Ewen’s “Controlling Chaos”
At the start of this chapter, I found it difficult to find my footing in terms of where I stood on the case that Ewen was presenting. Upon reading about Tarde’s theory, I couldn’t help but to agree. “’The newspaper’ was completing ‘the age-old work that conversation began, that correspondence extended, but that always remained in a state of sparse and scattered outline – the fusion of personal opinions into local opinions, and this into national and world opinion, the grandiose unification of the public mind.’” However, with this quote, a few contradictions had come to mind.
Firstly, I thought wouldn’t it depend on the newspaper you read, especially today. Certainly what the editor of The New York Times sees as truth is not the same thing that the editor of The Post sees as truth (which came about in the form of Ivy Lee’s quote at the end of the chapter). Secondly, it is my thinking that those individuals who read newspapers, read them with their own opinion in mind; they simply read what is printed and interpret it according to their own values and understanding of the truth. The truth has many forms and it cannot only take one shape to create this “grandiose unification of the public mind.” Ultimately, I had to agree with Lee’s theory over Tarde’s.
