Month: September 2023

Don’t miss Newspaper National Week

Posted on by Douglas F. Cannon

Heads up, everyone. National Newspaper Week runs Oct. 1 through 7. News Engagement Day is Oct. 3. International Newspaper Carrier Day is Oct. 7.

I suspect few people will notice these events. That lack of awareness is unfortunate. These three observances are supposed to call attention to how news organizations have served—and should continue to serve—local communities and American society.

Each October since 1940, the Newspaper Association Managers (NAM) has sponsored a weeklong promotion of the newspaper industry in the United States and Canada. The 2023 National Newspaper Week theme is “Print. Online. For You. #Newspapers Your Way.” NAM encourages publishers to run ads and write stories or editorials during the week to highlight the importance of newspapers to the communities they serve.

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) launched News Engagement Day in October 2014. The day promotes a range of activities to encourage everyone—but especially high school and college students—to read, watch, like, tweet, post, listen to, or comment on news, and learn news reporting principles.

Paula Poindexter, the 2013-2014 AEJMC president, originally proposed the special day in Millennials, News, and Social Media: Is News Engagement a Thing of the Past? Poindexter, a pioneer in civic-duty-to-keep-informed research (see Sept. 9 post), wanted to counter the public’s declining attention to news, lack of understanding about journalism, and waning trust in the news media. She was convinced that declining news consumption was unhealthy for American democracy.

An adjunct to National Newspaper Week, International Newspaper Carrier Day salutes the many individuals who deliver the news to American homes and businesses each week. The News/Media Alliance produces ads to thank newspaper carriers during National Newspaper Week and on International Newspaper Carrier Day. Without news carriers, many people would not receive the news.

These events were important to me

When I was a newspaper carrier from 1964 to 1972 (The Herald, a neighborhood weekly in Columbus, Ohio; Upper Arlington News, a weekly in suburban Columbus; and the Columbus Citizen-Journal, a morning daily), I truly appreciated International Newspaper Carrier Day. Annual messages in each publication about the importance of newspaper carriers reinforced my belief that my delivery work was significant. I was part of the Fourth Estate, if in only a tiny way. I was helping keep people informed about the issues of the day.

Many people I served apparently were eager to get that information. On my Citizen-Journal route, people often met me at the door each morning to receive their copies and expressed their displeasure whenever I arrived after 6 a.m. Reading the newspaper was an important part of their daily routine. I would disrupt their schedule whenever I didn’t deliver on time.

All three newspapers I delivered, by the way, no longer exist.

As publisher of the weekly Sellersburg Star in Indiana from 1980 to 1982, I looked forward to National Newspaper Week each October. The special week gave me an excuse to write about the Star’s dedication to serving the West Clark County community; keeping readers informed about actions by the Sellersburg town government and West Clark Community School Corporation; and telling stories about residents of four communities: Borden, Henryville, Memphis, and Sellersburg.

Newspaper Week provided an opportunity as well to sell spots on a full-page cooperative ad about the value of newspapers to businesses that otherwise didn’t buy space in the Star. Businesspeople thought that newspapers in general were important but that advertising regularly in the Star wasn’t. “Everybody knows we’re here,” they used to tell me and my ad salespeople.

I had to close the Star in August 1982 during the economic recession at the time. Many long-established locally owned Sellersburg businesses closed during that time as well. While everybody may have known they were there, those establishments had trouble competing with chain stores in a regional mall just nine miles down the interstate highway that ran through town.

The newspaper business model has changed

The newspaper business today is nothing like what I experienced. The internet and social networks have disrupted the advertising-based business model I followed—especially for daily publications. Most “newspapers” today deliver information online as well as on paper. Daily publications now rely on subscribers, not advertising, for more than half their revenue.

But readership has slipped—especially for print editions. Pew Research reports that daily newspaper circulation of print editions in the United States fell from 63 million in the 1970s and 1980s to 24 million in 2020. Monthly visits to daily newspaper websites averaged slightly less than 14 million in 2020. Online readers, therefore, don’t make up for lost print readers. The decline in reach has limited what publishers can now charge for ads.

Most weeklies continue to generate much of their revenue—as I did at the Star—from local businesses that buy advertising space—on websites as well as on pages. But as happened in Sellersburg in the 1980s, current economic conditions have reduced what many businesses can spend on advertising.

Furthermore, other online channels can deliver information faster than print publications and offer cheaper, more targeted ways to advertise products and services. Free services like Craigslist have eliminated the demand for classified ads in many markets and removed a key revenue source for newspapers—especially community weeklies. Government officials in some states have worked to change laws that required government agencies to buy ad space in local newspapers for public notices, another once-reliable revenue source.

At the same time, operating costs—labor, production, printing, and distribution—continue to rise. Rising costs and declining revenues have squeezed publishers—especially those of small local newspapers—for years. Even those most dedicated to community service have had to cut back on the news they can provide.

Moreover, many readers have come to expect “news” to come free on their phones. Those folks don’t feel the need to pay for gathering that information. They don’t seem to realize that someone needs to seek out and report the news they see. Reporters don’t—and should not—work for free.

Many young adults have little-to-no experience with ink-on-paper newspapers, either. During my 13 years at Virginia Tech (2010 to 2023), I rarely found a student who reported looking at a printed publication for news. (I asked about news consumption in every undergraduate course.)

The odds of those reports changing are even more remote today. Forty-two of the nation’s largest 100 papers—which all once published multiple editions seven days a week—now produce a print edition six or fewer times a week, the 2022 State of Local News report from Northwestern University said. Eleven publish a print edition only once or twice a week and e-editions on other days.

Newspaper closures leave “news deserts”

Furthermore, the number of newspapers in the United States (both daily and weekly) has fallen from nearly 9,000 in 2004 to about 7,000 today. The 2022 report from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communication said that, on average, two newspapers close in the United States each week.

“Seventy million people live in the more than 200 counties without a newspaper, or in the 1,630 counties with only one paper—usually a weekly—covering multiple communities spread over a vast area,” the 2022 Northwestern report said.

Areas with no reporters regularly covering local happenings are called “news deserts.”

The 2022 State of Local News report said: “The loss of local journalism has been accompanied by the malignant spread of misinformation and disinformation, political polarization, eroding trust in media, and a yawning digital and economic divide among citizens. In communities without a credible source of local news, voter participation declines, corruption in both government and business increases, and local residents end up paying more in taxes and at checkout. This is a crisis for our democracy and our society.”

People miss local news

Often communities don’t realize how much they count on their local publication until it suspends operation.

In July, the Associated Press reported what happened in Welch, West Virginia, after its 100-year-old weekly newspaper closed:

“Residents suddenly have no way of knowing what’s going on at public meetings, which are not televised, nor are minutes or recordings posted online. Even basic tasks, like finding out about church happenings, have become challenging. The paper printed pages of religious events and directories every week and that hasn’t been replaced.

“Local crises, like the desperately needed upgrade of water and sewer systems, are going unreported. And there is no one to keep disinformation in check, like when the newspaper published a series of stories that dispelled the rumors of election tampering at local precincts during last year’s May primaries.”

Economically struggling and traditionally underserved communities have been the most likely to lose a news organization, the Northwestern report said. That loss of local reporting has exacerbated political, cultural, and economic divisions between and within communities. Residents need journalists to monitor local government and business activities.

Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade publication, reported Sept. 25 that community leaders in Bedford County, Tennessee, quickly worked to replace their community newspaper when the 149-year-old Shelbyville Times-Gazette closed in July. Chris White, Bedford County’s director of planning; Greg Vick, District 2 county commissioner; and Curt Cobb, county clerk, talked about the value of local journalism and how it affected people and public policy.

With the encouragement of Bedford County leaders, Morristown, Tennessee-based Lakeway Publishers announced in early August that it would start two publications — The Bedford County Post and The Marshall County Post — to cover Shelbyville and Lewisburg, Tennessee.

Industry faces challenge

How to get civic and business information to people in other communities that have lost local news operations is one major challenge facing the newspaper industry as we observe National Newspaper Week, News Engagement Day, and International News Carrier Day in 2023.

Recent legislative, philanthropic, university, and industry initiatives have identified a range of options. According to the 2022 Northwestern report, they include public funding of local news, joint reporting ventures by local news operations, and new nonprofit and hybrid business models.

Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan once said, “People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.” I doubt that many news consumers today experience the alerts they receive on their phones the same way. But as the 2023 National Newspaper Week theme indicates, many people can now get news the way they want.

Let’s hope the industry finds a way to broaden its reach—especially for local news—and regain the relevance it had when I worked in newspapers 40 years ago. If it doesn’t, the 2022 Northwestern report said, local news may be available only in affluent and growing communities, where residents can afford to pay for it. We need to avoid that outcome.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon

What’s public relations?

Posted on by Douglas F. Cannon

Public relations—my chosen field for many years—continues to face an identity crisis. Even many practitioners today can’t agree on what public relations people do or what to call the function.

The debate has been background noise in my work since I entered the field in the late 1970s. A Google search will yield thousands of online items about what public relations is and how it differs from advertising and marketing. Other items—especially those about integrated marketing communication (IMC)—will blend public relations into a company’s marketing mix. More searches will identify multiple academic studies and commentaries in trade publications about other disciplines, such as legal, marketing, and human resources, encroaching on traditional public relations areas of responsibility.

Unfortunately, we—public relations practitioners—can’t expect organizational leaders to get the most out of our century-old management function if we:

  • Can’t agree on what roles we should play in an organization.
  • Disagree on the scope of responsibilities under the public relations umbrella.
  • Must constantly explain to top organization leaders what value our discipline brings to strategic planning and execution.

5 differing perspectives

I can offer no easy ways in this essay to sharpen public relations’ fuzzy image. I’ve been in many discussions over the years about the situation. Those talks were engaging but led to few changes. Five recent online encounters got me thinking again about the ongoing confusion that plagues public relations as a discipline:

  • A Sept. 5 online PR News item said that public relations and marketing were essentially the same. People in both functions were “all communicators with a shared interest in storytelling.” Therefore, the article called for “more cross-pollination between marketing and PR—and not just to protect their jobs, but to create truly comprehensive and powerful communications functions that drive business results.”
  • A communication executive from Greensboro, North Carolina, told members of the Commission on Public Relations Education in a Sept. 18 Zoom session that college students needed to learn that public relations people were business strategists first and communicators second. Others in the meeting—a mix of practitioners and educators—concurred. They reiterated that public relations practitioners should help organizational leaders develop policies and actions to accomplish business objectives. Public relations people should not just craft messages (tell stories) to support policy decisions that others have already made.
  • A Sept. 19 email message from the Center for Public Relations at the University of Southern California reminded me of its April 2023 Global Communication Report. It said: “In 2023, PR professionals are devoting an increasing amount of time and energy to building and protecting the reputations of their companies and their clients. That job has never been more important or more challenging … .”
  • Another Sept. 19 email message—this one from Corporate Excellence—Centre for Reputation Leadership in Madrid—included updates on its July report: Approaching the Future—Trends in Reputation and Intangible Assets. For eight years, the organization has tracked international trends in public relations and corporate reputation management. In collaboration with the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, the center has developed a model to help executives understand key pillars of reputation and trust.
  • A Sept. 20 online PR News story said that artificial intelligence was erasing the lines between public relations and marketing. “The era of intuition-driven PR is over,” the story said. Public relations people can now tap into the same data as marketers to track return on investment for both marketing and public relations campaigns. “Embracing AI means breaking down long-standing barriers and stepping into a future where your brand’s storytelling is not just compelling but extraordinarily effective,” the story said.

Do public relations people focus more on telling stories or guiding business actions that influence reputation? Does public relations work simply support marketing efforts, or does it contribute to broader business objectives?

Choice is “both-and”

In many organizations, the choices are “both-and,” not “either-or.” Seminal research reported in 1992 by James Grunig (Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management) said that public relations executives in the best-run organizations worked as both managers and communication technicians (storytellers). “Excellent” companies empowered their public relations functions to help guide actions to accomplish strategic corporate outcomes, not simply support marketing or human resources. Public relations executives managed interactions with key groups in the marketplace. How these key publics perceived the organization determined its reputation. A good reputation, in turn, contributed to organizational success.

Grunig’s “Excellence” theory has influenced how many practitioners and educators think about public relations for three decades.

But so has Tom Harris’s 1991 book, The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations. It was one of the first popular references to distinguish marketing public relations (support for sales of products and services) from corporate public relations (reputation management). The book helped promote the development of IMC, a popular concept in many companies that deliver products or services and in many advertising/public relations agencies. IMC coordinates advertising, public relations campaigns, and sales efforts so customers see consistent messages about products or services.

Fuzzy definition

I contend that public relations has never had a clearly understood definition like other business functions—accounting, advertising, personnel, legal, etc. As a result, chief executives haven’t always understood all the ways public relations could advance an organization’s success.

I blame Edward L. Bernays, an early public relations pioneer, for part of the problem. He coined the term “counsel on public relations” in his 1923 book, Crystallizing Public Opinion. But he didn’t provide a concise definition of public relations. Instead, he described a counsel on public relations as a “special pleader” in the court of public opinion. Counsels contributed to business success by applying knowledge of sociology, psychology, and economics to business strategies that could influence public opinion and guide mass human behavior.

Later in his life, Bernays lamented that anyone—including door-to-door salespeople—could call what they did “public relations.” He said that sinister actors in business and government had tarnished the discipline’s reputation. They used public relations techniques to accomplish questionable outcomes—not engineer the public consent necessary to promote progress in a democratic society. As a result, Bernays said, many organizations found alternative names for the public relations management function.

In response, Bernays advocated licensing public relations practitioners so a government body could define the practice and control who could do “public relations.”

Alternative references grow

After Bernays died in 1995, calls for licensing declined, and confusion—at least from my perspective—about what “public relations” involved appeared to increase. Organizations continued to adopt alternative titles for the function and to move traditional responsibilities of the discipline to other parts of the organization.

Paul Agenti says in Corporate Communication (7th edition) that “corporate communication” has become the most common term for in-house public relations departments in the United States.

Among international agencies today, only Golan and Weber Shadwick appear to label themselves solely as public relations specialists. Hill+Knowlton Strategies calls itself a “global public relations and integrated communications agency.” FleishmanHillard is a global PR & digital marketing agency.

Edelman, the largest standalone agency, says it does “global communications.” Ketchem is a global communication consultancy. Burson Cohn & Wolfe does “integrated communication.”

In 1999, members of the Religious Public Relations Council changed the organization’s name to Religion Communicators Council. Advocates said that “communication” was a broader term than “public relations.”

In the USC 2018 Global Communication Report, 41% of in-house corporate communicators and 33% of agency practitioners said we would need to stop using “public relations” by 2023. The term would not accurately describe what they did.

Responsibilities disbursed

Along with fewer businesses referring to “public relations,” many organizations have moved traditional public relations responsibilities to other business functions.

Investor relations, for example, long a part of the public relations discipline, is now a distinct function in many publicly traded corporations. The National Investor Relations Institute, founded in 1969, defines investor relations as “a strategic management responsibility that integrates finance, communication, marketing, and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company’s securities achieving fair valuation.” Where investor relations is a separate function, the investment relations officer generally reports to the chief executive officer or chief financial officer.

Government relations (or public affairs), another traditional part of the public relations discipline, is now found under the chief executive or corporate legal counsel in many organizations. Since 2017, this public relations subspeciality has had its own professional organization: the Government Relations Association.

Human relations departments in many organizations are now in charge of internal (employee) communication, yet another traditional part of the public relations discipline.

Puerto Rico defines public relations practice

Puerto Rico is the only American jurisdiction to eventually do what Bernays wanted. The commonwealth requires a license to practice public relations and be called a “Relationist.” The 2008 law that established the Regulatory Board of Relationists said licensed practitioners did four primary tasks:

  1. Anticipate, analyze, and interpret public opinion, attitudes, and controversies that could impact, positively or negatively, the operations and plans of an organization or individual.
  2. Advise all management levels of the organization, in relation to established policy decisions, courses of action, and communication, and take into consideration its different audiences and the social organization or the responsibilities of citizenship.
  3. Research, plan, implement, and evaluate action and communication programs to achieve public acceptance and successfully achieve the goals of the organization or individual.
  4. Plan and implement the organization’s efforts to propose or modify public policy.

These tasks reflect what most American universities teach in both undergraduate and graduate programs as “public relations” and help define the discipline. In fact, “public relations” is what future practitioners usually study in college—no matter what subspecialty they eventually work in. Two-thirds (67%) of 109 undergraduate programs responding to a 2018 survey—done by John Forde for the Commission on Public Relations Education—said they taught “public relations.” Another 14% called their programs “strategic communication.” Seven percent combined the public relations major with advertising. Two schools (2%) called their programs “integrated marketing communication,” and one program included public relations under “marketing.”

Puerto Rico requires licensed Relationists to have a master’s degree in “public relations” or an undergraduate degree in “public relations” with certified practical experience in the field.

Titles reflect roles

Now that I’m retired, I no longer have any vested interest in how the debate about “public relations” is decided. I’ve always told people that public relations is a management function that deals with interactions between organizations and groups in society. That function is responsible for enhancing corporate goodwill (the value of intangible assets) and fostering a good reputation with social groups that are important to the organization’s success. I won’t change my mind.

That perspective is one reason I helped launch a Reputation Management major in 2020 in Virginia Tech’s M.A. in Communication curriculum. I wanted our program to prepare mid-level managers for more than “storyteller” roles at companies, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Both the 2023 Global Communication Report and the 2023 Approach the Future Report appear to support our move. Those reports indicate that top executives are becoming more interested in capitalizing on good organizational reputations to enhance business success.

But my view may be in the minority among public relations educators. I’ve talked to many who think “strategic communication” more accurately describes what universities should be teaching. I disagree. I think that term indicates a focus on messaging and content production, not business strategy or management.

What an organization calls its public relations function usually indicates how it understands the role of practitioners—primarily managers who help guide corporate actions or communication technicians who tell about what executives have decided to do. The title often signals whether the public relations function contributes directly to business outcomes or simply supports functions like marketing or human resources.

The way practitioners describe themselves and what they do is another factor in how people outside the field see “public relations.” Are practitioners business strategists or content producers? Can storytellers contribute to business outcomes or manage reputation?

I’ll keep watching to see how the public relations discipline evolves and whether the term survives in both business and higher education.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon

More teens than we thought might see news each day

Posted on by Douglas F. Cannon

More young Americans than we thought might be reading news reports each day. Furthermore, minor changes in social network features could influence how consumers of all ages process the information they see.

Still, we’ll need more evidence—especially about why young people look at the news—before we can determine if any of these communication dynamics affect belief in the civic duty to keep informed (see Sept. 4 post).

Teen news engagement

Research from Northwestern University, announced Sept. 6, reported that 29% of U.S. teens said they saw news reports daily. The percentage climbed into the 40s for weekly news engagement.

“Older teens (16 to 17 years old) showed slightly higher engagement levels than younger teens (13 to 15 years old),” said a news release from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. “This finding may seem logical given that the college application process and eligibility to vote may trigger increased interest in national events.”

The reference to voting got my attention. Past communication research has shown that voting-age adults felt obligated to keep up with current affairs. Citizens said they needed to know what was happening so they could be informed voters (civic duty to keep informed).

The Northwestern survey didn’t appear to ask teens way they looked at news items daily or weekly. Therefore, we can’t tell if they were motivated by a similar civic duty to keep informed.

Nevertheless, the Northwestern news engagement results for young Americans appeared more optimistic than what we saw in the June 2023 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University (see Sept. 4 post). That study said that only 49% of Americans overall were interested in news. “Self-declared interest in news is lower amongst women and younger people, with the falls often greatest in countries characterised by high levels of political polarization,” the report said (p. 21).

“The (Northwestern) survey found more engagement with news among teens than we were expecting,” said Stephanie Edgerly, associate dean for research at Northwestern’s Medill School, in the online news release. “We found that 29% of teens said they encounter news daily. That’s encouraging.”

The Northwestern research reported that 46% of teens saw local TV news daily or weekly and that 42% encountered national network TV news daily or weekly. About a third of the teens surveyed said they engaged with news on YouTube (37%), TikTok (35%), or Instagram (33%) daily or weekly, although the sources of that news were not known.

Only 5% of teens said they encountered news daily through local or national newspapers. The numbers were higher for weekly news encounters in local newspapers (18%) and national newspapers (13%).

Classroom assignments may have contributed to teen news engagement. Three-quarters (75%) of the teens surveyed said they discussed news stories in school classes, and 62% followed the news as part of a class assignment. Another 59% said they discussed how to tell whether information could be trusted.

“This survey provides a snapshot of how U.S. teens are engaging with news, and we don’t often get data this level of detail from a large national sample of U.S. teens,” Edgerly said in the online release. “It’s great in helping clarify trends.”

Social media dynamics

Because more than one-third of teens encountered news through online social networks, I noted two additional studies, reported Sept. 11 by Newman Lab. These two studies indicated that seemingly simple changes to social media features could affect user opinions and news dissemination. Such factors, therefore, might play some role in teen news engagement as well.

One study showed that online endorsements, such as likes and retweets, influenced people’s opinions of policies related to COVID-19. Participants in an experiment saw two versions of a social media post about tensions between economic activity and public health. Those who viewed pro-economy posts with a high number of likes were less likely to favor pandemic-related restrictions, such as banning gatherings. Those who viewed pro-public health posts with a high number of likes were more likely to favor restrictions. The experiment involved participants from the United States, Italy, and Ireland.

The other study examined how a change to Twitter’s retweet policy a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election affected news dissemination. The change encouraged users to add their own commentary when they retweeted information. Twitter hoped the change would prompt users to reflect on the content they were sharing and slow the spread of misinformation.

The result, according to the study, was a drop in retweets on average across several U.S. news outlets by more than 15%. The average drop in retweets for “liberal” outlets was more than 20%, but the drop for “conservative” outlets was only 5%. Furthermore, the Twitter policy appeared to affect visits to news websites. That change suggested that the new policy had influenced news dissemination overall.

Instagram, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter) now allow some users to hide the number of likes on posts, the Newman Lab item said. As a result, author Juan S. Morales, assistant professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, speculated those changes could affect political discourse on social networks.

No information on teen motivations

The idea that more young Americans than we expected are regularly seeing news reports is encouraging. I’m glad to see that schools are requiring teens to read news stories and are helping students judge the credibility of reports. I’m intrigued by how characteristics of the social media environment can affect the way people process information they see.

We still don’t know, however, why teens engage with news—other than to complete class assignments. Consequently, we can’t determine whether young people today recognize the same civic duty to keep informed that earlier generations reported. We may not be able to assume, therefore, the same connections between news consumption, public opinion formation, and voting behavior that we once did.

The relationship between news engagement, public opinion, and electoral behavior remains a fertile field for research—especially in today’s vibrant communication landscape and polarized political environment.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon

Declining belief in the “civil duty to keep informed”

Posted on by Douglas F. Cannon

Recent research indicates that belief among Americans in the civic duty to keep informed continues to fade.

Mass communication research from 1982 to 2000 analyzed the civic duty to keep informed among Americans. Studies consistently showed that voting-age adults felt obligated to keep up with current affairs. Citizens said they needed to know what was happening so they could be informed voters. Highly educated people usually felt a stronger duty to stay informed than those with lower education levels. Adults sought out civic information from print, broadcast, and online news organizations.

The 2023 results from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism show much less interest among Americans in keeping up with the news than earlier researchers identified. The 2023 results support findings from a 2014 study I did among Virginia Tech students. That limited analysis, published in 2017 in the Newspaper Research Journal, determined that millennials didn’t recognize a duty to keep up with political news the way earlier generations did. The young people born at the end of the 20th century indicated no clear commitment to keeping up with civic or political events—even though more than half the people in my survey said they saw news reports at least six days a week.

Interest in news drops

The 12th edition of the Digital News Report, released in June by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, showed that only 49% of Americans in 2023 said they were interested in news. That percentage was 18 points lower than in 2015, the year after my study.

Reuters researchers found that 12% of Americans in 2023 said they had not looked at any news reports in the past week. That news engagement level was much lower than I identified in my research. Reuters said interest in news in 2023 was lowest among women and young people.

“In the United States, we find that consumers are more likely to avoid subjects such as national politics and social justice, where debates over issues such as gender, sexuality, and race have become highly politicised,” the Reuters study said.

An Aug. 1 Washington Post article about the Reuters findings used Claudia Caplin to illustrate the change in news consumption. The retired advertising executive used to read two newspapers each morning, watch television news in the afternoon or evening, and listen to NPR programs during trips in her car.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, she began to consume less news, the Post story said. She reportedly found news coverage too “apocalyptic.”

“I’ve always felt I had a responsibility to know everything,” she told the Post. “I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Caplin’s quotation summarizes the apparent change in the civic duty to keep informed.

Reasons for the change unclear

I don’t know—and neither do other researchers—exactly why people no longer feel obligated to stay informed. The 2023 Reuters report, which gathered data from six continents and 46 markets, identified several possible factors:

  • Relying on social networks rather than traditional news organizations for information.
  • Low trust in an ever-expanding array of online information sources.
  • Lack of interest in what many news sources report.
  • Rising costs for news content reported by working journalists.

“When it comes to news,” the Reuters report said, “audiences say they pay more attention to celebrities, influencers, and social media personalities than journalists in networks like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. This contrasts sharply with Facebook and Twitter, where news media and journalists are still central to the conversation.”

Many people were skeptical of algorithms used to select what they saw via search engines, social networks, and other platforms, the Reuters report said. Nevertheless, users still slightly preferred news selected by algorithms to content chosen by editors.

Another factor, according to Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the Reuters Institute’s director (quoted in the Post story), could be that publishers focus on consumers willing to pay for news content. Consequently, news organizations report stories intended to attract “politically interested” readers. That focus drives away politically disconnected individuals.

Assumptions questioned

Two assumptions of civic-duty research were that citizens with a strong sense of civic duty to keep informed would (1) seek out information from news media about issues facing the government and (2) be more likely to vote than those who do not accept such a duty.

With fewer people today interested in news reports, the first assumption may no longer be valid. I’ve already questioned whether—as the Libertarian press theory maintains—we can count on news consumers to seek out information on all sides of a topic (see July 21 post about press theories).

The second assumption may be debatable as well. Public opinion polls and academic research on voter participation often offer contradictory information.

Some reports say issues, such as abortion, drive increased voter participation—especially among women and young voters. Gallup reported July 23 that women and men hold similar views on the legality of abortion at each stage of pregnancy. Overall, Gallup reported that a record-high 69% of Americans said abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy and that 34% said abortion should be legal in all cases.

Pew Research reported July 12 that women voted more for Republican candidates than Democrats in the 2020 and 2022 elections. GOP candidates tend to oppose access to abortions.

Pew reported that voters 50 and older accounted for a larger share of the total electorate in 2022 (64%) than in the past three elections. The share of voters 18 to 29 went from 11% in 2018 to 14% in 2020 and 10% in 2022.

Other sources said that multiple factors—income, racial segregation, education level, political polarization, and the work of nonprofits—determined civic and political engagement among young people. In communities where young adults volunteered, helped their neighbors, and belonged to groups or associations, people in that age group voted.

Thinking may need to change

The 2023 Reuters results raise a crucial question about potential voters today: How can the 51% of Americans not interested in news find credible information to inform their choices at the ballot box?

Traditional democratic theory—what I learned during high school civics in the late 1960s—lists variables that increase citizen engagement in democratic systems. Freedom of information about government functions and openness by public officials about their plans were influential factors. Political candidates who avoided public scrutiny could mislead uninformed voters.

If Americans today don’t see their role as news consumers the way that people in my generation were taught to expect, we may need to adjust our thinking about how news consumption influences voting.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon

A radical opinion about political discourse?

Posted on by Douglas F. Cannon

Seven recent news stories illustrate—for me at least—that shorthand political labels don’t clearly communicate where people fall on today’s ideological spectrum. “Liberal,” “moderate,” and “conservative” have lost any clear meaning for me. I think such labels contribute more to misunderstanding than to precise communication.

“Generally,” The Associated Press Stylebook says, “a description of specific political views is more informative than a generic label like liberal or conservative.”

I concur. I advise writers I work with to avoid shorthand labels and to explain clearly the political or social position they are reporting.

I acknowledge at the outset of this long post that many people don’t agree with my opinions about shorthand political labels. Family members, colleagues, and students have regularly told me over the years that I’m wrong or too picky about the use of political labels. They say everyone knows what a “liberal,” “moderate,” or “conservative” is. I disagree. Things that were once part of the conservative agenda, for example, such as limiting the size of government, supporting free trade, and controlling the national debt, are not current priorities among so-called “conservatives.” The seven examples below should illustrate my thinking further.

When I started this essay, I intended to advocate what I thought would be a conservative position. I would echo AP Stylebook guidance about avoiding shorthand labels. Reactions to my ideas over the past week have changed my mind. My thinking appears to be either radical or reactionary.

Nevertheless, I’m content to share my thoughts on this communication challenge. The fun of these essays is trying to explain my viewpoint. I don’t need to convince anyone that I’m right.

Consider the ambiguity that shorthand labels introduce in these examples:

Pope Francis and critics in the American church

Pope Francis communicated accurately in early August what he thought of some American Roman Catholics. He criticized “a very strong, organized reactionary attitude” among some American church members. He acknowledged that “backward-looking people” in the U.S. church opposed his leadership on current moral questions and wanted to reverse reforms brought about by the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.

American journalists muddled the pope’s message. The Associated Press reported Aug. 28 that Francis had “blasted the ‘backwardness’ of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church.” The Washington Post’s online headline for its Aug. 29 story said, “Pope Francis criticizes ‘reactionary’ conservatives in U.S. Catholic Church.” The New York Times said in its Aug 30 story, “The pope lamented the ‘backwardness’ of some American conservatives who he said insist on a narrow, outdated and unchanging vision.”

The use of conservatives in these three stories doesn’t match my understanding of the word. “Conservatives,” Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary says, want to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions.

The Second Vatican Council ended in 1965. Its reforms have been in effect for nearly 60 years—longer than most American Roman Catholics have been alive. Pew Research said in 2015 that the median age of U.S. Roman Catholics was 49. The post-Vatican II church is the only one most American worshippers have ever known. Post-Vatican II doctrines, therefore, are the current tradition. The church members whom Francis criticized are, therefore, not conservatives. True conservatives would want to maintain the post-Vatican II doctrines.

The people opposing Francis are reactionary, just as the pope said. They want to go back to the way things in the church were before the Second Vatican Council.

Calling critics of the pope conservative is inaccurate. “Reactionary conservative” is an oxymoron. If you want to keep what the church is doing now (the conservative stance), you wouldn’t want to go back to what the church used to do (the reactionary stance).

Plan to transform the federal government in a second Trump administration.

The Associated Press reported Aug. 29 on a “constellation of conservative organizations” that want “to gut the ‘administrative state’ (federal bureaucracy) from within” if Donald Trump is reelected president. The group’s plan calls for “ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”

The Aug. 29 story says the plan contains “a mix of longstanding conservative policies and stark, head-turning proposals that gained prominence in the Trump era.” The plan was written by “some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement.”

“A new executive approach to governing” doesn’t sound very conservative to me. “Stark, head-turning proposals” would appear to describe something radical.

Views on abortion in Door County, Wisconsin

A Sept. 2 Washington Post story examined how the “Abortion fight unites the left and rattles the right in key Wis. Battleground.” That story used “conservative” and “the right” as synonyms for “Republican.” “Liberal” and “the left” meant “Democrat.” Nevertheless, the facts in the story demonstrated that these liberal and conservative labels were too general to accurately categorize Republican or Democratic voters in Door County, Wisconsin.

“We’ve got disagreements on this (abortion) issue within our own party,” the story quoted one Republican leader as saying. “That’s the challenge: Finding a message we can all agree on.”

Corporate ‘liberalism’ in politics today

A Sept. 3 Washington Post opinion piece said corporate “liberalism” was changing today’s political landscape. The commentary reported results of an academic study of 320 business elites and 670 “ordinary people.” That study found that both Democratic and Republican business elites thought corporate America was moving away from a close connection to the Republican Party.

The commentary equated “the decoupling of business from the Republican coalition” with businesses becoming more “liberal.”— “that is, more deferential to authority and more favorably disposed to bureaucracy and expertise.”

“Conservatism, meanwhile,” the story said, “has moved in the opposite direction and become more populist and mistrustful of institutions.”

I noted that no quotations in the commentary from the research paper itself mentioned “liberal” or “conservative.” The opinion writer introduced those labels. The research analyzed a new way of thinking among Republican and Democratic business elites. The study, therefore, didn’t consider whether executives were liberal or conservative. The research examined the partisan identification of businesspeople with various ideas about how to interact with government. The opinion writer decided that “Democrat” equaled “liberal” and “Republican” equaled “conservative.”

Shifting stereotypes

The seven examples I’ve cited illustrate how empty common political labels have become, as far as I’m concerned. Labels reflect stereotypes. In these seven examples, however, the stereotypes are no longer accurate. The Sept. 3 Washington Post commentary shows that the business community’s political alignment is changing and that Republicans are becoming more populist. Language evolution has not kept pace with such political trends. As a result, American journalists (and others) no longer have a precise shorthand for the shifting social/political spectrum.

Labels like “liberal” or “conservative”—for me at least—are supposed to describe how a person or a movement approaches social or political change. These labels are not tied to specific sets of policies or specific political parties.

Conservatives, in my understanding, aren’t eager to change. They want to maintain (or conserve) the systems and traditions we have now. Moderates accept measured change. Moderates don’t like extreme actions. Liberals are open to more extensive change than moderates and don’t feel tied to traditional ways of approaching things the way conservatives do. Radicals favor throwing out traditions and trying things that have never been done before. Reactionaries want to go back to the way things used to be.

Not a left-right political axis

A further complication to clear communication is that many people—both writers and readers—conceive of our political spectrum today as a horizontal right-left axis. Conservative and liberal are at opposite ends of that horizontal line. Moderate is in the middle.

The political spectrum is really a circle with at least five reference points: reactionary, conservative, moderate, liberal, and radical. Where a person or issue lands on that circle depends on place and time. The left-right axis eliminates the extremes (reactionary and radical) from our routine political lexicon and, as we saw in the Pope Francis story, limits how people can discuss approaches to social or political change beyond the axis.

Policies vs. approach to change

Because social and political context determines where an issue lands in the political spectrum, viewpoints could be liberal at one point, conservative at another, and reactionary or radical in yet another context.

For many Americans today, for example, traditional conservative policies favor limited government, low taxation, fiscal responsibility, free market capitalism, capital punishment, immigration controls, integrity of elections, and a strong national defense. Traditional conservative policies oppose gun control, abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, government-funded healthcare, and expanded benefits for social welfare programs.

Traditional liberal policies favor government actions to defend individual rights (affirmative action, same-sex marriage, abortion), ensure social equality among all citizens through government-funded benefits, facilitate broad participation in elections, promote equitable tax burdens for all, control access to guns, and protect the environment.

Neither of these issue agendas considers how an advocate approaches change. Some of these policies are in place today. Others are not. Still others were once in place but are no longer.

Therefore, if a person is trying to maintain what we have, I argue that he or she is a conservative. Actions to change what we have could be reactionary, moderate, liberal, or radical. The direction or degree of change determines the shorthand label. Moves to go back to something we had before would be reactionary. Moves toward something completely new would be radical. Small, measured changes would be moderate. Major changes would be liberal.

I know as well that the Republican and Democratic party positions on many political issues have shifted throughout American history. Republican-backed policies were not always conservative. Democratic stands were not always liberal.

After the Civil War, for example, one wing of the Republican Party was called radical for its approach to southern Reconstruction. President Theodore Roosevelt, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller—all New Yorkers—represented the liberal wing of the Republican Party between 1900 and 1972.

Republican policies on such topics as immigration and free trade after the Trump presidency differ significantly from what Republicans supported under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Nevertheless, many Americans identify all those presidents as conservative.

Democrats before the 1960s were often seen—especially in the South—as the nation’s conservative party. Today’s Democratic Party includes U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; and U.S. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Manchin and Cuellar are often called conservative because they frequently agree with Republicans on policy. Ocasio-Cortez and Omar are prominent members of “the Squad,” a group of young lawmakers who favor what I would term radical policies. Those include Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and total student loan forgiveness. We haven’t had policies like those before.

Self-identities

Self-identities are another factor in how people understand political shorthand labels.

I’ve noticed that people who consider themselves conservative or moderate have no problem embracing those labels. Those individuals usually align their identities with their political party affiliations or opinions on social issues, such as taxation, immigration, voting rights, public education, gun control, or free speech. To those folks, conservative or moderate usually doesn’t relate to the way they approach change.

Those who favor significant social or political change may equate their identities as well with how the person stands on certain issues. But these individuals often don’t want to be called liberal, radical, or reactionary. Persistent Republican messaging since at least the 1990s has made liberal a pejorative term. Radical and reactionary have long had negative connotations. Consequently, folks who advocate significant change call themselves “progressive.”

While liberals, moderates, and conservatives may identify with specific political agendas, each person’s orientation to change may not be consistent from issue to issue or across party lines. Voter opinions on various issues are dynamic and often erratic. As in the Sept. 2 story about Door County, Wisconsin, one shorthand label may not correctly describe where someone stands on all issues.

Between the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade and the 2022 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson, for example, access to abortion was legal and the accepted norm. Efforts to defend abortion rights in that context, therefore, were conservative (maintaining what we have). Efforts to overturn the Roe decision and return to the former standards were reactionary (going back to the way things used to be).

After the Dobbs decisions, efforts to defend abortion bans are conservative (maintaining the new standard). Efforts to return to the Roe standards are reactionary (going back to the way things used to be). Efforts to go beyond restrictions that were in place before 1973 or to introduce new ways to enforce abortion bans are radical (trying things that have never been done before).

The Washington Post story about Door County, Wisconsin, however, used the longstanding shorthand labels traditionally applied to the abortion debate: Those who oppose the Dobbs decision are liberal or left-learning, not reactionary. Those who want to tighten abortion restrictions beyond pre-Roe standards are conservative, not radical.

I find those traditional labels misleading. I know people disagree with me.

Heated reactions

My pointing out differences between people’s approaches to change and the way they label their political agendas often elicits heated reactions.

My “liberal” friends take offense when I suggest that their defense of current federal or state social programs is conservative and that their efforts to ban assault rifles are reactionary. Current programs are the norm. The United States had an assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004.

My “conservative” friends often get hostile when I say that attacks on civil liberties, efforts to militarize our borders, or moves to eliminate birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1868) are radical, not conservative, positions. We haven’t tried these policies before. I get similar responses when I contend that moves to protect election integrity and restrict voter participation could be seen as reactionary. States routinely limited minority access to the ballot box before a series of federal civil rights acts passed from 1957 to 1968.

Because of these unreceptive reactions to my opinions, I’ve reconsidered whether understanding that a political position is radical or reactionary, rather than liberal or conservative, improves political discourse in the long run. The situation may be like the communication problem of using plural pronouns to stand for singular nouns (see Aug. 19 post). Consequently, I don’t bring these topics up much anymore in face-to-face meetings (see spiral of silence theory).

I still think about philosophical inconsistencies, however—especially when I see stories like the seven I’ve cited here. Those thoughts make this post appropriate for this blog.

Overly general?

The Associate Press Stylebook advises journalists to “think carefully” before using shorthand descriptions. Reporters and editors should “consider whether any broad term such as gays, liberals, conservatives, Americans (or any nationality), Latinos (or any ethnicity), supporters of Candidate X, etc., is overly general.”

We all use shorthand descriptions as a communication crutch. These labels help organize our world into categories and supposedly help simplify messaging. But when labels are ambiguous, they may not only hurt clear communication. They may also add to the growing partisan divide in American society today.

Labels help people separate themselves from others. This sorting may encourage folks to avoid interactions with others who have differing opinions. People isolated from diverse viewpoints often see mostly how their opinions differ from those of folks in other groups, not where everyone shares common ground.

While ongoing dialog between people who don’t agree might not change minds, these exchanges should help deepen understanding of contrary viewpoints and counter continued political polarization. Demonizing someone you know is harder than fostering enmity toward nameless, faceless “liberals” or “conservatives”—no matter what you think those words mean.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon