Being Critical: Contesting Power within the Misinformation Society

Abstract

This essay considers the meaning of “being critical.” Specifically, it considers how critical scholarship might aim to demystify and contest dominant power arrangements. First I situate my own work within a specific critical tradition and then I discuss the critical scholar's role in society more broadly. I draw from some of these attributes to conclude with a general proposal for a potential project focused on misinformation that may appeal to critical scholars from diverse theoretical backgrounds.

Keywords:

• Critical
• Contesting
• Power
• Misinformation

The author would like to thank Chris Cimaglio, Christina Dunbar-Hester, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, and Joseph McCombs for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.

Notes

[1] Richard Maxwell, Herbert Schiller (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 5. Maxwell was describing Herb Schiller's qualitative methods, which also included close readings of government documents and other sources of elite intelligence, critically analyzing these texts, and reporting this analysis to broader publics.

[2] See, for example, Robert W. McChesney, “Critical Communication Research at the Crossroads,” Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (1993): 98–104; Slavko Splichal, “Why Be Critical?,” Communication, Culture & Critique 1, no. 1 (2008): 20–30; Christian Fuchs, “A Contribution to Theoretical Foundations of Critical Media and Communication Studies,” Javnost-The Public 16 (2009): 5–24.

[3] Victor Pickard, “Revisiting the Road Not Taken: A Social Democratic Vision of the Press,” in Will The Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done to Fix It, ed. Robert W. McChesney and Victor Pickard (New York: The New Press, 2011), 174–84.

[4] Victor Pickard, “‘Whether the Giants Should Be Slain or Persuaded to Be Good’: Revisiting the Hutchins Commission and the Role of Media in a Democratic Society,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 27, no. 4 (2010): 391–411; Victor Pickard, “The Battle over the FCC Blue Book: Determining the Role of Broadcast Media in a Democratic Society, 1945–1948,” Media, Culture & Society 33, no. 2 (2011): 171–91.

[5] Victor Pickard, “‘The Air Belongs to the People’: The Rise and Fall of a Postwar Radio Reform Movement,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2012.705436.

[6] Victor Pickard, “Reopening the Postwar Settlement for US Media: The Origins and Implications of the Social Contract Between Media, the State, and the Polity,” Communication, Culture & Critique 3, no. 2 (2010): 170–89; Victor Pickard, “Social Democracy or Corporate Libertarianism?: Conflicting Media Policy Narratives in the Wake of Market Failure,” Communication Theory, in press.

[7] Of course, critical scholars in particular are mindful of the risks associated with questions of “fact” and anything that smacks of a truth claim. The problem of defining misinformation is indeed a thorny one, exceeding the scope of this essay. As a potential starting point for future discussions on this subject, I refer to an article by Bruno Latour, who reminds us that “The question [for critical scholars] was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism” (his emphasis, 231). See Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry 30 (2004): 225–48.