content analysis

I was catching up on back episodes of the great radio show On The Media (OTM to insiders) this weekend.  In this special episode on investigative reporting, long time 60 Minutes producer, Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino’s character in The Insider) made the intuitatively reasonable sounding claim that as money for investigative journalism drys up, most Pulitzers are increasingly going to a small number of elite newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times).

But is this empirically true?  A quick perusal of recent Pulitzer winners suggests the following:
1. It’s not that elite newspapers win most of the prizes.  It’s just that the Washington Post wins all of them.
2. Beyond the Post, most of the winners are newspapers with a circulation above 250,000, perhaps unsurprisingly.
3. Though the majority of the awards are won by big papers, small newspapers do win things with some regularity.  And it’s not just the same few small papers over and over again.

I wonder if a longer term analysis would show consolidation of Pulitzer prizes by elite newspapers in recent times.  Contrary to Bergman’s claim, I actually suspect that while the names shift over time, Pulitzer has always been dominated by a small number of elite newspapers.  Perhaps the competition was just tighter in the past.  Has anybody done research on this?

Mark Cuban offers a private alternative to the government bailout.  He’s in for $50 million. I’m no economist, but it doesn’t sound like a half bad idea.

Side-note: This past winter, I frequently used the tag “debt crisis,” suggesting that I thought the crisis would be limited to the issue of housing debt.  How quaint.  I am now using the tag “financial crisis,” but I’m contemplating upgrading to “all out shit storm.”

No class of mine can ever stay on topic, so today we veered off course into discussing what an appropriate daily measure of financial health might be.  The daily stock market report that we’re accustomed to says very, very little about the financial well being of the average American family.  Though reporting changes in the real wages of various occupations would offer insight into the lives of far more people, there is very little flucuation in the daily level.  Of course, a quick daily reminder — “Incredible Inequality Persists” — would be an improvement.  So, my first question is: does anybody out there have a suggestion for a more useful daily economic report?

In a related thought, I’m struck by how, in the midst, of all this talk about this absurd government bailout, there hasn’t been word one about consumer debt relief.  Of course, we can help out companies; they’re pillars of our society.  But to give the millions of American struggling under the weight of revolving credit loads a break would run entirely counter our notions of self-reliance and individualism.  If we’re willing to repair the mistakes of a lot of rich bankers, why not forgive the mistakes of a lot of people without vacation houses?  Naturally, talk of such equality has no place on the national stage.

“Always remember that there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name.”

-The Avett Brothers (“Murder in the City,” The Second Gleam)

Content Analysis isn’t much for values, but two separate ideas — one personal, one public — have been swirling in my head.  I feel that they are connected, but my brain hasn’t figured out how.

***

Content Analysis is getting married soon and seriously contemplating taking my partner’s last name.  Of course, there many good reasons not to do so.  We’re both independent people with our own histories and traditions attached to our last names.  Why should one of our heritages trump the other person’s?  And, frankly, inventing a new last name seems to reject both traditions (and give any potential offspring a hell of headache).  Moreover, we both have careers and even if I keep my pre-marital name for publication, it creates a lot of boundary questions (which name do I have on campus? with colleagues?).

That said, the above quote by the Avett Bros. puts a mighty ache on my heart.  The point of marriage is to develop a new family union, to share a love bound together by shared experience and commitment.  Isn’t sharing a last name a powerful and permanant reminder of that?  I remember many times in the family of my youth, disliking everybody in family, but also loving them in a more enduring, primal way.  Having something as fundamental to one’s identity as your name in common with another person (or persons) is a very potent symbol of how you share a love that can rise above some nasty moments of dislike.

Isn’t “the love that let us share our name” something I want both me and my partner to share with our children some day?  But, by the same logic, to abandon my last name is a sort of symbolic betrayal of the love of the nuclear family of my youth.  Which I guess I’m okay with.  Despite elaborate fantasies on the part of certain members to the contrary, we’re a small, careerist family that no longer shares much of a connection beyond buying Christmas gifts and calling to announce our achievements and far-left political attitudes.  My partner’s family is big, loving, and values family more than anything else in this life.  They’re the kind of people with whom you’d like to share a last name.

***

Of course, I would never tell another person what to do about marital naming.  Why would I want to impose my social and political values on their personal choices?  That would be a behavior wholly out of line with my loosey-goosey, culturally relativistic, feeble liberal commitments.

And that’s how most of us, sociologists, think, isn’t it?  It’s no longer the Journal of Marriage and the Family, it’s the Journal of Marriage and Family because we don’t want to imply — even for one second — that one type of family structure is better than another.  We say that David Popenoe is a dick when he claims that the American family is in decline.

We constantly preach relativism, encouraging students to respect people of different cultures, belief systems, and demographic characteristics.  That is noble of us, but let’s not pretend that these responses don’t come from a place of moral conviction. And when moral beliefs rear their head, eventually the laissez-faire notion of “anything goes” goes out the window.  A principled person inevitably comes to a moment where we draw a line in the sand and reject some behavior.  Perhaps we say no to extending free speech to those who spew hatred.  Or maybe it’s a rejection of the burqa imposed on Muslim women, with our commitment to gender equality overriding our respect for cultural diversity.  Moreover, isn’t the fundamental assumption of sociology courses everywhere — that we should care about poverty and something beyond our own self-interest — an imposition of morals.

So, here we come to a national debate about Bristol Palin, a teenage girl suffering under the unkind gaze of the national press.  Remarkably enough (as the Daily Show writers have repeatedly pointed out), the Republicans have brilliantly stolen our language of respecting personal choice.  It’s the family’s personal choice to keep the baby and we should butt out, they tell us.

Are they right though?  Isn’t it irresponsible of us, knowing what we do about the burdens of teen motherhood and the failure rates of shotgun teenage weddings, if we don’t say that the Palins are setting a bad example.  Sure, Bristol’s unborn child will probably be fine being born into an affluent family that can pay for day care while she takes college classes.  But shouldn’t we have the conviction to point out that most 17 year-olds in that position would be better off by having an abortion?  Can’t we just say that Bristol really needed to some pregnancy prevention courses other than abstinence?

Yeah, I get it, let’s not gang up and shame a 17 year-old.  However, sociologists are too quick to veil our moral commitments and traditions behind relativism.  Unlike Popenoe, I’m not calling for us to be more conservative.  I am simply suggesting that we spend too much time asking empirical questions (what is the world like?) when we should be asking moral questions (how should the world be?)  As Marx wrote, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.”

…and while we’re talking about worthwhile stuff to read, I need to mention the superior blogging of Jay Livingston over at Montclair SocioBlog.  This guy … I love this guy.  His fantastic posts over the summer made what time I did register online enjoyable.  He has my vote for Summer MVP of the Socioblogosphere.

slow news (Sept. 18, 2008)

You Just Can’t Kill It

By Cintra Wilson (NY Times)

Those who know me know that I am a great afficionado of the Times Style Section.  The sheer preposterousness of the proported “trends” they cover is a delight.  This article fairly insightfully and humorously discusses the allure of goth subculture to young people.  The Goth subculture is at least vaguely familiar to those of us who have attended high school within the past thirty years.  But too often people focus on its outward signs — the make-up, the black clothes, the overt pathos — without understanding what values might lie behind the symbols.  Of course, neither this article nor the fashion exhibit nor the referenced coffeetable book are comprehensive examinations of the meaning behind the Gothic subculture.  But it’s an interesting window for the uninitiated.

One of the best parts is the final line, which I read as a direct potshot at me.  I own plaid shots and I love Nirvana.  Does that mean I’m not cool enough to smoke cigarettes behind the high school?

Greetings after a long absence!  I thought of telling you all that I had fallen victim to an experience closely paralleling Tom Hanks’ in Castaway.  But alas, the truth is much more mundane.  Summer was simply too packed for me to post.  I was delightfully somewhat removed from the Internet during the summer months.

I had hatched a glorious return during the first week of classes, but those of you who are employed by liberal arts colleges know too well of the extensive faculty workshops that accompany the beginning of a new year.  For those of you who are less familiar, let me describe a few of the key features of these events:

The Liberal Arts: our faculty workshop is rife with panel discussions and small workgroups that consider pedagogy and the mission of the liberal arts.  While I know well that this would be misery for many, I view it as gift that I work for an institution and have colleagues that eagerly engage in serious conversations about pedagogy.  Or more simply people who believe that discussion of the liberal arts should be a living one.

Curricular Theme: Our current curricular theme involves the increasingly globalized society and encouraging our students to think about the many questions and challenges that reality presents.  To kick-start a conversation on this topic (rather than resorting to cliches), we were treated to two truly excellent speakers in professional positions with global relevance, each of whom spoke for 45 minutes.  We then had another hour to just ask them questions and have a dialogue.  What a pleasure to engage in an interdisciplinary, intellectual conversation!

Pondering: To paraphrase Weber, all the most intellectually productive times I have enjoyed were spent laying in a hammock just thinking.  The informal tradition at my institution is that faculty take nearly a full week just before the beginning of classes to prepare their syllabi — even if they’ve taught the same classes for twenty years.  It’s a wonderful time when we think carefully about the process of education, chat about assignments, and swap readings.

Though I personally cherish the community and intellectualism that this programming encourages, it’s also damn time consuming.  Of course, the semester only gets busier.  But somehow, I’m now re-acclimated to the pace.  So, it’s my sincere hope that I’m back now — like for real.

Just one more thought: Like many, I was saddened to hear of the death of gifted writer, fellow liberal arts educator, and thoughtful human being, David Foster Wallace.  Others, with more expertise or greater poetry of language, have already offered insightful commentary on the man.  But I just wanted to post quote of his that speaks volumes about his personal biography, but also resonates for its honesty about our historical era:

There’s something particularly sad about [living in America around the millennium], something that doesn’t have very much to do with physical circumstances, or the economy, or any of the stuff that gets talked about in the news. It’s more like a stomach-level sadness. I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness. Whether it’s unique to our generation I really don’t know.