Further Thoughts on the Expansion of Modes of Public Discourse

From Jeff Greenfield in Slate:

Moreover, the press and public tolerance for public relations was less developed back then: The political press did not yet engage in drama criticism, judging a politician's public appeal by the stagecraft or the setting rather than the message. The idea of a president standing in front of troops backdropped by slogans and banners was not yet even a gleam in young Karl Rove's eye.

Leaving aside the snarky (and wrong) suggestion that Rove somehow invented political spectacle, this shows the (academically inspired) zeal of journalists for emphasizing the medium rather than the message, in the belief that by so doing they are somehow deconstructing a narrative of power rather than simply pointing slack-jawed at the pretty pictures.

As Americans become more media savvy and more accustomed to this sort of attempted deconstruction, it will succeed in fragmenting not only the facts but the means of discourse, so that in choosing a medium a putative hearer also constructs the message he hears. Or, since the media pays less and less attention to the message itself, hears nothing at all.

Which I guess at least means you can say anything you please. Unless, of course, you use a phrase like "transcendent joy" at a cocktail party. That'll still get you shunned faster than a vibrator salesman at an Amish potluck.