The Stark Realities of the Publishing World

In June of this year, Renni-Eddo Lodge became the first Black British woman to top the UK book charts. Amid worldwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubery, and countless others, Lodge’s long-awaited achievement, while exciting, reveals the book and publishing industries to be no less exempt from conversation regarding the grounded presence of institutional racism within modern society.

Much of recent discussion surrounding systemic racism within these industries pertains to a blatant lack of racial diversity within the workforce, as well as many of the stark realities that Black and other BIPOC authors face. In 2019, a survey conducted by Lee and Low Books calculating the level of diversity within the publishing industry measured the overall workforce to be between 70-80% white. Ranging from student interns to the executive level, the study confirmed a longstanding speculation that publishing houses, throughout the US and the UK, are both dominated by and catered towards white, cisgendered women. Public outrage towards these publishing houses has additionally culminated online in the form of a hashtag, #PublishingPaidMe, in which BIPOC authors disclose the amount of their advances to highlight stark financial disparities between white authors and authors of colour.

Despite these controversies, the publishing industry has benefited from the recent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, acting as an outlet for self-education on topics of race. Lodge’s book in question, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, is one of many on a trending ‘anti-racist reading list’, of which selected works are topping book charts in both the US and the UK. In lieu of Lodge’s achievement, Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (written by a white woman, explaining white America’s aversion to discussing race and acknowledging privilege), has steadily remained at the top of Amazon’s best-selling list for weeks. Even in the general public’s attempt to move away from internalized racism, the publishing industry is unable to do so without exemplifying the ways in which it perpetuates such policies. While reading a book is less of an end-all cure to systemic racism and more of an educational tool, elevating Black voices and raising awareness for the wide scope of Black literature is an encouraged yet long-overdue step for an industry that evidently holds the power to promote cultural change.

WORDS BY MADELINE HEARN

The Death of Mainstream Media?

WORDS BY GRÁINNE SEXTON

Thomas Jefferson, the former president and Founding Father of the United States, viewed newspapers as so fundamental to the success of democracy that they were the only alternative to social upheaval. Terming newspapers a ‘formidable censor of the public functionaries’, he argued that broadsheets have the power to ‘produce reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution’. Indeed, mainstream media outlets - radio, television, and newspapers - have long perceived themselves as cornerstones of social and political progress. By platforming considerate debate and careful discussion, the mainstream media is a traditional champion of free speech and civil reform.

However, in a decidedly tumultuous political climate – one in which civil rights protests have been reignited across the globe and world leaders such as Donald Trump have manipulated the Coronavirus crisis to perpetuate a political agenda – have mainstream media outlets remained a viable source of news and information? Or are they increasingly vulnerable to bias and imbalance? During a period in which so many of us have been cooped up at home with only our phones or laptops for company, has the embeddedness of social media - a quickfire, 24/7, highly subjective source of information - within all our lives catalysed the permanent decline of the mainstream media? Are we currently witnessing the inauguration of a new era defined by constant communication across platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram?

It would seem so. A recent rally by the Trump campaign was partially usurped by a coordinated effort from teenage Tik-Tok users, many of whom used social media in an attempt to damage the electoral chances of the current United States president. A video depicting the graphic murder of George Floyd catalysed global anti-racism protests and a renewed emphasis on the necessity of examining white privilege. In Ireland, the Direct Provision system – a concrete example of systemic racism, the dismantlement of which is often platformed only by activists – has become enmeshed in the consciousness of the general public due to a wave of posts from Irish influencers.

Traditional media outlets aim to offer detailed scrutiny and attentive analysis of pressing political issues. They do so every few hours in a methodical, regular fashion, one which oftentimes seems behind-the-times and clunky in comparison to the nonstop nature of social media. Mainstream media reporters painstakingly research a news item before presenting it and attempt to appear ethical and unbiased in outlook. As admirable as journalistic integrity is, however, it has begun to falter against the tide of personal opinion, endless updates and entertaining debate stirred up by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tik-Tok.

Over the past decade, social media platforms have ascended to become viable competitors to the mainstream media. As a result, traditional newspapers, radio and television stations have sometimes sought to become bombastic and sensationalist in outlook. Behind every platform - whether in print or online - lie real people with real opinions and strong political and personal agendas. Social media, as a concept, is liable to be rife with subjective ‘hot takes’ and, yet, by becoming a foil to mainstream outlets, it has brought into sharp focus the imbalances and biases embedded within traditional media forms. TV stations in the United States recently refused to censor the faces of Black Lives Matters protestors, The Guardian has been called out for failing to platform transgender voices, Irish fashion magazines have run articles about combatting racism yet seem unwilling to actively platform Black models.

Writing for the Washington Post in 2018, Douglas McLennan pointed out the tendency of newspapers to title themselves ‘mirrors’: The Mirror, The Daily Mirror, The Hometown Mirror etc. Within this observation is a profound truth – the role of the mainstream media in reflecting the successes and failures of modern society. When we consider the mirror analogy in the context of social media, the metaphor distorts and reshapes. At times, social media offers us a clearer reflection than any traditional newspaper or TV station, one which catalyses calls to action and sparks change or reform. Simultaneously, it sometimes shows attempts by users to create fragmentation and rupture, to provoke fury and hate, and to twist vital truths into harmful rhetoric intended to mislead. In order to overcome the challenges posed by social media, it is necessary for mainstream outlets to adapt and find creative ways to showcase the opinions of ordinary people. If traditional media outlets can reinvent themselves to offer unclouded and unbiased images of real lives, real issues and pressing social problems, then they may well manage to halt their own decline.

Jefferson perceived newspapers as important instruments in the process of preventing violent revolution. Modern-day social media, however, can create revolutionaries, both those who press for good and those who seek to divide. Traditional outlets for information – radio, television, newspapers – still play a vital role in the defence of democratic values. In order to survive and flourish, however, the mainstream media must attune itself ever more to the voice of the everyday person. By becoming truly representative – the clearest mirror – traditional media will prove a formidable competitor to the constant clamour of online platforms.

Morning Routines: Coffee

Lockdown has stripped me not only of my routines, but also my mornings. With no pressure to stand up and start existing at any particular time, it’s so easy to waste away in my increasingly uncomfortable bed, waiting for the day to end, so the next one could begin. I started to miss the days I’d get up at seven a.m to be in college for nine. I missed coffee, buses, and feeling like a human being.

While returning to the bus was not an option, coffee felt like something I could latch on to. I could be a coffee person who woke up for their coffee. It might even get me to wake up before two p.m. I ordered a drip set and nice beans and waited. I watched YouTube videos about how to get the “perfect pour” and what type of bean grinder I should be using. Posh men on the internet explained to me that once I started grinding my own beans, I would never go back.

The reality of my new filter coffee based morning routine is both more obnoxious and less exciting than it sounds. It is, however, methodical and satisfying. I fill the kettle, I grind the beans, I wet the filter paper, I preheat the mug. There is a specific way that the people on YouTube tell me to pour the water in; I never do it right. I need steady hands for it, which I don’t have. But it feels nice to try.

But my coffee pouring skill doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Without fail, one mug of coffee comes out every morning. I don’t remember if it tastes as good as coffee from cafes. It takes five minutes, and it’s barely a routine. But it is the only one I have, it gets me up in the morning, and it tastes wonderful.

WORDS BY SOPHIE FURLONG TIGHE

ART BY ANDRÉS MURILLO

M e m e s : A Cultural Currency

Few things provide as fertile a fodder for the distinctly atonal Millennial humour as uncertainty. Granted, theseare unprecedented times, but memes and internet culture at large provide more than a merely reductive escapist coping mechanism for cultural disarray. The ‘inside’ humour which characterised these shared images has become positively outward looking, and outward affecting, too.

To give an expansive definition of the meme seems defunct. In a gleeful enactment of nominative determinism, the term has come unstuck from its coinage by Richard Dawkins, here summarised as a form of imitation. Put simply, a meme is an empty vector for cultural ideas. Where these ideas arise from and which survive the natural selection of the internet is another question altogether. Brian Feldman, writing for NYMag, puts it succinctly: ‘Memes are frameworks, they’re skeletons. They often contain jokes, but they are not, in and of themselves, funny’. Humour is produced through the partnership of inherited ‘memetic’ frameworks and cultural context. Ensuing laughter is not so much a form of escapism, it seems, than a wilful blindness to its parental current affairs. The external world is compressed into a surreal stream of content whose purpose is to entertain: Corona virus has been assimilated into a montage of nihilistic images and videos soundtracked to Cardi B shrieking ‘coronavirus’ and a B-plot of the 2016 US elections saw a bizarre series of events where Republican and Democrat internet fiends fought for supremacy over the political leaning of Pepe the frog. Memes are animated by the speed and flow of information - their lifespan is rapid, and their proliferation exponential. Life shapes art and art shapes life.

A level of self-awareness has pervaded online meme communities. KnowYourMeme, a database for memes and other transient internet phenomena, doubles up as a news platform, and a thread in its ‘serious topic’ forum poses the question of whether capitalism will last forever. Reality is not eclipsed by the moulding of current affairs into content, but rather informed by that very process. Stripping away the preconceived notion that memes supposedly exist within a vacuum reveals the exchange of memes as a viable communicative channel between younger generations, a channel brimming with raw and honest opinions of the everyday individual in an internet realm marked by the lack of a gatekeeper. This untapped potential is ripe for harvest and has not gone unnoticed; it is being slowly cornered by the spawning of companies like Meme 2020, a collective of Instagram heavyweights with a combined audience of 60 million. Mike Bloomberg’s campaign in the 2020 Democrat primaries paired up with none other than Meme 2020 in an attempt to appeal to younger voters. And what better way to smuggle political messages than through the unsuspecting channel of a humour distinguished by irreverence and anti-establishmentism. A modern day Trojan horse, if you will.

There is, however, something distinctly unsavoury and sleazy about a meme packaged up and sent from a corporate suit. It seems intolerantwith the very fibre of a meme as a product of individual anti-establishment thought, whose authenticity derives directly from its lack of corporate affiliation. Let’s keep one eye on the ‘natural selection’ of the all-seeing algorithm. WORDS BY CLARE MAUNDER