Reviews

Brian McNair (2006) Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in a Globalised World

London: Routledge. 248 pages. ISBN 10:0-415-33913-8. £16.99 paperback.

Those familiar with the author's views on journalism and the exercise of power, will not be surprised by his latest book, as he states at the start, the arguments contained in the book have received an airing in other publications. Like previous offerings, Cultural Chaos is written as a repost to 'critical media scholars', who see media culture as maintaining elite power. The book is a head on assault on what the author terms the 'control paradigm', and those who argue unflinchingly that elite groups exercise unbridled 'definitional power' in mature democracies. As such, criticisms of the 'control paradigm' are not new, but McNair seeks to situate his critique in light of the emergence of what he terms 'cultural chaos'. Drawing on the concept of chaos prevalent in the literature of the natural sciences, he argues that the concept has application in the study of 'persuasive communication'. So what does the author mean by cultural chaos? He means, simply, that the once predictable and stable communication environment has been replaced by one that is, unstable, unpredictable, pluralised and competitive. This chaos in the communication environment has been brought about a by series of technological, social and economic transformations. These changes 'alter the dynamic by which events become news, news agendas are formed and then impact on public debate and governmental decision-making' (p. xix). While he does not 'deny the importance of control as goal of elites', he questions 'the extent to which communicative control can... be more than an aspiration' to which all elites cling with 'ever decreasing guarantees of success' (p. 4). Instead of the determinism of the control paradigm, the 'chaos paradigm' assumes in short, increasing chaos. There may be one or two readers who will be concerned by the author's borrowing of the language of the natural sciences, but he notes in passing that there is much to be gained from the utilisation of the language of chaos. However, given that social theorists have spent much time dealing with such issues - see for example the work of Bauman or Beck - and the author is a media sociologist, it seems a bit odd to ignore this perhaps more appropriate literature in favour of a more questionable conceptual adaptation.

In its thirteen chapters, the book explores in detail the emergence of chaotic communication environments in western liberal democracies and the consequences for elite definitional power. One of the main disruptions of definitional power, dealt with in several chapters, is new information and communication technologies, these, in short, have reordered the relationship between primary and secondary definers. With the Internet, chances for non-elites to exercise political voice have increased and the opportunities for elite control have shrunk. The management of the complex and ever changing 24-hour information environment is increasingly difficult and news networks, outside the western mainstream, such as Al Jazeera are challenging established mainstream news providers.

These developments are considered alongside political, economic and socio-cultural factors. Relations with journalists are more and more likely to be adversarial. With the end of the cold war, elite consensus has been replaced by elite divisions, the counter culture and rights revolution have altered the political landscape, and identity politics has emerged as a key mobiliser of citizens, all of which has placed political elites under massive pressure. Many of the developments outlined will be familiar to those acquainted with the media studies literature, and have been widely documented.

While the range of issues he examines is impressive the target in the author's sights is looking rather old. Criticisms of the 'control paradigm' have been around for the past fifteen years or so, many of the criticisms made here have been made before and feel well rehearsed, indeed, exponents of the critical paradigm have hit back (see for instance Davis, 2002). Although the book is rightfully critical of conceptions of dominant ideology, it has more difficulty in locating the terrain of a new critique. In the postscript, the author argues that the field's critical priorities need to be 'the forces of authoritarianism everywhere' and not the 'futile and misguided battles against capitalism'. This seems very weak. Critical media scholars might quickly point to the authoritarian nature of the capitalist state. In the 'War on Terror' the liberal democratic capitalist state has gained a whole series of powers, including new rights to curtail civil liberties. The language of chaos seems somehow misplaced in this context. If there is a main criticism it is that the book spends too little time rethinking the nature of critique, even though there are plenty of issues that could be raised, the book resorts to revisiting the arguments sketched in other places. One of the problems of attacking critical orthodoxy without developing a new critical direction is the riposte that the attack does nothing more than champion the status quo and lacks critical edge. To avoid such an accusation, the author would have been better off spelling out some new critical directions media studies should take in the 21st century, a task which I'm sure he will do in the future.

James Stanyer, Loughborough University.

References
Davis, A. 2002: Public Relations Democracy: Public Relations, Politics and the Mass Media in Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.