Mediating (Liberal) Hollywood and Health Care Agenda

This post is about two things: mediation and politics of health care in pop culture. I swear, it will make (some) sense by the end.

Despite the fact I should be reading literature surrounding the ‘public sphere’ and ‘democratic civic culture’, right now, I am instead thinking about the role of media, in any reiteration, and its role in mediation. Mediation as the media theory to frame our cultural/social relationship with media, not mediation as in reconciliation between two parties… although I am sure you’ll see the etymological and conceptual connection.

Every time I see media, advertisements to Facebook posts to a television show, I try to think not about what I am seeing alone, but what that creator/producer/writer wanted me to see. I also think about why I see what I see; the connotations and information I attach to it– am I seeing what I want to see or the full context. Sounds incredibly convoluted, maybe.

So if mediation is the process in which information of all types is circulated, communicated, and conveyed through media (individual or collective), it offers some interesting implications if not causality to how norms and ideas take shape, as well as public opinion (Silverstone, Martin-Barbero, etc.). However, it cannot be said that it is completely one-way; just because a media predominantly portrays one thing that it is then absorbed or mirrored by those who hear/see it, does not mean that it was not first culture that influenced the media to portray that. Basically, “media” isn’t this alienated node that sits in their tower deciding what we want to think; whether they like it or not or mean it or not, they are members of the same society recycling the same issues or impressions too.

Mediation really makes you think about the ‘chicken and the egg’ scenario- does media represent us and dynamically work off mirroring society or do we absorb media and it determines our attitudes/knowledge/connotations/culture which is perpetuated again? Academically speaking, there is a lot surrounding it and can hardly be as dichotomous or mutually exclusive as that. It can at the very least be said that there is a dynamic there, and an important one that people are paid ridiculous amounts of money to harness that dynamic (looking at you Dr. Frank Luntz, #usingmediationforstraightmanipulation).

I’m fascinated by ‘mediation’ as a process because it says quite a lot about about the power behind media and communications and what people take from it to construct their opinions, ideologies, and realities.

For Instance…leading labels
This title- “Liberal Hollywood and Health Care”.  Just by stating that, I am taking an entire social entity, Hollywood, and labeling them with a _highly_ divisive or at least connotative word, liberal, and putting it next to a hot-button issue. Also, the title plays off stereotypes that you probably know already exist based on past media consumption. That title says so much about what one would assume they were going to get out of this article. Not just that, it aligns those ideas, giving the impression that there even IS a relationship between this thing Hollywood (which lets be real, its not a place, its a type of person in our society) and this political/policy issue ‘health care’ (again, left to one’s POV, many see it as more than policy, but also an ideological issue). The title is very loaded; in comes mediation. I solely used that title because it’s a pretty standard use of media to pull people in and draw labels, that influence our own associations of concepts and information.

Truthfully, a more appropriate title would have been “Thoughts on the Dynamics behind Mediation and a Recent Example”.

So what provoked all this talk, other than general observation, and my academic studies-

I stumbled upon what I think is the latest episode of that medical drama “House”.  It was purely for entertainment reasons. If you’ve seen it, you know it normally follows around eccentric Dr. House  and the drama within his team of doctors as they treat rare diseases. This episode, however, was about one of the major but peripheral characters, Dr. Cuddy, who is the Chief Administrator and Dean of Medicine for the hospital.

…You may or may not be able to watch it here. If not, the recap is here.

Dr. Cuddy deals with telling a patient that their insurance probably won't cover an unusual perscription despite having paid premiums for 30 years

The reason this episode seemed a bit different…
While it follows her around, really emphasizing the stress of her job and how much she deals with on a daily basis, from her sick infant to an employee stealing thousands in prescription drugs, the focus of the day is agreeing on the terms of the relationship between her hospital and AtlanticNet, the largest health insurance provider in their state. During this time, a gentleman also meets with Dr. Cuddy as he is suing the hospital for sewing his thumb back on– a procedure that costs $60,000 and he hadn’t asked for it, because his insurance would not be enough to cover it. The distressed former patient is very clear that the financial burden is so much he rather lose his thumb than not be able to provide for his kids, and lose his house (which is already close to foreclosure).
Obviously its moving, but Dr. Cuddy explains that this training and services cost money, and just like him, they are in a bind with insurance companies to keep running.

There other scenes of this sentiment that pop up in this episode; and despite not clearly ever saying it, this was directed and written to speak to the health care crisis we have in America. The producers of this show are using their medium, a fictional TV drama, to add to the public discourse surrounding the state of insurance and health care. [Watch it and see if that's debatable]

There are always questions to be asked: how accurate is their representation of these relationships? Is this just their personal opinion or did they really do their research? What were they hoping I would take away from this?

Again, the guise is “Look how hard Dr. Cuddy has it, all she has to deal with”, but there is a far more political message behind it. This happens in everything purposefully made for consumption and not, like my blog, opinions are there. But if you watch, you’ll see its far to obvious to be accidental.

There is real-world not-just-built-for-entertainment-truth in its message. The administrative and structural friction that exists in these institutions and just people are very present; and although they make a point to paint the insurance corporations in a very damning way (not that it’s inaccurate),  even if you overlook that, on message seems pretty clear: the current system is so messed up that it simply does not serve the purpose it is designed for.

It reminds me the fact that in Congress it is debating the legitimacy of investing in that massive problem or navigating too far from the current system is absurd, just for these reasons (among so many others that are better justified in more legitimate and exhaustive resources than available in a blog posting).

Back to the point– this is mediation. This  is how ideas and opinions are circulated. What we grasp onto and choose to make the agenda of in our culture, and how we do it. At least part of it.

This feels strangely relevant to right now, and more so every day. In fairness, there are people out there of a different school of thought, questioning the lack of agency in this model, and its implications as a conceptual framework, and if they’re reading this, I encourage comments.

ListServe Madness

When you volunteer for a campaign, all the sudden, you are put in contact with hundreds if not thousands of people who feel like the same way you do about gettin’ in there. I am going to give the benefit of the doubt and say this is the reason that our email list serve has gotten a bit crazy because people are just so… excited to be involved. Inventions such as social websites and email… have perhaps enabled individuals a bit too much in these situations?

Oh telecommunications, how you’ve blessed and cursed us so!

At any rate, the 500+ Pittsburgh email list I am on (one of many) has been receiving about 35 emails a day, alone, which has lead to people doing this fun thing where they email the listserv and ask us, the other email recipients, to ‘remove’ them from the list.

This leads to about 5 different people emailing step by step instructions how to unsubscribe to the whole group, instead of the individuals expressing issues to be removed from the list. Then a few more send out ‘listserv etiquette’ emails.
Then there are a few thanking those who sent out the clarifications.
Then a few more that are some emails between three or four people discussing something like how much they love volunteering.
Then there are more emails about how people are getting too many emails.

So I am left in the awkward position of wanting to tell people 1) classify your emails’ subject lines so we know if we want to open it or not. 2) Asking people that are discussing prior emails not relevant to the group (“Thanks for that uplifting article Kathy!”) to email the individual 3) Complaining to the group does not unsubscribe anyone, and none of us are moderators.

However, I knew if I SENT an email, I’d be just another one of those emailers trying to spearhead the issue…when no one has any reason to listen to me. Because I am a bit afraid of negative feelings toward the campaign, just because of some excited and overzealous volunteers got email happy.
Listserves were someone’s genius idea to auto send emails to an entire group of people, which when it is used properly, I think its great. Right now, its a bit of a pain. What I find is, as soon as I want to take myself off an email list, I actually get something useful. Or maybe I’m just afraid of missing something. Nevertheless, those of you who feel this pain, perhaps you can explain to the group the dynamics of a ‘listserv’.

My solution, thus, was to contact the Western Pennsylvania  field organizer and ask her to officially address the group. She said she would not only send an official explanation… but ask the web admins if she could start screening the emails.

I feel kinda bad that she has to do that, but this is what you get when you have 500 or so excited campaign volunteers.  Can’t wait to see what happens after March 4th.

Cheers