The conscience of the staff-owned retailer and the apathy of the shareholder-owned media

What a tragic and gloomy week it was; the unspeakable tragedy that the right-wing hatred of decent control allowed to happen. Then an NASA engineer was shot dead, few days after Nagasaki mayor was shot and killed during an election campaign. A right-wing "effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court" (Justice Ginsburg) called "Partial Birth Abortion" Ban Act ended up successful, endangering the Roe in future. On Friday Hitler's birthday was celebrated; in Wellington, of all places.

But in the end, there is also a brighter side in the world; I found a piece of a lovely, inspiring article that I would love to share with you. Britain's staff-owned department store, John Lewis, decided to combat "Beauty Myth" from the retail places, the bastion of commercialism. According to the Observer article, "John Lewis set to revolutionise the way high street stores use models to sell clothes". They are "by pledging to use a diversity of women in all its advertising in a deliberate attempt to convey a 'realistic' image of what British women really look like. While the average British woman is a size 16, most models are a size 8, 10 or even 6."

If you live in Britain or visit Britain, buy everything you need at John Lewis (or grocery store Waitrose, owned by John Lewis) as much as you can. If you have a friend in Britain, recommend him/her to shop at John Lewis to commend and reward the effort with spending money, your vote in the capitalist market. You can find location of your local John Lewis store at here and Waitrose supermarket at here. Write a letter of support to them.

Amid the news that makes me smile, however, one thing concerns me; the Observer is the only media that's reporting John Lewis's progressive spirit and action. I googled "John Lewis"; I could find no other article on this topic. The media's report on company's ethical standards is crucial for the public to be able to choose to shop with socially conscious business. When the public is well-informed about which retailer cares about women's self-esteem, it prompts other retailers to follow them for the sake of profit; after all, this is the strongest motive to do something for most commercial operations. If such a commitment to social justice is ignored by the media, it diminishes the commercial attractiveness for businesses to behave ethically.

I believe that John Lewis's nature as staff-owned company enabled or encouraged it to happen. I had never heard of the trust-owned retailer before, but what a fantastic idea! Then news stories on their efforts are only told by the non-profit media (the Observer and the Guardian are owned by non-profit Scott Trust). Welcome to the world of alternative capitalism.

Vive la Presidente Royal!

What do you think of Segolene Royal? Probably you might think that she is a better alternative than Sarkozy as the centre-left candidate, but she is not competent and able enough, or "lightweight"? I've been getting that kind of impression from most articles on Royal's campaign. I'm sick and tired of reading how incompetent and inexperienced she is, how struggling and desperate her campaign is. Like this new AP article. Where are the opinions of 'experts' who believe Royal can win? I've heard of her comment she allegedly made in China gazllion times; where is the mention of her speech that steadily stood for the human rights, condemning the "war crimes in Chechnya" committed by the "corrupt regime"?

It may be true that in the "polls" conducted by the media show that Royal is trailing Sarkozy, but it's because the media itself report as if her chance of occupying the one of the most powerful jobs in the world at the Elysee Palace were already precluded. They say that French voter's voting behaviour is notoriously hard to detect in the polls, but still regard the opinion polls as the oracle correctly prophesising the future. What's the use of updating the newest poll everyday and analysing the difference of few percents between candidates in the opinion poll (well within the margin of error) when nearly half the French voters haven't decided whom to support? The bandwagon effect, not the shortcomings of Royal herself, is what truly blocks her noble road to the Presidency. The media report on polls actually have a profound influence on the voter behaviour; if Royal supporters believe the poll that says Bayrou has a better chance of beating Sarkozy in the second round, they might not vote accordingly with what their conscience tells them, robbing the deserving victory away from Royal.

(As I can't read French it is just an analysis of the English-language media's report on Segolene Royal and the French election. Obviously on the election itself French newspaper's impact is far stronger than the English-language media, so if you can read French your views on the French newspaper's stance on Royal are much appreciated.)

Paris-based International Herald Tribune (published by the New York Times), for example, called Royal's economic policies "far-left". What sort of freedom-hating communist woman is she? Well, she dares to raise the minimum wage and "to tax capital more than labor". "She also promised free tutoring for students that have difficulties keeping up" and "she would tax companies in relation to what share of their profits is reinvested in equipment and jobs, and what portion is paid to shareholders"; what a despicable Stalinist! "Under her presidency, she said, young women would get free contraception", the article goes, after making the baseless assumption that "she seemed to have something to offer to most groups in society without saying how much the combined measures would cost".

This article appears in the top page (fourth-highest in the ranking) when you Google "Segolene Royal", making this biased article matter more than it deserves.

Sarkozy indeed gets accused of his cold-hearted and ruthless comments and forging a close tie with Le Pen, but his ability to perform the top job is far less frequently questioned compared to Royal. Well, he has a media-created image of 'alpha male' or 'top cop', tough yet capable man to make a change.

Royal's campaign is in a way different from some other high-profile female politicians that she doesn't suppress her femininity. Three women have so far become the head of government in the G8 countries; all of them are from the conservative/right-wing parties (Thatcher, Merkel and Kim Campbell in Canada) who got elected by showing she was more masculine (Thatcher) or at least not "feminine". I don't necessary think emphasising femininity is a better way for female politicians, because it can lead to the old-fashioned embrace of femininity and rejection of non-feminine female politicians (e.g. smear attack on Helen Clark that she doesn't have a child). But it concerns me more when politicians who emphasise femininity are derided as lightweight, implying femininity has no place in politics while the media seems to take the Sarkozian macho attitude to denote capabilities as a drastic reformer.

I don't know if the media's biased coverage on Royal is because of misogyny or the media's capitalist bias, or the bias only existing in the English-language media because of its dislike of the French rejection of Anglo-Saxon free market capitalism. But anyway, no matter what the dubious opinion "polls" tell us, Segolene Royal has a realistic chance of winning the Elysee Palace. Her victory is crucial in transforming France as a viable and attractive alternative to the Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Vive la France, vive la Presidente Royal!

When Patriarchy marries to Reality TV in Italy

Italian public broadcaster has purchased and aired the obnoxious Turkish reality TV programme. For details of the programme read the Independent article above; basically the show asserts that the extreme form of partiarchy that dictate women are birth-giving machines or household slaves, as "reality". The producer, intentionally or unconsciously, professes his misogyny; according to him, the programme deals with "relationships that are eternal". Wow, I can see his desire that he wants partiarchy to be an eternal reality like the gravity, (by the way the latter's not really eternal!) but as you know it's a mere social construction that is to be smashed.

The whole story is a perfect example and evidence of the harm commercialism in the media does to the social justice. It proves that the conflict between the values of public service broadcaster and commercialism is inevitable in any country. It seems that the president of RAI perfectly understands the nature of the programme, as he commented it was to "put people into environments that are both unrealistic and coercive, leading inevitably to unreasonable if not degrading behaviour" and the public broadcaster shouldn't be providing such nonsense to the audience. Commercialist reality TV itself is evil enough. But when it marries to patriarchy, the child fathered by patriarchy and borne by a birth-giving machine called the media commercialism is certain to be horrendous and grotesque.

Ahmadinejad-like Conservative's attack on Faye Turney

Polly Toynbee at Guardian did the brilliant analysis on the British conservative media's report on the Leading Seaman Faye Turney, who was kidnapped by Iran. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2051499,00.html Citing plenty of examples of misogynistic comments about Turney written in the papers, Toynbee concludes that "the Daily Mail believes pretty much the same as President Ahmadinejad".

This fundamentalist misogynist sentiment is not only disseminated by "trashy" tabloid papers; also by Murdoch-owned "quality" broadsheet paper, the Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1596699.ece What a nonsense... Ms. Turney deserves warm support in Britain, not kind of hostilities she was forced to endure in Iran. It is ironic that those who are most vocal in support of the 'War on Terror' and love to condemn the "Islamic fascism" support the backward, bigoted Iranian agendas... Conservatives in the West and the Middle East seem to hate each other but they indeed share values that subjugate women into femininity, domesticity and maternity. We must be united against both of them.

Concentration of Media Ownership and the "Public Sphere"

I thought I'd introduce an essay I submitted last year for my Media Studies class. It is about the media and society, and I outlined my fundamental views on the media which is the basis of this blog. I thought I could share it with you and I would love to hear your comment on the issue!

The commercially driven media is a part of institutional processes that reinforces and perpetuates the existing capitalist hegemony. Media’s influence on our thinking and society is profound, thorough and deep, because as Jim Morrison said “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. This quote accurately describes the media’s primary impact in shaping the mould in which people view and analyse society. It is possible to be critical of explicitly controversial or biased media coverage, but it is hard to defy the superstructure of thought media creates. Media controls the mind by setting up this invisible superstructure.

The existing media structure reinforces the capitalist hegemony mainly in two ways; one is influence of commercialism on journalism (commercialism and journalism are inherently incompatible (Adorno, 1958)) and concentration of media ownership into the hands of few transnational conglomerates (TNCs).

The overwhelming majority of the today’s media is commercially operated in the Western World. For example, in the United States of America, the Superpower of the World that has big impacts on other countries, all of the biggest TV stations (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CNN) are owned by private companies whose sole purpose of existence is to maximise shareholder’s profits; the noncommercial, publicly owned PBS is a minor one. In New Zealand the situation is even worse; even the government-owned TVNZ operates on a commercial basis, as a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE). The sole difference between TVNZ and other private TV stations is that TVNZ’s shareholder is the government. TVNZ attempted to include Reithian ideals as the public broadcaster and the Charter was written but it proved to be impossible for TVNZ to pursue the Charter and its commercial goals at the same time: Ian Fraser, the former head of the TVNZ, called this incompatible goal “rendering unto God and unto Caesar at the same time”.

BBC in Britain and ABC in Australia are examples of few remaining public broadcasters, but they are rather exceptions. The only major non-commercial newspaper in the Western World is the Guardian in the UK; most papers are commercial. Record companies, movie distributors and other media are no different.

The capitalist principles shouldn’t and can’t be applied in the media “market” because simply value of some products can’t be determined solely on a commercial basis. For example, schools are operated on a non-profit basis (it includes private schools). Who wound want to go to a school (or who would want their children to go to a school) whose primary or sole purpose is to maximise profits and children’s education is a secondary concern to them? Media is the same, media has a noble and crucial mission to educate citizens to make wiser decisions in society; media is one of the four essential ‘pillars’ of the modern democratic society.

High quality journalism, just like high-quality education, has an intrinsic value in it. But under the strictly capitalist system, its popularity is the sole determinant of the value of a product. If demand is high, price goes up. If demand is low, it is deemed as not as worthy as highly demanded products. Theodor Adorno, a cultural critic and a prominent Frankfurt School thinker, argued that “the sole determinant of the value of culture is people’s evaluation” in a capitalized market of culture. Capitalism treats people as consumers, while media should treat audience as citizens.

For some consumer products whose only purpose is to provide immediate, sensual pleasure, market capitalism is probably the best way to allocate resources and decide what to produce. For example, if particular ice cream is not popular, probably it is not delicious (which means it doesn’t give much pleasure or satisfaction to consumers), so it is not as valuable as delicious ice cream which fulfills its purpose to provide pleasure. But as I argued before, the main purpose of journalism is to educate citizens and presents a wide range of opinions to citizens. The success of tabloid newspapers illustrates that the high-quality journalism, which is more worthy, is not as popular as tabloid journalism. But the price mechanism of the market capitalism sends wrong signal that tabloid journalism us more worthy because it is popular. Here lie the reasons for fundamental incompatibility of journalism and commercialism.

Because of this, high-quality journalism is under produced in the society if media is motivated by profit maximisation, at the expense of healthy democracy and choice (the phenomenon is nothing new in the Western society, though the process has been intensified since the eighties. ‘Yellow Journalism’ in the early 20^th century shows us that media became sensational if they pursue money, at any time). In other words, good journalism that explains the nature of complex truth, presents well-thought opinions and investigates some hidden evils has positive externality of consumption, while tabloid, sensationalistic journalism has negative externality of consumption. Even the free market capitalists agree that these externalities can’t be internalized if it solely relies on the market forces. Media producers are afraid that innovative coverage might not be popular and generate profits, because they have an obligation to the shareholders to maximise profits. So they continue tabloid ‘journalism’ which they know to sell well. Thus, under the ‘free’ market system that is supposed to provide choices to the people, they lose a choice of high-quality journalism and are confined to a narrow range of cheap sensationalism.

The example of TVNZ News illustrates it well. After it became commercially-driven SOE in 1989, Paul Norris, the head of News in TVNZ back then, brought in the American adviser Fred Shook who drastically changed the TVNZ News to a visual, photogenic one. He taught newswriters how to pick a newsitem that can match sensational picture, and how to write news script accordingly with the picture. TVNZ “deliberately changed its news to tabloid journalism”, a media critic Gordon Campbell writes. This example is only a tip of iceberg in a wide, frozen ocean of the Western commercial media.

The consolidation of media ownership is another reason and way to why and how the existing media structure reinforces the status quo. Not only most of the biggest media today are commercially operated, they are mostly owned by the few richest TNCs whose scales are unprecedented in human history, and whose sizes exceed the entire GDP of some countries. Notorious Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp owns hundreds of TV stations, newspapers, publishers and other various media companies in many Western countries, constantly disseminating Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda. Not only Murdoch-owned Fox News, “the Big Three” in the US (NBC, CBS, ABC) and CNN, are owned by GE, Viacom, Disney and Time Warner, all the TNCs. Canadian-based CanWest owns TV3 and C4 in NZ, Channel Ten in Australia and various TV stations in Canada. NZ is the only country to allow 100% foreign ownership of media. The Aspers, owner family of CanWest, has a strong link with the Israeli right-wing party Likud, and according to the inside whistleblower, “any news item that goes against Asper’s line goes unreported” (Bill Rosenberg, 2003). German Beltersmann dominate the TV stations in the continental Europe, and Clear Channel Communications own a thousand radio stations in the US (they banned John Lennon’s Imagine after 9/11 because of its peaceful messages). These companies control the media, and our mind.

Obviously the messages that these ultimate winners of the dog-eat-dog capitalism send wouldn’t be the ones that are critical of the existing hierarchy. They control the mind, to benefit their interests. The messages they disseminate include material growth is always desirable, anti-globalisation/environmental/animal rights activists are radical nuts who disrupt the society and order, and capitalism rewards those who deserve wealth (poor people are poor because of their own problems e.g. laziness). Because we are constantly bombarded with these negative messages by TNCs who control the media, to a certain degree our mind is subconsciously controlled by them.

Goebbel’s domination and manipulation of media under Nazis is a classic example of government propaganda. But today’s domination and manipulation of media by TNCs is essentially no different; corporations, instead of fascists, control our mind (probably their messages are not as dangerous as Nazi propaganda, but the essence of the control is the same). Jurgen Habermas, an influential Media theorist in the Frankfurt School, proposed the notion of the “public sphere” as the ideal structure of media. Public sphere is a place (not necessarily the geographical place) where everyone, regardless of their class or wealth, can communicate their opinions, freely from the state or corporate control. Only with the public sphere, citizens are truly free and can make up their own mind. But with the concentration of media ownership, the richest (bourgeois), who own the mode of production, control the mind of proletarians who don’t have the mode of production. Karl Marx argued that bourgeois exploit proletarians physically (sweatshops), but they exploit them psychologically (media control) as well.

There are many examples to prove “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” principle. Media ownership matters. More than one-third of the American journalists admitted that news items that might harm the owner’s interests often go unreported (Rosenberg, 2003). Before the Iraq War, American media broadcasted 25 times more of pro-war opinions compared to anti-war opinions (Noam Chomsky, 2004). Because of their repeated, combined use of “Saddam Hussein” and “9/11” in a same context, 70% of Americans believed that Hussein was involved in the 9/11, which is totally wrong (Michael Moore, 2003). White, male, middle-aged businessowners or professionals (who usually control the media) are usually depicted as reliable, decent, kind and hardworking citizens while representation of the working-class tends to be “lazy” or “drunken”, negative ones (Richard Bustch, 1996). Despite increasing female role models in influential positions, women (especially young) are often depicted as objects, sexual or not, taking a male point of view (Gloria Steinem, “Sex, Lies and Advertising”, 1991). Simone de Beauvoir, a French feminist, analysed that women are designated the role of “the Other” while men are the Subject, in her masterpiece “the Second Sex”. Media reinforce this structure. Non-white ethnic groups are often depicted as the Other in the Western media, such as the Dangerous (people of Arabic origins after 9/11), the Humorous (for example, Asians for their poor English, in comedies) or the Pitied (Africans who live in poverty) (Heinemann Media Studies Textbook 1, Karen Koch). In this way, our views are shaped within the superstructural mould that these dominant elites build. Jim Morrison is exactly correct in saying “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”.

Richard Butsch once said “production of the ideologies is a natural outcome of the commercial media operating in the capitalist market”. To examine it more deeply, the Marxist approach is useful (I already used it several times). Marxist concept of commodity fetishism describes today’s society’s obsession with material goods remarkably accurately. “False Consciousness”, which means that proletarians are deceived about the nature of capitalism, the very system that is the cause of their oppression, and support it because of their misguided idea about the capitalism. Corporate, commercial media are the tools for the dominant elites to perpetuate “false consciousness”. He criticized the libertarian notion of freedom, meaning that people are free as long as they are free from the deliberate interference from the government. This ideology is the common justification for the free-market capitalism, and often disseminated by the dominant media. Are we really free, even if we don’t have an access to the wide range of thoughts, and have to choose between cheap, sensationalist gossip of celebrities and capitalist, consumerist propaganda (they are often the same)? Are we really free, if we aren’t empowered enough to form a balanced, own opinion? Are we really free, if we aren’t wealthy enough to communicate the alternative viewpoints? Such freedom is meaningless.

Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt School philosopher, eloquently described this condition as “reasonable, democratic unfreedom”. Unfreedom, not oppression. To change this unfreedom to the genuine freedom, freedom of mind, the Habermasian public sphere, public service broadcasters and decent regulations on the consolidation of media ownership are essential. Without these, the dominant elite continues to control the mind by controlling the media, with their extreme capitalism and consumerism, at the expense of people’s welfare, healthy democracy, and the real freedom.

Conception Day

Pro-life campaigners in the United States are confident and aggressive than ever before with the real prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned in a near future by a new conservative Supreme Court, and they have extended the target of their fight to protect the right to live of unborn babies, or zygotes. They have started to launch an attack on a birthday party, rejecting it as based on pro-choice ideology.

Kerry Galwell, a founder of the conservative religious group Moral Minority, started the campaign last year; “A birthday party is a vast left-wing liberal conspiracy to brainwash our young and innocent children that life begins at birth not conception. It is a particularly subtle form of anti-life propaganda that the first nine months of life of a man he spends in his mother’s womb is not meaningful or worthy and should be ignored and forgotten”, Galwell said.

Several conservative commentators have expressed their support for Galwell’s crusade against a birthday party. “We have to protect our children from mentally insane liberals and their secret weapon called a birthday party”, Michael Brutal said in OX News’ The Preilly Influence. “Godless faggots who celebrate birthday shall suffer in the Hell eternally”, Annie Doulter wrote in her column. Several movie stars and celebrities received a threatening letter demanding to cancel their birthday party or “we would bomb you under the God’s name, to punish the heresy called a birthday party and to cleanse the modern Gomorrah called Hollywood”.

As a family-friendly leader of the Religious Right, Galwell is not just depriving an important occasion of the nation’s families. Galwell devised a concept of “a conception day” party and has vigorously promoted it in his rallies across the country. Conception day party has already gained certain popularity among evangelist parents; 8% of the parents surveyed already substituted a conception day party for a birthday party, reaching 17% high in South Carolina. “It is a great way to teach our children the proper values based on our Faith. A decade ago today my son was conceived, and that’s what really matters”, says George Wade, 33, (he insists he is 34) who is holding a conception day party for his son George X. “I like the idea of the conception day party because it’s cool and I feel nine months older”, said George X, 9 (he has just turned 10, counted from the conception day). Currently a date 270 days before birthday is used as an estimate, but “we are currently working with faithful doctors and God-fearing scientists to develop technology to evaluate the exact date of conception, the date one’s life has truly begun”, says Galwell. Galwell himself celebrated his ‘conception day party’ last November, just after the Republican’s election defeat.

He expresses his ultimate aim of his campaign as the “total elimination of the concept of ‘birthday’ from our society”. Moral Minority is lobbying the conservative Republicans in the Congress to legislate to calculate the legal age of a person from the date of conception not birth. Senator Sam Brownforward (R-Dorothy’s Homeland) has indicated his support and is planning to submit the Elimination of the Date of Birth from Official Registrations Act 2007 to the Congress. However, this proposal met some opposition by his fellow Republicans and Alcoholics Anonymous, as it would effectively lower the drinking age.

Businesses are not missing the golden opportunities to appeal to the conservative customers. Val-Mart, the biggest retail chain in the country, has started to sell “conception day card” and “conception day present”. “We have started to cater the needs of religious customers, and we are proud of it“, says Benedict Rudolph, a retail manager for Val-Mart. He also stated that Val-Mart was considering stopping the sales of all products with “birthday” references, following intensive lobbying campaign to the company by conservative groups.

The anti-birthday movement has also been spread to conservatives in other countries. In New Zealand, Brian Panmure of the evangelist Fate Church has prohibited a birthday party for his followers, and declared ‘enough is enough, enough of this birthday nonsense”, in his conception day party.