JLO63O, Bourdieu

My grandmother used to tell me that I should never talk about religion, politics, or money when I’m at a party and I think Bourdeiu could have said those words himself. In this article, On Television, Bourdeiu talked about ‘TV news’ and how its text has to be universally inoffensive. The news, in this case, seldom brings up problems unless they themselves do not pose any problem. The weather, for example, is a “soft” subject because it’s a topic that favors everybody and does not stir up controversy. It is surface information, as Jameson would refer. The weather is not hermeneutical/ interpretive or explanatory. It is the ideal conversation starter in this postmodern era.

“[The news] suits everybody because it confirms what they already know and, above all, leaves their mental structures intact” (329).

I am going support this quote with another one from Lyotard, “What is advised… is to offer works… that the public will recognize what they are about, will understand what is signified.” In order to sell things, whether it is a book or the news, you need to tell people things they already know and ‘leave their mental structures intact.’ If you do not, instead of diving in, people will just disregard such information or commodities and proceed with their daily routines unaffected by the works. For example, if a surgeon were to walk into our classroom and talk about the procedure of removing a liver, it would probably sound like he was talking a foreign language because we don’t know the medical terms that are common knowledge to specialists of that field. “There is no reality unless testified by a consensus between partners over a certain knowledge and certain commitments” (Lyotard). It isn’t until you share the same knowledge that you begin understanding and communicating with each other that things start to make sense. In agreement with Lyotard specifically, Bourdeiu is saying in this article that the news has to take what people already know, their Ideological State Apparatuses for lack of a better term (Althusser), and operate within them.