politics in america. this is booktv on c-span2. >> far left, i like that term. [laughter] nancy cohen and we have eric deggans and karen sternheimer. i'm going to introduce them in a

moment but i want to talk about the culture war. i sort of think about what is at? what is culture war and it turns out pretty much everything. because it is how we now frame pretty much every issue in the country and i just was startled to stop to think how did that happen? how did abortion and i have a whole list here from wikipedia, stem cell research right to die decriminalization capital punishment law and order separation of church and state. all these things are you know framed as good one side or the other. we have all heard about -- so are going to talk about how we got there and what we can expect in the future. so, we will start returned reductions now. nancy back to my far left, nancy

cohen is a historian journalist and author of three books on politics perishes been published in the "l.a. times" playboy rolling stone.com and other publications and a visiting fellow at occidental college and her latest book is called "delirium" how the sexual counterrevolution is polarizing america so welcome nancy. [applause] eric deggans a media critic for the "tampa bay times" does commentary for npr and writes on sports media for national sports journalism center and he was named one of the most influential black americans by "ebony" magazine and this is his first book called "race-baiter" how the media wields -- [inaudible] so well, all the way from florida. [applause] last but hardly least is karen

sternheimer. karen is a sociologist at usc, right here. she writes about media and society and is look is her fourth book. one of her previous books is called "celebrity culture and the american dream" start a men's social mobility. she has been or been or is a country pitcher huffington posts "new york times" l.a. times and other publications. welcome, karen. and her current book is called connecting social problems and popular culture, why media is not the answer. [applause] i'm working backwards here. i forgot to tell you, please silencer cell phones during this session and following the panel there will be a book signing and a book signing for this panel is located at the signing area one. it's on the map. i'm not entirely sure where it is but that is where the signing will be. you are not allowed to record the session.

okay, before we get started i thought we would read some excerpts from each book and i really recommend them all. my own book which we will talk about that and there's a lot of overlap here. "race-baiter" the feminist culture revolution and the role of media is driving everything. in eric's book, early in the book he says, his basic premise is that media is very niche these days. it's very targeted at certain audiences and the rights today's fastest-growing media flap forms focuses on smaller segments of the audience. fragmented viewing reading and listening public. one way to ensure that those audience segments develop fierce loyalty is to feed the messages demonizing other groups who might gather there. it may sound cynical but that

culture hates cells. and in nancy's book, "delirium" how the sexual revolution help polarize america it's a fascinating book and she actually takes you back to 1972. how many of you remember the presidential campaign from 1972? okay, well she actually is giving us a history of sort of the backlash to a lot of issues and this is what she calls a special revolution peer she quotes in 1972 george meade who is the ahead of the afl-cio who is very much against george mcgovern who was then the presidential nominee who died this past year. there was a great deal of alarm about george mcgovern opening the door to and blacks.

she quotes him as saying in the 1972 convention in miami, we listened to the and people the people who want to legalize marriages between boys and boys in marriages between girls and girls and we heard from the abortionists and the people that look like -- [inaudible] how we are talking now about the same issues, and finally with karen's book it was very interesting because we always like to blame the media for so many things. it's always the media's fault perpetuating immoral things. in her book, she talks about how we have to think about the influence of media on young people. this is something we worry about. and she has a section in a book where she talks about the whole notion of childhood and how that came about.

so she says in her book she's talking about how we created the concept of childhood and adolescence after the great depression. apparently before the depression there were only adults. after the depression we had leisure time and we were more relaxed. she writes, the high school led to the creation and growth of a huge culture. young people music grew more reclaims semblance to their peers in appearance. parents complain that young people wasted their time listening to music and were not as subjective as prior. this is particularly true prior to world war ii when economic prosperity massmarketing created what it meant to be a child, a teenager and an adult. she goes on to say that now we are so afraid of what the media

does to young minds. so, that's my introduction to you all. so we can just open it up and anyone of you can start and perhaps talk a little bit about the scope of your book and what you are trying to get at. any volunteers? >> i can start. okay. basically the premise of this book is that i think a lot of people's view of the media has not kept pace with the actual form of media. our view of how media outlets have become successful as they get the biggest audience and that was true five years ago or 10 years ago but now the way the media become successful as they focus on the biggest, small niche is and they super serve that audience. i call it the tyranny of the broad niche. so if you are central you are focused on young white males. if you are lifetime, that's --

for middle-aged women. every cable channel and media platform and has their audience that they are super serving but there are some platforms that use prejudice and stereotypes and outright racism to draw an audience and keep that audience from going to other platforms. so "fox news" channel to use one example doesn't just say that we are the best at covering news. they say the other outlets will lie to you. they are literally biased. they are corrupt and in that way they try to insulate them bring in their audience and keep that audience from migrating to other platforms. i always tell people when i give lectures if you want to understand 95% of what happens in media someone is losing money or someone is making money. so look at where the moneymaking potential and the imperative of media and you understand why prejudice and stereotypes take the lens.

>> i look at media and a different way whereas you are looking more at news media or what passes for news media. one of the things i look at them my work is fierce that we have about the media and i think what is especially relevant for our topic on culture wars is that culture wars are often flawed on the backs of children. the things that are allegedly harmful to children kind of amp up this sense that we are fighting a battle between good and evil. what i have looked at in my work is how the media itself and i don't necessarily mean the news media but whether it's video games, television, news historically, now we are seeing more concerns about texting and other social networking that somehow it is this new form of the media that are in some ways corrupting not just children but our culture more generally. as erin read from my book, one of the things that i write about

and think a lot about is what has really changed and especially the last century is what we expect the experience of childhood to be like. certainly there were people who are called children 100 years ago but we wouldn't have expected them to stay in school for very long. if they would have gone to school say beyond the eighth grade that would be somewhat exceptional and we also especially in large cities would have expected children to experience things like i don't know, state prostitutes in public paces -- places. we would expect that they would be a witness to death, perhaps in her home, perhaps with a sibling. these culture wars we hear a lot about and many that erin listed are kind of characterizing things that are harmful to children. i think that is really what amps up the adrenaline for people if they choose to take aside in the so-called wars. >> i just want to add that the counterculture wars are the element of religion and

christianity which again are a big topic these days. >> hi. so i am here and on the sex, and women beat. not much on the media. there is a lot of overlap like i said. >> i want to take us back briefly to a year ago in midst of the election. remember the earth control panic with aspirin between the knees as contraception, transvaginal probes and the summer came along and we are told by a number of republican senate candidates that women didn't get pregnant from rape that is if it was a legitimate rape and of the senate candidate in indiana, no of course women can get pregnant from rape but god intended that. so i don't know ladies if anybody else felt like it was getting really crowded down

there around the time of the election. [laughter] everybody agreed that this was insane, delirium, right? millions of people were unemployed. we will still are in afghanistan but here the worlds most world's most powerful country was debating birth control in the 21st century. so actually i think that we should thank rush limbaugh and the gop rape deny list and mitt romney who could never quite decide whether he supported equal pay for women or not. so basically the shadows and came out of the closet for all of us to see and everybody was suitably appalled. so the election last year was supposed to be about the economy and it became an election about sex and women and gays. so the question is why? as we in los angeles know here there is always a back story. that is what my book "delirium"

covers the back story of our culture wars, the back story of the politics of sex in america. the book tells the story about how a small minority of reactionaries who frankly are possessed with controlling the sex lives of other people hijacked american politics and the look as erin said takes us back to 1972 which frankly i don't remember. i am a historian and that is how i wrote about it. it takes us back for what i call the sexual counterrevolution and argues that the sexual counterrevolution, a reaction against feminism and and the sexual revolution has been kind of the starring role in driving our political polarization. so you know if you want to think about kind of the mysterious and compounding episodes of our recent politics, you know, where did these clowns in the 2012 gop come from?

why was bill clinton impeached over consensual sexual affair? how did george bush win the 2000 election? what did john mccain think that sarah palin would be a good vice president? [laughter] so what i argue is that it's all revealed by understanding what i call the sexual fundamentalists have taken over the republican party from bottom to top. so i feel like when you know this back story, all the sex, gays -- become clear. it wasn't a distraction, it wasn't a sideshow. it reflected what the white right-wing of the republican party truly believes in truly cares about. so the way this played out in the election is in the way that many people have often assumed it would in the culture wars. probably most of you know that obama won women by 10 or 11 points but consider this.

if women had split their votes equally between romney and obama, romney would have won the election by 3 million votes. so you would think that republicans would have gotten the message. actually, no. so, in ohio this week while the rest of the country is focused on what is happening in boston, the senate gop committee introduced a bill banning teachers from talking about quote gateway sexual activity and sex ed class and this is a piece of legislation that includes the word erogenous zones in the legislation. there are dozens of antiabortion bills introduced since the 2012 election and they are speeding through the united states. and of course we have the gay marriage ruling coming soon. so i think the most important take away is that this anti gay antiabortion anti woman faction

that has taken over the republican party is less popular than people think or you would think they are based on watching "fox news" but more powerful than the numbers warrant. i think it's 13 to 17% of the population. so, what is the fix? one of the important ways to fix this is for mainstream which the center is now culturally progressive. we know that a majority supports gay marriage and we know that close to two-thirds of americans do not want roe v. wade overturned. but everybody has to stay tuned in and involved because the small minority is very smart collector early and they tend to win in elections. the second things as that we want the dysfunction and the paralysis and -- paralysis in washington to end. the gop needs to turn to its

roots and its roots are pro women rights and pro civil rights for african-americans and pro privacy, pro small government when it comes to personal matters. i think eventually this will happen but don't hold your breath. kind of also looking ahead, now we have had two significant wins for the democrats but i'm thinking about how do we advance, not just react? and despite women winning the election for the democrats in the senate and for obama, we haven't really delivered all that much to women. so, as we see with some of the state legislation and as i talk about in my book there is a small but powerful minority that simply does not support full gender equality for women or full civil rights for all americans regardless of their sexuality and their sexual orientation and sexual identity.

for some reason democrats have not been democrats through this and we can put these culture wars behind us. yes, it has a lot to do with their institutions and polarization but i'm wondering if it could be that it's just not a high enough priority for the good old boys club that still dominates american politics. let me just say one more thing. i'm coming to a close. hillary recently said in one of her speeches that women's rights are the unfinished business of the 21st century. and she is absolutely right. don't get me wrong, i vote for a man and i love men and i'd love a particular man who is sitting right there. i'm just wondering if it may be time for a woman president, you know? someone who we can trust to keep her eyes on the prize. >> i was going to say what strikes me about what you're saying is it feels to me like a

lot of the resistance to women's rights and the threat to women's issues that you outline have become part of this picture of conservative politics that certain media outlets have made a business model. when i think about "fox news" and i think about the drudge report and i think about the daily caller and rush limbaugh's radio show and i think about this network of conservative media that has made a business out of the echoing and reinforcing this conservative worldview that includes all the stuff you're talking about. on the winding it isn't just about winning politics, it's about convincing premiere radio networks and "fox news" channel and news corp. and the people on the daily caller, the people who own the drudge report that there's another way to make money or that will not make the money anymore because part of what is propping up all all of these people is this huge self-reinforcing media structure

that echoes their worldview back and forth to them. >> i'm just going to jump in with a big picture question and i'm sitting here listening with great interest to all of this. i think eric and i were talking about this earlier. i forget his name. he said on the night of obama's victory there goes traditional america. >> will o'reilly, my good friend, bill o'reilly. >> your friend bill o'reilly. i would not go on the show if he asked me to come on the show. that underlies all of these culture wars, doesn't it? this panic about losing a tradition of america. what is that? to use code language a lot for it but it seems to me it is driving a lot of these wars. so on one side you have, and let me just read quickly. when he ran for president in 1990 and again in 1996, he said about the culture war he said i

will use the bully pulpit of the presidency of the united states the fullest extent of my power and ability to defend american traditions and the values of faith family and country for any and all direction. together we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence that beneath the rocks whence they came. so that is the battle cry. this war has on one side the pat buchanan and's in the conservative folks and by the way i think there was a counter racial revolution before there is a counter sexual issue because the whole racial issue is a very divisive issue and i wanted to speak to that. but is not what's really at the heart of all of this? i know its marketing and i i knw it's know it's niche but isn't it really this fear of losing traditional america? >> i do think that is what is happening here. when you look at it, birth control was illegal 50 years ago in this country in some states. gay sex was illegal in every state terry at the supreme court

didn't overturned the laws until the early 2000's. and so what i think these traditionalists or the christian right or the fundamentalists, there's lots of names for them, what they thought is it's not that they were victims. at a certain point with the civil rights movement, with the women's movement and all that movements of the 60s they lost the power to impose their vision of a traditional christian biblically-based america. the rest of us were living that before that and so yes, when they say traditional america they are trying to, the stream of them are trying to oppose bureaucracy honest. >> there is a difference i think between, there are some people who are profiteering from this and then there are some people who believe this and are pressing the case.

sometimes it's hard to differentiate. i would look at bill all right nick, my good friend bill o'reilly and i would say that bill seems to me more of an opportunist and then i would get glenn beck or sean hannity and they seem more like true believers. but in every case there is a worldview that has an economic component attached to it and part of -- >> and it resonates with this group. >> what you are doing is developing this audience and making them cling to you in making them loyal to you and supporting you as part of this larger fight. so then you go out to speeches and you have looks at, and you have all these different ways of profiting off of this fight you are fighting but it's also the business. it's also a moneymaking opportunity. aside point out in my book bill o'reilly make something like $10 million a year just off of the "fox news" channel. we are not talking about killing

lincoln or his speaking tours. this is a huge business and if you don't address the component while you're talking about the wars you are not addressing all of it. >> you can't just make money being a liberal anymore. it's not a good business model. >> i asked keith olbermann. it's not about making money. >> karen i would love for you to give us your experience with bill o'reilly and how you were prepped. >> what was interesting and if you are out there, enjoyed the experience. one of the things i thought was interesting, was on the show 10 years ago was ago was the producers had coached me to fight with him. they at least gave the impression hey we are on your side and we think your argument is stronger. and so it really take a lot of eric's points that this is what i think of as the culture war industrial complex. it is a business.

>> it's fear -- the theater, is it not? >> its theater and a lot of what we see is passing as public discourse is filtered through the lens of these debates. i think it's not just "fox news" that does this. it's a lot of media outlets to impart her looking at they have more viewers than we do and what do we need to do? to impose media and political questions is complex and once that is going to win in the other side is not going to win. really from my interest as a social scientist these issues are more complex than these culture war debates enable us to understand and i think one thing that is very alluring, even though i think most people really don't feel like they are culture warriors with one side or the other, what makes these kinds of arguments so alluring is first of all they provide drama the time were old-fashioned soap operas are going away. they also seem to provide very easy answers for complex

solutions so there are a lot of people doing research that have very significant policy implications that don't fit neatly neatly into either sidedly tend to ignore them or at least they don't get in the news because they don't fit into this paradigm that has already been created. >> what about this, what is your take quickly on the panic over losing traditional america? does that include the loss of innocence, childhood? talking about the 50s, which never really happen by the way. >> happen for a small group of people and most of them are fictional characters on television. i think what is really interesting especially about the way that the culture wars are called -- childhood it's connected with what nancy and eric have been talking about the sense that there is this beautiful traditional pass that somehow we have lost and think about the children. the reality is if you look back even beyond the 1950s, there

was sex and there was violence too before whoever pat robertson robertson -- i'm sorry, pat buchanan. >> i was thinking as you are talking my grandmother got married at 13. no one said oh my god there goes her child at. >> right, we had a very different view of childhood historically because we have different economic needs for young people so as expected the young people would be in the labor force as early as they could particularly when we were in an agrarian-based society. it's only after industrialization and the expansion of the middle class and prosperity after world war ii that we have a we think of as the quote traditional childhood and traditional family. in course people got left out of that tradition particularly african-americans and other people of color in the jim crow not just south of the north to map. >> in my book i talk about confronting and discussing with

the president of "msnbc" in 2010 about pat buchanan and him being on that channel and saying you have a guy who is essentially friendly with white separatist, friendly with white supremacists. he has written a book that says america's diversity is its downfall. why is this guy in your channel? he said zero code you know he has a point of view that we should feature. ..

[laughter] >> no thanks. you know, you bring up a good point. there's this fear about losing traditional america, well, they did lose it. thank god -- >> thank god. >> for some of us, right. you know, we don't have the jim crow signs, we don't have the lynching anymore. so we really did lose that traditional america that we never really had to begin, right? -- begin with, right? eric, i want to ask you, you know, race has -- you know, blackness has had a particular history with media where images were reality and, in fact, images and words supersealedded reality and in many ways still do. >> sure. well, the book in my chapter on network television, i talk about how the image of african-americans have evolved on television over time. and, you know, we started out with these really, with the sort of mamie characters, we had beulah on 1950s television, then we had amos and andy, and then we got to the supernegros

which were diane carroll and julia and bill cosby on i spy. for black characters to exist side by side with white characters, they had to be perfect. they, you know, bill cosby was a rhodes scholar, he was a karate expert, he spoke seven languages on i spy, and the guy who was his partner was a tennis mom, you know? that's what he needed to be to be equal to the white guy. [laughter] so we've seen this sort of slow evolution, the ghetto coms in the '70s, good times, what's happening, things like that. then we got to the '90s where things were more expensive. and i talk about this ad that appeared, i think it was in essence, it might have been in ebony magazine where it showed a black kid who had a towel, safety pin to his back, and he was pretending to be a

superhero, and he was looking in the mirror, and a white superhero was staring back at him. he had to imagine himself as a different race. and as a comic book geek from way back, that was the dynamic for a lot of us. so the reason that we're fighting so hard to improve the images of people in color in media so that we can dream bigger and better. and i think one of the best things about barack obama being elected president is that now you can turn to a black child and say you really can be president. >> but do you really want to? [laughter] no thanks, we don't want that job. >> one of the ways to oppress somebody is to get them to oppress themselves. >> right. >> so freeing these images in the media from stereotypes is about freeing people from the shackles on their own imagination. >> it's interesting how obama himself has become a one man cultural war just by being who

he is. not just what he durksz who he is. as you mentioned, it seems like we have abortion rights, cob that sense -- contraception, and yet we have the pretty strong advance of marriage equality and gay rights. can you kind of speak to that? what's going on there? >> i think it would be the other way around. >> yes. >> really, really good question. and so as we know, hardly anyone believed in gay marriage ten years ago, and now there's significant majority support in pretty much every community accept among white evangelical conservative christians. and where we are with abortion rights is kind of comply -- complicated. on the one hand, we're about split between pro-life and pro-choice, but recent polling has shown close to half the people who define themselves as pro-life, support abortion. >> most americans support

abortion rights, don't they? >> yes. >> and always have. >> so what we have is, i think where're going to wednesday up -- where we're going to end up with gay marriage, people are feeling way too overconfident right now, that there's this progress toward unanimity. and looking at the polls what the inexorable progress is toward the kind of 20% opposed in the same way that they're opposed to women's rights and abortion rights and sex education, um, and for some of them now birth control. and what, you know, kind of thinking about media and politics and the relationship between them, i think one of the reasons we have these strong right--wing outlets is because there's still an audience. and that audience is very politically savvy. so i think we're going to start seeing the same kinds of chipping away at gay rights that

we have seen on abortion rights, and we're just in this moment, this kind of heady moment where people are celebrating what really is an important change. >> do you think there'll be a backlash setting in? >> i think it's going to be the same as the backlash is against abortion rights. i mean, this is where i think the media does exaggerate things, is we are not as divided as a country on this as the media presents us to be. there is a very committed, politically powerful minority that wants to take it back, and that is going to be the psalm group of people -- same group of people who will want to strip gays of whatever rights they are achieving thousand and going to achieve -- now and going to achieve in the next five or ten years. i don't really see fundamentalist christianity, fundamentalist mormonism, fundamentalist catholicism, fundamentalist judaism changing on this. >> i would say -- >> no, i don't either.

>> i would say in the same way that i say media is motivated by profit, politicians are motivated by electoral results. and so the reason we've seen movement particularly from democrats on gay marriage is because they realize what a big piece of that played in the electoral fortunes that we saw in 2012. so the big question in 2014 is what kind of an electorate is going to show up. because what we've had in 2010 and in 2004 and these off-year elections, we've had a much older, a much more conservative electorate show up than showed up in 2008 and in 2012 courtesy of barack obama. so the question is, what kind of electorate will we see on 2014, and if the republicans take another hit where they lose seats in the house, then all of a sudden they realize that this strategy is going to lead them to ruin. and nothing motivates a politician like the threat they're going to lose their job. >> but i don't think they're

going to lose their jobs in these gerrymandered, fundamentalist bible belt districts that are overrepresented in the senate and in the house. and so i think we're going to keep having this fight like we continue to have this fight on abortion rights. >> it'll be interesting. if we do see the same results that we saw this last time, there'll be enough of a chipping away that, you know, they'll have to, i think they'll have to recrr their position -- reconsider their position. >> okay. >> wow. um, karen, we're now talking about gun violence get again. in fact, because of the newtown shootings and, of course, obama's legislation went -- it actually passed, right? but it just was filibustered, wasn't -- did not come to the a vote. anyway, lost that. and he was visibly angry about that. but we keep returning to this argument that it's the media that's causing all this violence that's, you know, affecting

people. so it takes us, you know, it moves away from public policy, and we just talk about what the media's doing. and in your book you actually say there's nothing to support that. but people, you know, are really -- want to believe it. and talk about that, you know, some. >> yeah. i think it's a very popular belief that, well, there's a lot of violence in video games and movies and television, and we see it, and we can easily be appalled by it. what we don't usually see are the actual studies that we hear about in the news that say, well, the latest study has shown that video games make people more violent. i recommend the next time you hear that on the news, you actually look up that study and see how they actually conducted the study. so that's what i do in my book, is i review these studies. now, some of the research that claims video games conclusively make young people violent, first of all, they're done on freshman

psychology students in college. these are most dangerous young people that we should find out, you know, their propensity for violence? i hope not. >> i don't know. >> the other thing, too, if you look at some of the masses they use as proxy measures for violence, in one study it is playing a violent video game and then reading aggressive-sounding words on a screen, and if you read them quickly, that's having aggressive thought. so i always recommend look at what these studies are actually doing, don't look at the press releases. and sometimes the actual authors of these studies do not make the same claims that they get, as they sound when they're reported in sound bites. oftentimes social scientists are much more, i guess, cautious about stating their findings. but this is a really popular story, and what's interesting to me is how the news media

>> and we often ignore everyday violence. the most likely causes of violence. first of all, young people are most likely to be the victims of violence at the hands of adults. not each other. we don't ask the media questions when it comes to adults. and i don't suggest that we do. so there's a lot of kinds of violence, urban violence. that goes on a lot. we don't create this national crisis over urban violation the way that -- violence the way that we do when there's a shooting, you know, a tragic shooting, but a shooting that involves young people. at least young people in a suburban, predominantly white neighborhood.

and so these are the kinds of questions that i suggest we start asking when we're thinking about actual violence. it's very tempting to get caught up in the media violence question. one of the things i write about is media violence by its nature grabs our attention. that's why it's there, it's profitable. it sells well overseas. but in terms of understanding violence, social science isn't looking at for a long time. we ignore the more dull factors that don't make for good news report, substance abuse, family violence. one thing that i don't quite get is why some of the psychologists don't study mental health issues more. we have a mental health crisis in this country. we don't have mental health treatment for enough people, and that's the story. but it's more expensive to focus on that than it is, well, can't we do something once and for all about video games or movies? >> right. >> and, you know, can you really do something about video games and texting and, you know, the media keeps getting, you know, more and more sophisticated and

more, you know, ubiquitous -- >> every so often congress will hold a hearing. this just happened, you know, over the last several decades, and maybe they'll call movie producers into a hear, and there'll be a nice dog and pony show, and they'll be berated in the front of cameras on c-span, and that's the end of it. maybe we'll have television ratings now, the video game industry will say, okay, we'll self-regulate, we'll have ratings. but the first amendment in the supreme court ruling in 2011 that, basically, decided this case about video games, the supreme court said this is protected by the first amendment. so it makes for politicians to seem like, hey, we're on your side, we're protecting your children. we're on your side of the culture wars. but in reality there's very little that can be done. and, frankly, i don't think we want to have a culture czar in this country telling us what is appropriate media content and what isn't.

>> that sounds -- >> i would say on the media violence issue one of the things that people who work in media know, for example, is that the entire premise of a free broadcast tv system is that we show you images that make you want to buy a car or that make you want to eat a big mac or make you want to buy certain tennis shoes, and then you go out, and you do it. so the idea that we could show you constant images of, um, a police officer who is wronged and then goes out and shoots five people and makes it right over and over and over again, that that doesn't have some kind of effect. logically, it doesn't make sense to us. there has to be some impact from constantly showing you images that reinforce the idea that violence can accomplish something. the studies are inconclusive about it, but they don't necessarily say there's no impact. they just say that it's hard to figure that out, because some social scientists believe that

people even in the, even in their unconscious mind can distinguish between an actual person and a fictional person. so you can, a healthy person can have a loot of fun play -- a lot of fun playing a video game, but when they're arguing with somebody, they don't automatically think that they're going to strike that person or commit violence against that person. and that's the one question that i think, frankly, we haven't studied enough to really understand. is there something about all of this -- because, you know, i love my violent -- [laughter] i love my violent media. i love sons of anarchy, i love the sopranos. [laughter] you know, i love silence of the lambs, you know? i'm a media critic who likes a lot of media that is violent. but i do also wonder about the impact of that. and i don't think we can totally shrug it off, but the solution to that, of course, is not necessarily handcuff the people who are making the media. i do think we have to have more discussion, more realistic

discussion about these images and how to impact people and who should have access to them. and, you know, as a parent of an 8-year-old, you know, i'm trying to be careful about what she consumes. >> i would add to that, too, that there is -- we probably need more discussion about why we have so many images of violence. my concern is when the media seems like the only answer. and we stop looking at issues relating to poverty, to substance abuse, to, again, family violence, mental health. so i think there's nothing wrong with looking at what role these images might have. and also i always like to say parents have every right to decide they don't want violence, violent images in their household. but, unfortunately, instead of starting the conversation in the so-called culture wars, often this is the beginning, middle and end of the conversation about violence, unfortunately. >> you know, i've just been sitting here thinking, you said

more than once that we kind of ignore, we keep ignoring the more complex reality. and this is a big political problem, but it relates to these culture wars. why do we, you know, what -- why, you know, 70% of the country, 80% support abortion rights or supports this or supports that, and yet the discussion of politics go the other way? is that, is that -- it seems to be that's a disturbing trend, to me. >> well, that's politics. >> yeah. >> and that's because this small minority has taken over the republican party. >> and then they've also taken over media. not taken over, but have a very sophisticated -- >> well, if we want to look on the background checks on guns, i think it's 98% of americans -- >> 98%. >> -- supported the background checks. and the people who blocked it were republican senators and a few democrats in red states who are terrified about being taken

out by the right in their state. and the, you know, heavily funded nra lobby is, you know, in lockstep with the sexual fundamentalists. it's the same group of people who have pulled our actual politics so far to the right. so, you know, it gets back to eric's point about who votes. 40 million people who voted in 2008 did not vote in 2010. and that gave us the tea party. okay? so we have a midterm election coming up. i think people are demoralized because they're seeing, again, there's been no movement. we can't get anything done. so are people going to stay home because of that? and the only way, i mean, i agree these are very complex issues to discuss in the media. but if we want our politicians to act on public opinion, we all have to stay involved and push not just during an election, but in lobbying so that we can

finally break the back of the extremists who are controlling our politics. >> right, right. >> exactly. and, you know, we've seen also that advocates on these issues have ways of presenting arguments that might have much merit. we saw death panels when there was an effort to deal with health care. in this latest we saw fears of a national gun registry where everyone who had a gun would be, you know, marked down somewhere. the thing i find so surprising about that is you don't think there's a database already somewhere that lists whether you have a gun? [laughter] i mean, we live in the modern age. everything about you is accessible on the internet in the some place, way, shape or form. and if the government wants that information, they will gather it whether or not you're aware of it. but all we're doing is permitting our law enforcement officers from having, you know, the tools to go after people who are getting guns illegally, buying them at gun shows and

things like that. so one of the things we have to be careful about is that these inauthentic arguments sort of spread through the media, and they spread -- you know, one of the things i talk about in the book is that the fragmentation of media gives consumers more power than ever. you may not feel that way, but you have more power now than media consumers have ever had in history because you can choose where you're going to see something, when you're going to see something, and the technology exists to tabulate that. if you go to a web site, if you go to youtube, if you go to hulu, here or there, people will see that, and can they will know. ten years ago if you weren't in the nielsen family, nobody knew whether or not you were. watching television, and they didn't care. now there are a bunch of different ways for you to express your opinion about what's happening in media about where you put your attention, whether you buy it on itunes, whether you buy it on

amazon.com, wherever you go, you're registering. but with great power comes great responsibility, right in so you have to find out about these issues. and you can't just go to the same three or four web sites that are going to tell you whatever makes you feel good. you have a responsibility to educate yourself a little bit more and make sure that your choices, make the sort of political impact that you want. however you want that to be heard. >> well, i have to say i don't spend a lot of time, you know, going to matt drudge and all that. i mean, i've seen it, but, you know, it's a big problem. i mean, that responsibility you're talking about, i don't think most people do that. they just stay with what reassures them, and that's what happens. and what nancy said is true, people are also demoralized. you say we have great power, most of you believe that. >> think about trayvon martin, right? trayvon martin is a 17-year-old african-american kid unarmed

walking in a subdivision in florida. he gets shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer. the police take the guy to the police station, they interview him, and then they decide we're probably not going to charge him. right? the family goes before the cameras and says we think he was racially profiled. the next thing you know change.org has a million signatures on a petition to say prosecute this guy. al sharpton holds this huge rally in sanford, florida, that draws thousands of people to say charge this guy. it becomes an international story. there are stories in papers in israel, in britain, in australia about all of this. and within a month george zimmerman is charged with murder. there you go. >> is that wrong? >> what i'm saying is people made their views known, and they got a result. >> uh-huh, oh, i see. >> the guy got charged with murder, and there's going to be a trial. i mean, before, you know, all of in this fragmentation of media,

all these cable outlets, you know, the ability to get the petition out there and get the facts of the case, this all surfaced on social media first. if that hadn't happened, the police would have made their decision, and it would have been like, okay, you know? no charges. you know, and i kind of believe when somebody shoots and kills somebody, i want there kind of to be a trial to figure out what happened, you know if. [laughter] >> so the whole thing might have gone just under the radar had we not had -- >> it might have been just been a regional story, you know? this guy shot and killed somebody, the police won't charge him, they say there's not enough evidence, and then we go on to the next thing. but they weren't able to go on to the next thing because the world focused on that story because of social media and the fragmentation of media. and so many people were trying to get at that story, it became such a huge buzz that florida couldn't ignore it. now, there are some people who take his side who say that he was unfairly charged. >> well, there's always -- >> perhaps. but, you know, the world attention came on it. it forced florida authorities to

look at the case, and now they have charged him, and we'll have a trial where we'll see this evidence, and a jury will decide whether or not he committed murder. >> so once in a while, karen, the high profile incident that's blown up by the media can do some good or can focus our attention in a good way. >> oh, absolutely. and i think that is the promise, too -- >> okay. >> so it's sort of like do we eat the convenience store, processed food that's really easy and we know how it tastes, or do we have the harder to come by but healthier, maybe for us as a society, story about, you know, an injustice that we actually can do something about or a case that affects the lives of real people in realtime. and so it's, i think it is a challenge to the, um, industry that produces news and news stories. it's a challenge for us too. but, you know, i think it's really important to know even though i say we can't blame the media for every social problem

that exists, it does have power, and it is worthy of our examination. >> as eric said, we're all the media now, all of us, because we can get things out. every single one of us has that ability. i think on that note, we're going to open up to questions. if anyone has any questions, there's a mic somewhere. back there. yeah. >> two volunteers in the back who have mics, so just raise your hand, get their attention. >> yeah, there are two mics. >> hi. is it working? [laughter] can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> okay. i was -- >> can you stand? if can you stand? >> oh, come on. [laughter] >> oh, no, sit down. sit down. >> yes. let me start by saying, and this'll be quick, but we have, look, let's face it, we have a revolting culture here. a culture that's actually fed

by, nurtured by and calling for and rallying a very reactionary polarization. and i'm part of a movement for louis. as you can see, i'm kind of in paver of certain -- favor of certain kinds of revolution. i think it's extremely important that we start talking about things like that, because too much gets ruled out of order. >> okay. >> i've been to many panels this morning alone, and i never thought i would hear so many times the way people's questions are not even allowed to be framed is simply within a box of what exists now. the two parties, the electoral system. i think you're right about trayvon martin. and if it hadn't been for his parents standing up and saying to hell with this -- >> is there a question in. >> yes, i do. >> but i'm getting to it. [laughter] but the point is this: that we have to actually look at it. if you think about what, when this country had the greatest amount of change, it had the greatest amount of change when there was a movement for

revolutioning and there was a very sharp and clearly well defined polarization here. a different kind of polarization. the 1960s, things changed. >> okay. all right, thank you. that's not a question. that's a statement. >> no, no, no. >> there are a number of people here -- >> let me get to the question, all right? >> okay. >> the point is, do you think that that kind of of polarization? >> he's asking a question now. >> he's asking. >> what the hell is going on here? >> with just, please, ask the question. >> do you think the kind of polarization we had then is necessary now? do you think it's needed? >> i think part of the problem that we have now is that the social issues that we're juggling are a bit more complex and less black and white than we were juggling in the '60s. in the '60s when you had segregation, when you had jim crow south, when you had blacks who couldn't live in the same neighborhoods as white people, when you had blacks who were barred from major universities,

barred from major jobs, barred from voting, those kind of things are very basic and very easy to talk about. i think now we're at a situation where, um, you know, when you're talking about voter id laws, they've figured out a way to have that discussion in a way where the decisions aren't as stark. >> and it's not explicitly racial. >> and it's not explicitly racial. it's not explicitly racial. so the conversation has become more subtle. i think in the cases, a lot of the gender stuff that you're talking about, some people feel like, wow, didn't we decide this already? and people are just kind of shocked that it's even coming up again, because they thought the fight was over, and they don't realize that the fight has started again. so in some cases i thinkst that the -- i think it's that the issues we were talking about are more subtle and complex. in some cases i think the people who might be soldiers in this fight haven't realized that the fight has started. >> okay. okay, any -- yeah.

>> thanks very much. i think it was an excellent panel. i would just like to suggest something and get your feedback on it or your comment on it. that perhaps a culture war isn't the best way to frame this. because that sort of suggests, to me, distinct cultural catches. who knows where they came from in their meeting on some battleground. whereas it seems what's going on is very familiar, and it's been going on a long time, and that's that we have a number of processes of modernization that have been going on for hundreds of years, and you've got elements of society resisting that. and it's conservativism, and especially republican conservativism resists modernity and modernization. you're practically saying that when you talk about reactionary politics. >> right. >> and, you know -- >> used the word modern once, i think that's a sort of missing. >> i think that's a very good point. i think a number of us who write about these issues, um, you

know, fall into talking about it under the code word that it's talked about, culture wars. and i do agree with you that this is more about a reaction, what i call a counterrevolution in my book that is a small minority that is resisting modernization, progressivism, whatever. i do feel like we have a society that the mainstream doesn't want to fight these issues anymore. and i think that's part of the reason why people keep getting caught by surprise that we're still having these debates about race, about gender, about sexuality. and so i do think we need to think of this as not just a backlash, but kind of a deeper social reaction to what the world has become. and it's not going back to that traditional, so-called traditional way. >> right. and there are new issues. we didn't talk about the counterenvironmental revolution, the nonbelief in climate change

and somethings like that, denying modernity. that's kind of a new thing, but it's part of the same dynamic. >> and i also think one of the things that we're missing is that we had a huge economic meltdown in 2008, 2009, 2010 -- >> still feeling the effects, by the way. >> of course we're still feeling the effects, but i think one of the reasons why we saw the return of this kind of politics is pause life had had -- is because life had had become so uncertain for a great many people, and i think social conservatives saw an opening to say, okay, here's how we get back on track. >> that doesn't work. >> to go back to this traditional american values and this will put us back on the right track, and then we had an election which which gave us a verdict on that strategy which was, no, thank you very much. we're not buying it. so part of it, i mean, i think people who wanted mitt romney to win that election spent a good year fostering that idea, that idea that our economic

instability, that our problems in getting on track in terms of our economy were the result of these permissive attitudes embodies -- embodied in this democratic president. and now the question is will, will we move on to a different conversation. >> or to a different reality. because, you know, i've heard that, you know, the republicans are pushing the conservative thing. the democrats are more or less going along with it, afraid of alienating people over these traditional issues. it makes you think that there has to be another party or another reality altogether that, you know, needs to happen. there's hands -- oh, oh. sorry. do we have time for one more question? no, we do not, i'm so sorry. but we can continue the conversation in the book signing which is area one outside. thank you very much. nancy cohen, karen stein

heymer -- sternheimer, sorry. thank you all for coming. [app book tv steve live online with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> hi. i'm robert costa. i have a lot of books i want to read this summer. as a political journalist, i'm looking ahead to the 2016 presidential race, looking to the candidates that will probably run, and one of the people and looking and is chris christie. the inside story of his rise to

power. it really takes you back into his political ascent in new jersey, before he became u.s. attorney he was a morris county freeholder and of all of county politics and asks. it is told by people who really know new jersey politics. i recommend it because i think he is a very likely contender, and you have to know where he came from and what is politics mean. the second book on my list is by a colleague. a new book called the end is near, and it is going to be awesome. another reason i think this book is fun is because the fiscal cliff early in 2013 was a big story recovered at national review. ledger you will have the debt limit be the story that consumes

congress. we look at the debt from a political perspective, historical perspective, talks about the consequences, how it is taking a poll of congress's time, how i could potentially room the country, and he does it with somewhat, some fund. so i think it is a great book. the third one on my list, as a journalist in washington it is all this talk about what is really happening behind the scenes. house stores really get a written. the power struggles, not only within politics but the immediate. city really has the ear of the beltway crowd. this town is all about the inside seen in washington, dupont circle, bethesda, the georgetown salons. that book really gives us the story in the colored duffel washington and the political media establishment is all about. it -- the parallel lives of

baseball's golden age by one of my favorite sports writers. i was just down in spring training in arizona. this book is great because it looks set to men who came of age at the same time, became stars at the same time, and formed a lifelong. that is a great book, a big book for baseball fans this summer. that is my list, and looking forward to reading them all. >> let us know what you are reading this summer. tweet as @booktv, posted at our facebook page, or send us an e-mail. >> the parallels to the way you talk about the evolution of edison finally perfecting the incandescent light and the way that we often talk about the evolution of computing as well. you have actually spell some of these out, and i just want you to talk about those.

first of all, you talk about ended debunk the notion that most great price stems from the single brilliant inventor alone in the lab. there is a eureka moment, of flash of brilliance and the innovation happens in that isolation and not so much in the ecosystem. all three of those things you take, early in the book and say, that is not really what happened can you talk a little bit about that and what you learn? >> partly a think people long for that story. that is exciting and accessible to people. it is a lot more complicated to understand the exchange of ideas , the competition for relative patents, the battles over the marketplace. it is much easier to think of these great ideas as being passed down to us by the mount rushmore of technological creativity. in the case of edison and the light pole, first of all, edison

entered very late into the search for the working incandescent bulb. there were five or six other rival inventors who held patents ahead of edison. crucial patents. all of them recognized the key elements of a vacuum bulb and a carbon filaments. edison was entering into a crowded field, and he learned a lot from the mistakes and success of his rivals. then he suggested to a still a lot of their ideas. all of battling over the patents >> who else was involved? competitively trying to achieve the same things that lows and was trying to achieve? >> of the fascinating character is hiram maxim, known for the maxim gun. he beat edison to some crucial patents about how to treat the filament. the hunting in a working incandescent light bulb in the field.

working for years on developing a working level. actually put one into the field. set up the first outdoor street light in front of her shop in new castle and had a patent six months before edison did. so there are many people converging. the big test of this was in paris at the electrical exposition. edison one the day when he arrived with this, but he was there with five other people who also had a working incandescent lighting systems at the same time. >> were they all aware of each other's work? >> yes. and there were at least a dozen. the first person to identify the possibility was sir humphry davy once he demonstrated that, people were trying to do this for years. it did not quite have all the pieces together. converged in the 1870's.

for more than half a century people were trying to create the incandescent light. >> when did we know or when did you discover about the way edison fell to about these other incremental stages of progress that other investors are making? >> i think -- i suspect like many other inventors see had a sense of rivalry. he announced quite arrogantly that when he entered the field that he had figured this out in the way that no one else had. first big breakthrough was to suggest that they were all wrong because they were trying to create a carbon filament paul that he would create a titanium bolt. when he announced this, stock markets around the globe plummeted biggest people were convinced if edison says it can do this, surely can. it turns out he was wrong, and six months later he had to say, and guard to go back to carbon with the rest of the crowded field. >> as we get into the discussion

of technology, less talk about wonderful phrase the you have early in the book. edison invented a whole new style of invention. he almost invented the modern way we think of innovation happening. >> is modeled was to create the first research and development laboratory. he often was very, very critical of college education and was proud of the fact that he was largely self-taught. he knew enough to go out and hire university trained mathematicians and people who understood the latest chemistry to help on in this project. he also had to hire technicians it could realize his ideas, a glass blower, for example. he needed somebody who was able to realize that various ideas that wanted to experiment with. really with the entire team working collaboratively and offensively, but edison was the guiding intellect.

many of the new a lot more about their particular specialty, but edison was the one who set the agenda. also the one who had to negotiate with the capitalists and order to get the money to pay for what turned out to be a very, very expensive research and development process. when he launched this he called it an invention vacuum and promised to with come up with some minor invention every ten days and an amazing breakthrough every six months. >> you can watch this and other programs on line at booktv.org. >> we are at the conservative political action conference in washington d.c. with author of return to order, for off frenzied economy to an organic christian economy, where we have been, how we got here, and where we need to go. >> ibook talks about the lack of restraint in modern economy and how it has become frenzied and out of control. what we talked about is the need

to return to the fundamentals of family, community, and faith that normally keep economies unbalanced. it is a look at the present economic crisis, and we propose real solution is based on results. >> out of the social parameters affect the economy? >> it does affect the economy. what we have lost, what i say in the book is we have lost that human element that creates the bonds of trust and confidence that make premarket possible. what the sociologists call social capitol, those necessary pockets of trust. >> your current budget issues in congress. >> i definitely think this is a symptom of the other problem. i've coed term called frenetic intemperance which talks about a lack of restraint. you have to have everything never goes of the consequences.

this restless spirit organic christian society. it is a society where people are treated like living beings and not machines, a society are rooted in a community, family, and face with a lot of social ties and the natural leaders. of course inspired by christian principles. >> the author of return to order. thanks so much. >> what are you reading this summer? book tv once know. ♪

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beginning saturday morning at 8:00 eastern through monday morning at 8:00 eastern. nonfiction books all week and every weekend right here on c-span2. >> you're watching c-span2. here is a look ahead. next, the communicators. .. >> members of the house and senate are back today from a weeklong memorial day