Session 6: Transformations
in the Media and the Press
Chair: Karin Klenke
Nancy Kwak -
Neither Private nor Public: The New York Times and the Evolution
of Public Housing in the 1950's
Department of History, Columbia University, USA
What has been the purpose of the division between public
and private? These two sectors of the housing market have emerged from
the dual housing system of the early-twentieth century, and historians
have duly noted the importance of these post-1930s categories in the
delineation of city space. If rentals were once based on overtly segregationist
laws and real estate practices, cities chose to mark class and race
lines with New Deal legislation which utilized the language of “public”
versus “private.” Historians have hypothesized that these
terms were used to both legitimize public subsidies for the middle class
and to delegitimize lower-class housing consumption; in effect, these
two categories were said to have created the framework for a new form
of ghettoization. Public housing abounded in the inner city for those
who could not support themselves. Generous government subsidies helped
buoy the private housing market for the middle and upper classes.
When looking at the actual housing debates of the 1950s, however, this
well-articulated narrative becomes a bit muddied. If indeed the creation
of public housing versus private market homes had indeed crystallized
class differences in the post-war decades, should not the two sides
have remained polarized through the 1950s? And yet, with every year
of its existence, the public-private divide was losing potency instead
of gaining institutional strength.
In fact, public housing lost its “public” character quite
early in its development, and private market ideology penetrated the
public domain as early as the late 1940s. While federal, state, and
local governments continued to experiment with varieties of public ownership
and management, they also allowed much more flexible relationships between
private industries and public housing. That is, even public housing
advocates of the late 1940s and 1950s were well-aware that the idea
of “public” was malleable and constantly subject to revision.
Instead of promoting public housing on purely “public” terms
– i.e., as a common good deserving and requiring governmental
sponsorship – housing authorities, architects, and planners justified
public housing through private market ideologies and interventions.
Local newspapers, most especially, the New York Times, critically shaped
this evolution. Policymakers were painfully aware of what could happen
if the Times issued a screaming headline excoriating their policies.
In the case of public housing, the New York Times in particular, had
the greatest impact because of what it failed to do. Contrary to what
one might expect, many New Yorkers did not want integrated public housing,
and liberal newspapers such as the New York Times did not always chastise
segregationist sentiment. For example, the Times cited New York City
Youth Board executives with great aplomb, stating: “new public
housing projects had increased juvenile delinquency in their first years,
as different ethnic groups were mingled in previously homogeneous communities.”
Since the Times’ editorial staff was hardly known for its self-restraint
on housing issues, it is notable that they chose to make no comment
on this. Instead, the article then proceeded to discuss various “ethnic”
characteristics amongst the lower classes in an unproblematized fashion:
Social workers grant there are some ethnic groups in New York who, because
of tight family and community organization, produce remarkably few juvenile
delinquents regardless of poverty, slum homes, or minority status.
These assertions point out a fascinating anomaly in the ideology of
late twentieth-century class and race relations. That is, urban planners,
pundits, and politicians of the 1950s frequently asserted the power
of place: slums needed to be eradicated, not only because society had
a moral obligation to decently house its members, but also because such
unhealthy living conditions fostered unhealthy morals. In this context,
the belief that some ethnicities could actually escape a pervasive slum
psyche through tight family and community organization deviated from
the larger ideology. This, along with other seeming incongruencies,
actually helps reveal some of the logic behind the changing physical
public housing landscape. Likewise, race and class ideologies, when
played out in ideologies of public and private, not surprisingly fed
into the different rationales behind evolving architecture frameworks.
Such convergence of public and private in the ideology of public housing
could not have been possible without the narratives of the Times.
Such explanatory narratives became standard fare in the public imagination,
and after the 1950s, collusion between private market interests and
public agencies became expected and even desired. No absolute “private
versus public” dichotomy emerged; rather, the 1950s marked a period
in which notions of their different roles fluxed and evolved. By the
end of the 1950s, these two supposedly distinct spheres had joined hands
in firm alliance and further intermingled their respective interests
and ideologies.
Kate Omenugha
- The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Difference: An Analysis of
Newspaper Reports of the Yoruba/Hausa Ethnic Clash of 1st - 3rd February
2002
Department of Media Studies, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham,
Cornerways, The Park Campus, The Park GL50 2QF United Kingdom
Nigeria is a huge accident of political creation. With
more than two hundred and fifty ethnic groups, each with its own language
and culture, the country faces a major problem associated with multicultural
and multiethnic nations: difference. The citizens recognise this problem
and successive governments have always claimed an ‘agenda of homogeneity’
typically reflected in these commonly used slogans in the country: “One
Nigeria”, “One nation, one destiny”, “The task
to keep Nigeria one is a task for all of us”. Yet little progress
has been recorded as each year hundreds of lives are lost in various
ethnic and religious conflicts and rivalries that characterise the nation,
a continuous indication that difference is a problem. This paper assesses
the performance of the Nigerian press in handling the multi-voiced text
called Nigeria.
Using the press reports from representative ethnic newspapers in the
country, of the Yoruba/Hausa ethnic clash of 1st – 3rd February
2002, the paper examines the press as tool for divisibility or oneness
in the country. The method of study employed is textual analysis. The
language of the texts is examined in relation to the dominant images
and tropes of differences used by the newspapers. The paper argues that
the Nigerian news reports is a construction of ideological and cultural
positions and as long as the press in Nigeria is structured to serve
ethnic or group interests more than that of the nation, the question
of a national identity for Nigerians will for long be a mere illusion.
Braam van
der Vyver - The Role of Alternative Afrikaans Media in the Political
Transformation Process in South Africa
Department of IT and Arts, Monash University: South African Campus,
South Africa
The political transformation process in South Africa
gained unexpected momentum during the eighties as a result of a number
of communication initiatives from within the Afrikaans community. The
proposed paper will deal with two of these initiatives namely an alternative
newspaper and a travelling Afrikaans rock circus.
The inception of an alternative newspaper, Die Vrye Weekblad, introduced
a critical perspective with regard political events that was, up until
then, quashed by the Afrikaner minority elite who was running the country.
The investigative practices that were adopted by the journalists working
for this newspaper led to several lengthy and very expensive court cases.
These cases were eventually won by the publisher.
The paper made a significant contribution by exposing many of the atrocities
and acts of corruption that were committed by the so-called minority
regime.
One of the most unorthodox and radical platforms that were created to
promote political transformation in South Africa was a travelling rock
circus, named "Die Voëlvry toer." This could be translated
into the "The Outlawed Tour."
A number of budding young Afrikaner musicians put together a program
of rock and ballad songs with political themes. All the songs were aimed
at exposing the lack of real democracy in South Africa. The tour visited
the four most prominent Afrikaans-speaking university campuses. In two
cases they had to find alternative venues because campus authorities
withdrew permission for them to perform. The concerts were not only
well supported but it also paved the way for the rise of a new spirit
of political awareness amongst the Afrikaner youth. The tour set the
scene for the unlocking of the performing arts to voice their political
opposition to the humiliating dispensation of apartheid.