Opinion

SHOHAM GEVA
EDITOR IN CHIEF

CLAIRE BRYAN 

AND REGAN DETWILER 
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LAURA SCHINAGLE
MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, January 13, 2016

H

ow can we do the serious 
work of educating our-
selves politically when 

there’s 
such 

great 
stuff 
to 

watch on Netflix 
and Hulu?

Today 
the 

news media often 
has to compete with the likes of HBO 
GO and YouTube for our attention, 
because if it fails to capture us within 
the first 15 seconds, then we switch 
tabs on our web browsers and watch 
or read something better, something 
that’s more entertaining.

No 
wonder 
the 
mainstream 

news media covers presidential 
campaigns as if they’re unfold-
ing political dramas. No wonder 
they try to provoke the candidates 
to “attack,” “slam,” “go after” and 
(ahem) “schlong” one another, as 
if presidential debates were WWE 
wrestling matches,or episodes of 
the “Real World.” Or, as Trump 
would have it, misogynist pornos. 
No wonder the mainsteam media 
habitually presents the candidates 
less as leaders advocating policies 
and more as heroes on their own 
personal, lifelong journeys.

And how else can the news media 

compete with the entertainment 
media other than for the former to 
play the latter’s game (entertain-
ment)? Today the news media isn’t 
just trying to inform us — I suspect 
that’s not even their chief goal — 
they are trying to entertain us. And 
that’s a big problem for democracy.

Perhaps this isn’t news to many 

of you, especially the Communica-
tion Studies majors, but it’s a point 
worth revisiting during each elec-
tion season.

Today, many of us want to be 

politically active without the activ-
ity, the same way many of us want 
coffee without the caffeine, cream 
without the fat, beer without the 
alcohol, warfare without the war-
fare (e.g., drones) and, in short, 
as philosopher Zizek puts it, “ … a 
whole series of products deprived 
of their malignant property.”

How does the market respond 

to our demand for political activ-
ism without the activity, without 
the work? The mainstream media 
supplies us with political entertain-
ment, including everything from 
comedy news shows like “The Daily 
Show with Trevor Noah” and “Last 
Week Tonight” to political dramas 
like “The West Wing” and “House 
of Cards,” to Bill O’Reilly, to the 
Republican presidential debates, to 
an article about Trump’s alcoholic 
brother in the Times, etc. (Have you 

noticed how the sets for the Demo-
cratic and Republican debates look 
highly similar to the “American 
Idol” sets? Is that an accident?)

These commodities allow us to 

feel like we’re participating in poli-
tics and doing the work of educat-
ing ourselves politically without 
actually seriously participating or 
working. With this entertainment, 
we experience politics without 
actually doing politics.

Political entertainment requires 

little to no work on our part (the 
audience’s part) because, like most 
entertainment, it allows, and in fact 
requires, the audience to be most-
ly passive. The video or TV show 
does the intellectual work for us, 
much like canned laughter on old 
sitcoms laughs on our behalf, fool-
ing us into finding jokes funny that 
really aren’t. That is, when we’re in 
the passive, receptive state of being 
entertained, we’re willing to accept 
certain information as news, as 
fact, as self-evident and so on, that 
we might not accept when we are in 
the active mental state of reading, 
analyzing, interpreting, etc.

These 
entertainments 
co-opt 

our desire to laugh or politically 
engage. Often, the jokes aren’t that 
funny and the news isn’t that news-
worthy. And this, too, poses prob-
lems for democracy.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Who 

cares if the news is entertaining? I 
like to be entertained. Stop trying 
to yuck my yum!”

The danger in this news enter-

tainment business is multilayered. 
When we trade doing political activ-
ity for being political entertained, we 
sacrifice some of our agency as criti-
cal thinkers and engaged citizens. 
When we decline to do the work of 
educating ourselves politically, and 
instead quell, pacify, placate or mol-
lify our enduring drive for political 
involvement by having someone else 
do the work for us (via entertain-
ment), we risk being misled. We are 
probably less apt to notice when and 
how we’re being misled with the 
information we’ve received because 
we’ve received the information in 
the passive state of being entertained 
instead of the active state of, say, 
reading and studying.

I’m of course mostly generalizing 

and speculating here. For example, 
I personally have learned impor-
tant stuff from watching episodes of 
“Vice” and videos on YouTube, but I 
would say that shows like “Vice” are 
the exception rather than the rule, 
and they aren’t always that excep-
tional.

I’m not saying the mainstream 

media is entertainment all the time. 
TV media generally entertains more 
than, say, The New York Times, but 
the mainstream media participates 
in this news business sometimes; 
and when the Times does, it’s often 
more insidious because it is enter-
taining behind the highbrow mask 
of sophistication.

Look, I’m not suggesting we all 

do journalism or scholarship. I’m 
not even really trying to convince 
you of anything. (Maybe you think 
I’m being facetious, but I’m not.) I 
believe my observations are true 
and analyses plausible, and if they 
are true (and plausible), then I sus-
pect they’ll ring true (and plausible) 
for you, too. Or, if the stuff I’m see-
ing and saying appears strange or 
unfamiliar, and hence rings nei-
ther true nor false, look at yourself. 
(I’m not everybody.) Citizenship in 
democracy requires work — a tru-
ism, to be sure, but a useful one to 
remember — especially in a culture 
that so often promotes political 
apathy and cynicism over activ-
ism and participation. When many 
of us decline this important work 
of citizenship, we neglect a part 
of ourselves (a part of our souls?) 
that wants political activity — that 
wants to participate in the polis. 
When we allow this part of the 
soul to do the political work that it 
wants to do, and stop placating it 
with unwholesome entertainment 
substitutes, the work ultimately 
crowns us with eudaimonia. 

I look around campus and I see 

most of us working pretty hard in 
school, so how can I fault us for 
preferring to kick back and watch 
TV in our free time instead of doing 
the work of educating ourselves 
politically? I should mention that 
I definitely don’t abstain from the 
political entertainment that I’ve 
been criticizing (nor do I advo-
cate total abstinence). Besides the 
human who shares a bedroom with 
me, I am my own primary object/
subject of study. And yet, if we 
ignore how the maintream media 
tries to appeal to us as passive con-
sumers of entertainment — that is, 
if we ignore how the mainstream 
media tries to entertain us in addi-
tion to informing us — we risk 
becoming passive citizens of a 
passive democracy, and a passive 
democracy is no democracy at all 
(which is not to say democracy is 
a system I’m ready to advocate for 
either — I’m just assuming you all 
are fans).

—Zak Witus can be reached 

at zakwitus@umich.edu.

Why Protest When You Can 

Netflix?

ZAK 
WITUS

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, 
Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna 

Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, 

Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, 

Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

We all have things we think suck on cam-

pus. Many students simply rant to their friends 
or internalize their concerns. Most don’t real-
ize there is an avenue to voice their complaints 
and bring about real results to their issues.

A request for more bike parking at Palmer 

Commons, a request to expand the availabil-
ity of covered bike parking on campus and a 
request for installing more bike repair sta-
tions: Other than the obvious fact that these 
are all about bikes, what do they have in com-
mon? Each was a concern students expressed 
in multiple e-mails sent to LSA Student 
Government’s “this sucks” e-mail service 
last semester. Thissucks@umich.edu is an 
e-mail address created for the student body 
to directly communicate changes they’d like 
to see on campus.

As a frequent biker on campus, when I saw 

an e-mail about the limited number of bike 
parking spaces in front of Palmer Commons, I 
decided to take on the project. I reached out 
to some connections in Facilities, and less than 
two weeks after the Student Life Committee 
meeting where I took up the project, I was 
meeting with Steve Dolen, the University’s 
director of parking and transportation, to dis-
cuss the issue.

During our meeting, it quickly became 

apparent that a huge underlying obstacle for 
bicycle parking was the number of abandoned 
bikes on campus. According to Dolen, approxi-
mately 25 percent of all bikes parked on cam-
pus are abandoned bikes. The cost of adding 
that many more parking spots would be hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. I left that meet-
ing with a project, albeit slightly different than 
the one we started with, but nonetheless an 
important one: to reduce the number of aban-
doned bikes. I am still working on how we can 
do it, but the thought and effort is being made.

Students often do not have the time or the 

resources to push for the changes they would 
like to see on campus. LSA Student Govern-
ment exists to be the voice of the LSA student 
body. It is our responsibility to engage with 
students to find out what issues and projects 
they think would be most impactful for us to 
work on.

This past Sunday marked the 10th anniver-

sary of this e-mail system service for the stu-
dent body. We really have made a difference 
on campus with your help over the years from 
these e-mails — buses have increased their 
route frequency, bathrooms have been redone 
and minors in religion and entrepreneurship 
have been implemented, just to name a few.

On another occasion, two of our elected 

representatives were inspired by a “this 
sucks” e-mail titled “The Ugly Truth About 
the UGLI,” which pointed out a need for a 
feminine hygiene product dispenser in the 
Shapiro Undergraduate Library. Within a 
few weeks, a meeting had been secured, 
money had been found and the idea was 
implemented. These same representatives 
are now working with University Health Ser-
vice to provide feminine hygiene products for 
free, as is done with condoms.

When it comes to thissucks@umich.

edu, no issue is too large or too small for us 
to address, and we promise to answer every 
e-mail. We will do everything in our power 
to address your concerns and work to build 
a better University for everyone. If you’d like 
to help LSA-SG celebrate 10 years of problem 
solving, send us your issues and concerns at 
thissucks@umich.edu. Your problems are our 
projects, and that’s how we like it. 

Jason Colella is president of 

LSA Student Government.

10 years of problem solving

JASON COLELLA, LSA STUDENT GOVERNMENT | OP-ED

Replacing newspapers

“H

as anyone ever seen one of 
these before?”

My class laughs a bit as my 

professor holds it up. It’s a 
beautiful work of art, filled 
with 
stories, 
pictures, 

people and places. There’s 
both triumph and failure, 
coupled 
with 
laughter 

and sadness, along with 
hope 
and 
horrors, 
all 

put together to make the 
folded 
broadsheet 
the 

masterpiece it is.

“This is a newspaper. 

You read stuff in it.”

He knows he’s being 

facetious. Yes, everyone in this class of 
computer science majors has seen a newspaper 
before. Even in a class of technophiles, the role 
of the newspaper might change, but its history 
does not.

“How many of you still read a newspaper?”
Not a single other hand goes up. It’s not 

particularly surprising, as daily newspaper 
readership fell to 17 percent in the 18 to 24 
age demographic in 2014, and certainly a class 
called Mobile Application Development and 
Entrepreneurship is full of students more 
likely to read from a screen than from print. 
But the conclusions are stark: Not one of my 
classmates will pick up a printed copy of this 
edition of The Michigan Daily to read my 
column or anything else in it. Nor will they 
pick up anything else off newsstands.

He then read the article he intended to 

share, regarding General Motors investing 
$500 million in Lyft, noting its placement 
on the front page as a sign of its importance. 
Terms such as “above the fold” and “below 
the fold” were familiar to someone like me 
with experience in newspaper jargon, yet the 
science of guiding the eyes of the reader along 
the page has seemingly faded away like the ink 
of old papers. The role of print media, while 
not disappearing yet, is becoming drastically 
different, driven by the behaviors of our 
generation.

When our professor asked where we 

get our news, web-driven content was the 
predominant answer; social media sites such 
as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the content 
aggregation site Reddit have become delivery 
platforms for news sources. The online edition 

of The New York Times was mentioned, as was 
CNN and web-only content providers like The 
Huffington Post. It’s not that millennials don’t 
consume news: 69 percent of them still read 
the daily news. But the medium has changed: 
The sources aren’t print, and the information 
comes from a breadth of sources far greater 
than a local paper.

It’s a strange scenario even for someone like 

me, whose job as a columnist at The Michigan 
Daily has also become replaceable. Anyone 
can set up a blog, post their own writing and 
become their own self-employed columnist as 
a hobby, or with some luck and talent, watch 
it blossom into a full-time job. Even those 
unwilling to set up their own blogs can submit 
any content they wish to syndicated blog sites 
and become published writers. It is clear that 
journalism is no longer monopolized by the 
print industry.

The newspaper has always been tangibly 

impressive, with tremendous physical value 
even with the advent of web-based news. 
Framed in my house, along with other 
Michigan memorabilia, are the front pages of 
the Detroit Free Press from the 1989 Michigan 
basketball national championship and the 
1997 football championship. Not only is there 
historical importance in these events — there 
is also personal importance in newspapers. 
My grandfather has framed the newspaper 
announcing the wedding of his parents, and 
the clippings of mentions of my siblings and 
me in the local paper were always saved by my 
parents. Newspapers are icons of the stories 
that make up our world.

Even though the future of print paper is in 

jeopardy, there’s no reason to believe that the 
societal mission newspapers carry is in the 
same peril. Just as music made the transition 
from physical to digital, so will the news.

There’s some sadness in the change; the 

prospect of the annual trip in which graduating 
seniors visit the printer to see issues of The 
Michigan Daily rolling off the presses could 
be replaced with a trip to the server room to 
see a bunch of computers hosting the content 
is a strange scenario. But whether in hard 
drives and web databases or printed in ink, the 
artistry of the words remains. Journalists type 
and write, because the stories around us need 
to be told. 

David Harris can be reached 

DAVID 
HARRIS

 
 

— President Barack Obama, during his final State of the Union address Tuesday night.
“

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re 

serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this 

fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of 

one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call 
them what they are 
 — 
 killers and fanatics who have to be 

rooted out, hunted down and destroyed.

E-mail anniE at asturpin@umich.Edu
ANNIE TURPIN

