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 20th 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.
8 comments:
I work for the NAB so my views are probably colored by working in Washington. However -- while it's true that most of the media is owned by large companies, in previous decades 100% was owned by for-profit entities. Today you can still choose among them but also from blogs, non-profit collectives like NewAssignment.net, you name it. Do you really think the media world is less free than it was 10 years ago?
Thanks Walt for your comment.
I don't necessarily think the media is less free than a decade ago; I don't really see the ideal model in the past, as you say, the majority of the media has always been owned by private companies. But the deregulation of the media "market" in the eighties has certainly done damages to the media environment, as it accelerated the concentration of the media ownership into hands of few... TV stations being owned by conglomerates like GE and Disney, and likes of Rupert Murdoch controling the media sphere and our mind, hardly contribute to the fair and healthy democracy.
As you say, I see the brightest hope in the Internet world that can truly be the Public Sphere.
And though Google itself has become such a mighty power, if Google is the new NewsCorp I can have great optimism and hope in the future.
It is interesting that you work for the NAB; do you think to what extent the media ownership affects its contents? Do you regard the concentration of media ownership into the corporate elite as the threat to a fair society?
Good questions, definitely. Of course it would be foolish to presume that the owner of a newspaper or TV station wouldn't affect what they produce at all -- why else would you buy a newspaper, right?
So you won't ever get the full news from any one organization. (NBC didn't report on GE dumping toxins into the river in NY -- but others did) I think that's one great thing about the Internet -- we're no longer dependent on one source. Where we all might used to read the local paper and watch the evening news, now Google News (for example) can point us to any number of different reports on the same topic, or introduce us to topics we wouldn't have otherwise.
I also disagree that deregulation has done damage to the environment. Especially in television, where economies of scale are important, it's this very consolidation which has made it possible for Comcast to offer 500 gazillion channels, on just about any subject you want. Here in DC, I can watch the Nigerian Television Authority, if I really want. Consolidated -- that is to say, streamlined -- media made that possible.
And while individual companies are prone to being self-serving, other news organizations can check them, and if all else fails the independent media, the bloggers, are watching, too. Does this make sense to you? Or where do you think I get it wrong?
You have a great point there that we can't get the full news from one organisation; thus concentration of media ownership is undesirable.
Indeed, Comcast is technologically able to offer hundreds of channels, but it's all up to profit-motivated private companies like Comcast. I don't know much about Comcast itself but when a private corporate giant is able to censor what sort of channels they broadcast and what not to, bias still wouldn't be erased. Such organisation should be operated on the not-for-profit basis.
As I wrote before, I believe in the great potential of the Internet and cable TV as it can work as an antithesis to the corporate domination of media. But one thing is that being able to access to alternative newssources and many people actually doing that are different. Though people can see Nigerian/Cuban/Indymedia/whatever perspectives, most people still watch the biggest TV station's news, or access to the dominant corporate news orgaisation's websites (except the BBC) because they can reach the audience so easily. So it's great that these new technologies enabled the willing population to read/watch the alternatives, it's not strong enough to counter the incredibly mighty "agenda-setting" power of the corporate/commercial media I think.
Don't forget, most cable is owned by big business. Yet they also pay for C-SPAN.
Radio is a bit like cable in this regard: If Clear Channel or Westwood buy up a lot of stations in one market, the effect isn't homogenization. It's more choices, because the single ownership makes it desirable to pursue niches.
And local broadcast networks, like the ones my employer represents, they still do a lot of local reporting and production. Some cities have better political coverage than others, of course. And I'm seeing more of them start to hire local bloggers, which is cool, and a step in the right direction.
I believe that many people working in the corporate-owned media industry are indeed fair-minded people who are passionate about fulfilling the media's public role, and I agree hiring local bloggers etc is great. So I don't think all media coverages will be like totalitarian states just because the media is owned by few corporations. But the importance of the ownership, as you agreed, can't be underestimated.
I get your point, the monopoly/oligopoly media company pursue commercial niches but they aren't willing to cover the political niche that goes against the company's ideology. Clear Channels has clearly shown its conservative bias, e.g. banning John Lennon's Imagine and Dixie Chicks, and its staunch support for the Iraq War. Cable TV might broadcast C-SPAN, but as far as I know they don't broadcast anything that is radically critical of capitalism, for example.
In both the case of Westwood and Clear Channel in the USA, and CanWest and APN/Clear Channel in NZ - quite easily the two most deregulated radio industries in the world - the duopoly of cross-market ownership has produced more variety, more stations appealing to "niche" markets and the appearance of more localised product. Each is able to invest in risky formats and cover the losses from more established formats, whereas small companies and state broadcasters often do not have the capital to make such investments.
But in both industries both companies operate with economies of scale, exporting formats and syndicated programming across markets. Niches like urban youth and alternative rock are catered for, but only if they appeal to audiences the company can sell to advertisers.
Radio duopolies no doubt provide entertaining radio the youth and the middle class adult listen to - ABC's youth network Triple J gets something like 0.6% of the Melbourne market but its commercial competitor (which broadcasts some 20-30% advertising and centres programming around promotions) had quickly secured over 10% - but there is absolutely no doubt that both companies in the radio duopolies are motivated by profit above all other factors.
Local news coverage, alternative views/music, positive talk etc. will only be a part of programmes if they attract a sellable audience. Otherwise the only thing you'll ever be hearing on New Zealand radio stations is an hour of top 40 chr or adult chr selected in Auckland or Winnipeg or Sydney with the odd random remark from of a washed up TV actor who the entire show is branded around. The following hour the same music gets played, but the washed up actor instead finds some other old news item to get excited about.
Unfortunately, I'm yet to see a radio market that has thrived as well as the free market duopoly model New Zealand initiated 10 or 15 years ago. State-owned radio and a small-business industry have not been very successful in New Zealand. But the socialist in me would like to think that there's a better way.
I stumbled upon your essay today and read it with interest. Toward the end I found myself wondering if it is really a problem as long as someone like yourself is able to think freely and write down an essay such as this. The problem would seem to be that the majority of the population in a typical world as described by you succumbs to the ideas propagated by the commercial media - but they are quite free not to.
In this respect I was wondering if you have any thoughts on the actual cause of the influence that media has on people - how come the media can control our minds thus? Is e.g. TV a kind of drug that mankind is vulnerable for? Or are we taught to believe the media in our upbringing?
If the latter, what is the role of government in this control-system?
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