The Social Contract

Media Rules Everything Around Me

By Stephanie Pierotti

The near universal presence of cell phones in our lives is something that I have never been able to get used to. I was born in the early eighties, never had a pager, finally got a candybar cell phone after a few years into college, and my first smartphone was a 4s. I find it jarring to spend time with friends while they look at their phones every 90 seconds. It's challenging at work to see how much productivity is lost everyday because team members can’t disconnect from their phones. Most people don’t even see this as a problem, or maybe they acknowledge it briefly, but then quickly return to their screens. Perhaps while at work we should be able to control the programming you get on your phone. If you're going to be connected to a propaganda machine, it should at least be our propaganda that you’re being fed. It really has a dystopian feel, that all of us are connected to a computer 24/7 that is recording everything we do, feeding us disinformation and trying to get us to buy stuff we don’t need. I realize this is not a new phenomenon, it wasn't simply something that has evolved with new media or technologies, it predates all of that. At the very beginning of civilization we had social control in the form of the church, and for thousands of years that was our only source of information. The grip that the church had over all of society  is impossible to comprehend in a world with almost infinite sources of information, and the church pushed back against new forms of media every step of the way. The side effects of our current media environment are not as damaging as living in a world with only one source of information, but ultimately it’s imperative for the individual to realize the dynamics of our relationship with whatever is the dominant form of media at the time. 

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The relationship between rulers and the ruled is framed as a social contract between the state and the individual. Though this arrangement isn’t really a direct contract between the state and a single person, but with the state and the community as a whole. In modern democracies this is represented in a physical document like the U.S. Constitution, which is quite literally a contract between the rulers and the ruled. Prior to the Enlightenment and the Reformation, the social contract was ostensibly a relationship between rulers and the church. In a society that lacks literacy, let alone an independent media, the church held great sway over the hearts and minds of the plebiscite, so the legitimacy of any regime was wholly dependent on the strength of their relationship with the church. There are states in the Middle East where the church still retains enough power to hold sway over the monarchies that rule those states. Meanwhile western democracies have intentionally diminished the role of the church in governance, ideally for a more direct relationship with the ruled. However, this reduced importance of the church has directly coincided with the rise of media’s role in the social contract, and has become the most powerful vehicle for legitimizing rule. 

Unitary governments, mostly in the form of monarchies, have been the primary form of rule throughout history. Monarchs are crowned by a religious figure because they need the optics of legitimacy provided by being picked by god, at least by proxy. The church is also the propaganda tool for marketing the monarch as the legitimate ruler. The monarch in turn, has to maintain a strong relationship to the church to maintain their status. The hold that the church had over the populace prior to the printing press cannot be underestimated, and most of western history was primarily shaped by this relationship. Roman Emperor Constantine’s decision to shift the Roman Empire to a Christian church can be seen as less of a spontaneous conversion, and more of a calculated move to create a uniform church with the Emperor at its head. The most ideal relationship a ruler can have with the church is to simply be the church. Henry VIII was paying the Pope to legitimize his rule as King of England, but when that was threatened Henry elected to start a new church with ultimate authority resting with him. Not everyone went with him, and England would be engulfed in political conflict between Anglicans and Catholics for more than a century. This religious struggle over the throne influenced American colonists to attempt to minimize the influence of the church over government with the U.S. Constitution. A few years later in France, Napoleon developed an antagonistic relationship with the church while conquering most of Europe. Upon conquering Italy he imprisoned Pope Pius VI until his death, for not surrendering the Holy See. He actively reduced the church’s influence in territories under his occupation, but also recognized the Pope’s importance as a symbol for legitimacy, and was crowned Emperor by Pope Pius VII, though technically Napoleon crowned himself. Today, the Saudi Royal family practices a difficult balance of appeasing the Wahhabist hardliners so that they will remain supportive of their monarchy, despite supporting policies and behaviors that might be considered contrary to their belief structure--especially their entanglements with the west. In China the Communist Party has a firm grip on the media and the Church, suppression of both is systemic. 

Across the world the rise of independent media has greatly reduced the hold that the church has on people. In the west the rise of secular democracies and capitalistic principles has increased access to education and information. The church has fought this progress tooth and nail through history, from banning books to imprisoning and torturing scholars and scientists. To this day cynicism and skepticism towards science and education is rooted in communities where the church still retains power. Take the resistance to recognize climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic, for example.  As communication has evolved from the printing press though to Instagram and Twitter, the church has also utilized these tools to push their agenda, but have found a much more competitive marketplace for people’s attention. The move away from feudalism toward capitalism redistributed wealth away from the church and patriarchal secession to a growing merchant class with a different agenda. Families like the Medici’s eventually had enough wealth and power to manipulate politics for further success of their businesses and to promote their goods and services. We’re now in an environment where anyone has a platform for their own content. For thousands of years the church had almost no competition for influence, and now they are competing with pretty much everyone.

Western democracies had to evolve as media changed. The tools of the printing press would give way to radio, television and eventually the internet. Some governments had, and some still do have state media, which can be used as a functional substitute for a state religion. Many states embraced the ideology of a free press, mirroring freedom of religion which decentralizes that power. In this environment politicians compete for that power, seeking endorsements and air time. They use the media for the same credibility that emperors used the church for. The most recent evolution of this being the direct communication the ruler can have with the ruled via social media. President Trump used Twitter to constantly invoke his mandate from the people, and manipulate or attack his political adversaries. His legitimacy was as much from the number of retweets he could generate, as it was due to his relationship with Fox News or the church. For a long time reality was generated by the church, and now it’s created by phones and apps. The tech giants have an incredible amount of leverage over us, and for now they have used that power to drive us deeper into technology.

We are faced with an irreconcilable dilemma--that either all governance is built on inherently illegitimate social contracts, or that people as a group are incapable of thinking for themselves, which unfortunately would also include myself. It may simply be that the ruled cannot have a just and honest relationship with their rulers. There is probably some inherent discomfort in talking candidly about how these things even work. Questioning your own beliefs is challenging. Belief in God, Democracy, America or even the very notion of good and evil, are all things that are indoctrinated into us, they are not innate. Figuring out where these ideas came from can be difficult, especially when you consider that history itself has been written entirely by people with very specific agendas, often in service of the church or the state. A lot of what we experience today is a manipulation of our relationship with the government by the media. The same way that a labor union has a necessary interest in labor and management not getting along, the media has an interest in our outrage, frustration and disappointment in our government. The reason that the political left and right are getting further apart is that the media is constantly pushing coverage and content in that direction. As a society we have to reckon with the fact that because we have no universal message we have no universal reality. We currently deal with the fact that every issue has a political bias to it, not because it actually does, but simply because that is how reality is presented to us. 

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The notion that for the most part we are part of a morass of people subjugated by rules built upon lies started hundreds or even thousands of years ago that are endlessly recycled and repackaged feels exceptionally desperate. However, the decentralization of power and information has mostly been a positive for society. As annoying as cell phones may be, having the access to all that information, good and bad, is much better than only hearing the singular voice of the church. Ultimately, our fate falls on the individual, if we choose to not think for ourselves, and let the church, an app or the media tell us what to think, then we’ll continue down the same path we’ve been on for thousands of years. However, we really have all the power that we need with the access to information that we currently have. It’s a choice to participate, and if more people do then it’s more likely we can at least have more influence on the social contract between the state and the individual. 

Speaking in 1958 Journalist Edward R. Murrow gave a speech about the future of television media, and closed with this which still resonates today as we struggle to reconcile the responsibilities of creating and consuming media. I would recommend reading the entire speech.

“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.”