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folk seem to have been persuaded that "control" is to be understood as a matter of whether the state is explicitly involved or not--so control is a function of direct state involvement. in a "free" context, dominated by private interests, the "logic" goes, there cannot be domination. so folk treat information either as given, in which case problems of co-ordination disappear, or as entirely suspect, in which case they can simply fall back on a priori attitudes and "feelings" as if they occupied the same space in a political deliberation and positions informed by data concerning the world.
personally, i don't think walter cronkite represents much of anything.
i think that the problems of ideological co-ordination in the context of mass media did not just start--try to imagine fascism in the 20s and 30s without radio as a political co-ordination device. you can't do it.
this is not new. this is a structural problem.
one of the reason that the transmission belt relation occurred to me as an analogy is that there is a variability in the connectedness between formally independent organizations implied by it--sometimes seeming more loose, other times tighter--so the problem is not periods of relative looseness (vietnam, say, at the level of network coverage of the war) but the relation itself, the whole transmission belt arrangement.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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