By Roderick P. Hart
Sage Publications, 1999

Reviewer: Stephen A. Klien
Boston University

As the century closes, it is somewhat refreshing to be reminded that, despite numerous grand and sweeping predictions that the Internet will usher in a new era of participatory politics fueled by an informed, active virtual community for the 21st century, television still reigns supreme as the primary means by which Americans get their political information and develop their sense of how politics and politicians operate in our all-too-messy democracy. As Roderick Hart reminds the reader in Seducing America, television may indeed play the greatest single role in encouraging both the image, personality and conflict-driven politics practiced by our elected leaders and the cynical, apathetic inaction present in most American citizens.

In this volume, which is revised from the earlier 1994 edition with updated reflections on American politics since President Clinton's 1996 reelection, Hart presents not merely a critical reflection on how television negatively affects citizen knowledge and active political participation, but an argument that he distinguishes from fellow media and political communication critics who focus on the cognitive effects of television (i.e., how television informs us; how it influences our rational thought and decision-making on political matters). Hart's emphasis is on the emotional side of American political perceptions. He argues that television primarily influences how we feel about politics; specifically, "television makes us feel good about feeling bad about politics" (p. 10, emphasis in original). The ways, means and modes by which television represents politics has, according to Hart, led Americans to a new structure of emotional response to politics and public like. Given this emotional focus, Hart presents a critique of contemporary televised politics that will require fundamental cultural shifts, and not merely institutional or practical reforms, in order to banish cynical apathy and resurrect the idea of citizenship.

After laying out the premise of his argument in the first chapter, Hart uses the next five chapters to develop this new structure of emotional response. Chapter Two, entitled "Feeling Intimate," argues that televised politics encourages in viewers a deceptive feeling of closeness to media and political figures, which leads us to focus on personalities and pseudo-psychological explanations for political action. Chapter Three, entitled "Feeling Informed," argues that the focus on personality politics on television both convinces us that we know more about politics than we actually do and that our evaluations of individual character and personality alone are sufficient to make sound political judgments. Chapter Four, entitled "Feeling Clever," argues that, in a postmodern age when Seinfeldian irony reigns supreme, television's treatment of politics through an emphasis on debunking hidden motive, strategy and artifice leads us to not only feel cynical and distrustful towards politics, but also to feel good about being so smart as to feel that way. Chapter Five, entitled "Feeling Busy," argues that the sheer volume of political material on television, with its broad and diverse expanse of characters and events, convinces us that vicarious experience through viewing counts as political participation, as well as encourages a society of diverse, aggregate individual interests rather than a community of civic interest. Chapter Six, entitled "Feeling Important," argues that the symbolic power of mediated representation on television convinces interest groups and their representatives (who operate as members of a Rhetorical Establishment) that face time on television is efficacious political action, a feeling that allows a Silent Establishment of corporate and bureaucratic elites to exercise "real" political power.

The final chapter prescribes a possible solution that Hart describes as quite different from critics and pundits who call for reform in the substance and practice of televised politics. In calling for a "New Puritanism," Hart calls for a fundamental cultural shift in which the American viewing public must take responsibility. Hart describes this shift as a reclamation of citizenship in the civic republican tradition. He encourages Americans to resist the temptations of cynicism, self-interested apathy and a postmodern reluctance to decide and act based on basic principles and moral hierarchies. Hart's New Puritan recognizes her responsibility to become informed and actively involved in public life; to think communally, in the public interest rather than in self interest alone; to consider a long view of America's future rather than the atomized, perpetual and acontextual present of televised politics.

Approaching this book as a piece of scholarship, many in its intended audience will find bones to pick with Hart's assumptions and his manner of defending them. For instance, Hart identifies his critical approach as "phenomenological," intended to observe the emotional and cultural experience of television in America in a manner he describes as the "investigation of appearances" intended to explore "the content of consciousness." Specifically, Hart wants to develop a "language of the emotions" in order to discover why television affects us the way that it does (Hart, 1999, p. 11). However, Hart's development of phenomenology as a critical approach is less developed than many critics would like. In an earlier review, Robert Hariman argues that Hart has difficulty "cross[ing] the divide between individual consciousness and social experience" (Hariman, 1996, p. 184). In particular, Hart's synthetic discussion of polling data, descriptions of televised content and other examples of social scientific study don't really work optimally to explain the emotional reactions felt by an entire culture of individual viewers. Indeed, student readers may have difficulty discerning what a phenomenological approach to media criticism is, much less replicate it themselves.

As well, the underlying normative assumptions made by Hart will find little favor in some academic circles. His attack on the atomized, image-driven culture of television will be scorned by many deconstructionists and other postmodernists, and his defense of a civic community defined by common identity before individual differences, fundamental political virtues and hierarchical public judgments is sure to raise the hackles of feminist, Marxian and cultural/critical scholars who might see in Hart's New Puritanism a quite old Puritanism indeed. Critic Barry Brummett raised these concerns in an earlier review, as well as the broader observation that a "solution" to the culture of television based on a "reversal" of cultural trends may well be impossible (Brummett, 1995, pp. 415-16).

However, both Hariman and Brummett agree with this reviewer that there is much in Hart's volume that resonates with the experiences of the television generation, and potential critics of Hart's approach and assumptions ignore this book at their peril. While Hart may not provide the best methodological example for critical work here, there is much in his observations that feels right. In addition, Seducing America appears to be a valuable text for students of mass media and political communication. Hart's approach to the subject matter is most impressive in three areas: his command and accessible presentation of a wide range of interdisciplinary academic and popular commentary on television and political communication (the Scholarly References section at the end is a wonderful resource for students and scholars); his vivid, engaging and provocative writing style, replete with concrete examples and eloquent prose; and his commendable championing of the virtues of democratic philosophy and active citizenship. This volume has the potential to inspire many a provocative discussion regarding the impacts of television on political culture, for graduate students seeking an entry to an interdisciplinary literature on the subject as well as for undergraduates who will find themselves examining how television makes them feel, and why that should matter. As teachers reading this review can surely attest, this goal alone is a worthy rationale for examining this book.

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