12
facts of the case or observe a single Truth about an issue. One can disagree with these
appeals but one cannot somehow prove them wrong through public debate. What we see
is debate about which facts and which truth should take priority in policy making with the
dividing lines in the debate typically revolving around competing value systems.
22
In
each case political leaders may bolster their arguments with an array of facts that support
their case, but in the end the success of their appeals rests more heavily on how well the
underlying worldview of their communication resonates with the public than on the
accuracy of the particular facts of the case.
The result is that the media’s role in the healthy marketplace of values is not to lead
public debate toward the higher ground of consensus and truth but in fact to help elites
polarize society into opposing camps. Modern debates over abortion, the death penalty,
affirmative action, gun control, gay marriage, and US foreign policy illustrate an iron law
of the American marketplace of values: when elites sell competing policy preferences,
their success is primarily determined by the distribution of the underlying values among
the public, not by the quality of factual reporting by the news media. The eventual level
of public polarization will depend both on the initial distribution of values as well as on
the level of elite conflict over particular issues. When elites are in lock step, the public
will gravitate toward higher levels of agreement; when elites clash, the public will tend
toward greater polarization.
23
22
On how consistently American opinions diverge over competing values see Lakoff, Moral Politics.
23
John Zaller has called these the ‘mainstreaming’ and ‘polarization’ effects. See Zaller, Nature and
Origins of Mass Opinion, Ch. 6. More broadly the “elite cues” literature provides a range of evidence that
mass opinion follows elite cues. See also for example Richard Brody, Assessing the President: The Media,
Elite Opinion, and Public Support (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1991). Larson applies this argument
to explain support for military intervention. See Eric Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical
Role of Casualties in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations (Santa Monica: Rand 1996).
Convention