hope and despair. It shows us that we can be imperfect creatures and still hold true to fundamental truths about how we want to live, be treated, work, and deal with problems. While only a drama, it takes on many of the questions that our governmental leaders tackle on a daily basis. Unfortunately, we can only hope that our political leaders and law makers tackle their tasks with the integrity modeled in this show. Alas, not many of our politicians have such integrity. What is especially good about West Wing is its ability to show how real circumstance can lead to real failure in our efforts to adhere to our values. Then too, it shows us how our failures do not have to remain failures, end our possibilities, or lead us into an abyss of hopelessness.
The Law And Order series are good as well. While these shows are constantly “ripping” stories “direct from headlines,” we still get insights into the decision-making, motivation, processes and challenges of law enforcement and criminal prosecution. While we are asked to be entertained, we are also asked to examine issues of racism, rage, domestic violence, poverty, mental illness, sexuality, social integrity, and more. In keeping with our adversarial system, we are asked to view our values in contrast. Do we value “law and order” as mush as we value mercy and hope. Does our legal system have an obligation to seek justice or effect revenge and punishment. While we are currently inundated with episodes from all the LO series, the show remains a model for our values and calls us to question what it is that we do value.
The Third Watch and NYPD Blue also called into question our values and modeled the effects our decisions have on our society, but in a more down-and-dirty interpersonal way. These shows called us to examine our concepts of “connectedness,” the value of belonging that Maslow identified as one of our basic motivators, when conflicts arise that cause us to be caught in a cognitive dissonance bind. We all know what SHOULD happen (the “ought”), but do we possess the integrity, will and backbone to make the system work, even if it means being perceived as disloyal and losing that connection? These shows ask us to recognize that the flaws within our systems are the flaws within ourselves. Watching the episodes puts to us, in dramatic form, the questions we might never ask ourselves.
NEWS & REPORTING
By far, in my view, the news program with the highest marks is The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Even after losing Robert MacNeil to retirement, this program continues to offer a much more in-depth look at what has occurred during the day. Recently, the integrity of the show has been challenged by the push for sponsorship, and a cutback of time spent on specific pieces, but it remains heads and shoulders above “Chicken Noodle News,” Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, etc. Other shows with longstanding reputations have been marred by their own inequities. CBS 60 Minutes, a long staple of supposed integrity, has had its reputation and integrity rocked by scandal. CBS 48 Hours is also tainted by the scandals within the CBS News division. The 20/20 program lost its sense of direction and integrity when Hugh Downs left the show. The offerings on 20/20 are now as bad as the offerings on Extra or Inside Edition. MSNBC has some in-depth pieces, but all of them display obvious bias and preferences. CNN, once considered an innovator in the industry, has whittled its reputation away by repeating itself over and over every 30 minutes, offering in-depth coverage that lacks depth, and sensationalism in the extreme. Fox touts itself as being “fair and balanced” and that has been the joke ever since it adopted that moniker. The BBC World Report has adopted such a fascination with bashing US policies that it has lost its appeal as being a good source for anything else. It’s not that US policies do not often deserve a bashing, its just that the BBC World Report shouldn’t be making that process its sole priority.
The CBS Sunday Morning is a nice way to look at things we don’t ordinarily look at in our daily lives, but I don’t view the show as news. The Sunday pundit shows, like Meet The Press and Face The Nation, are interesting, offer some news value, but are more often a pulpit for the politicians and scandal mongers. If I want balanced coverage of an issue, I look at Frontline. While I acknowledge the cries from my conservative acquaintances that this is a “liberal” program, I point out to them that Frontline makes every opportunity for the conservative side of the issues to be aired. In a recent show on torture, Frontline offered conservative and government officials the opportunity to speak their minds, but the offers were declined. I do not tout Frontline as being perfect, but it is in-depth enough to seek out the truth of matters. Almost every time I watch Frontline I am motivated to get online and dig deeper into matters.
FAMILY VALUES
I can’t think of any show that has been more in keeping with exploring and modeling family values than the Cosby Show. Cos offered us ways to deal with family issues that explored possibilities rather than limiting views. Was it comedy, yes. Was it all make-believe, yes. But it offered us insights into what a family relationship is about… connections in the face of conflict, adversity, limits testing, and instilling values to our loved ones.
Roseanne Barr (or whatever her name is now), offered us a non-traditional view of family in her sitcom. The Conner family was wrought with conflict, distrust, doubt, dysfunction, fluctuating economics, sex, health, poor decision-making, and a bad taste in our mouths from the deliberate needling that Roseanne offered in every episode. It was raw and not nice to look at, but it was in a lot of ways, more reflective of many families we actually know. Throughout the dysfunction, the Conner family remained consistently tied together. While thumbing its nose at so-called “traditional family values” offered up by conservatives, and slamming the extreme liberal view of the family at the same time, Roseanne offered us a bit of unreal reality that made us laugh at ourselves while still questioning what family is all about.
Seventh Heaven is a show that appeals to the “family values” folks. I like it as well. It asks tough questions and deals with developmental ideas about family as children grow, parents mature, and life moves along. As with the Cosby show, there is significant amounts of modeling occurring in the process. Annie and Reverend Camden deal not only with their issues and problems, but invite others into their world while offering support, kindness and love. The Camden family still has its moments of dysfunction, disaster, tragedy, but also has hope and faith. In my view it offers us insight into the issues that keep most Christians from really embracing the faith. Again, it is not real, but a reflection of what is real for many of our families.
The Gilmore Girls offers us insight into a much different family structure, that of a single mom raising an only child. While the premise offers circumstances that may not reflect what we know and understand for most single mothers, the show does model values and keeps us entertained. While not scoring high on my list of shows, it is decent enough to get mentioned.
VALUES IN GENERAL
When I think of values in the media I like to refer to the words of St. Paul: “We are called to be in this world, not of this world.” What St. Paul is getting at is that we must put our values in front of what we do and not look for them after we have done something. We can find our values in the world only if we are willing to put them there in the first place. In order to accomplish a values-based society, we must look for the definition of our values and actually see them when they are modeled for us. We need to make our children aware of values, how to define them, how to see them in our society, model them, and provide opportunities for them to practice those values.
Any approach to values that seeks exclusion, elitism or negativity is in itself problematic. Values are what they are because there is a sense of inherent universality. Even when we disagree with decisions made upon someone’s values, we can at least identify the values upon which the decisions were made. Many times we can disagree but admire the process for being true to a value system. We need to seek values in our media and compel the elite powers-that-be to put these values first. But, before we can do any of that, we need to make sure we understand our values explicitly.
Understanding our values requires us to examine our lives, our families, our communities and our society on the whole. We cannot go forward without doing so. And we can only prevent failure and slipping back into previous errors by doing so. We must take care to learn from our history, but not let our history be the definition of what we value.
October 24, 2005
posted by Jim Downey at 4:41 PM
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