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This is my dissertation that I wrote about six months ago...I wrote the whole thing in like 15 days but I did read quite a bit in order to write it...the conclusion is somewhat flawed and there are structural issues but since these kinda issues seem to be a recurrent on the politics forum someone might want to give it read here you go....
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
Thomas Jefferson
1787
"…if someone monopolizes the cosmetics field, they're going to take money out of consumers' pockets, but the implications for democratic values are zero. On the other hand if they monopolize books, you're talking about implications that go way beyond what the wholesale price of books may be."
Robert Pitofsky, chair, U.S. Federal Trade Commission
International Herald Tribune, November 30, 2000
Methodology
The investigation into assessing the current state of free press in the US and its influence on the state of democracy will be based mainly on Qualitative research as most of the data that will be gathered will come from secondary sources such as books and articles. In addition there will be some use of some secondary Quantative data to demonstrate trends in media ownership and internet use in the US.
This means that the design of the whole project emerged in the process of investigation. As a result of the fact that in qualitative research the primary data gathering instrument is the author it is unavoidable for the author to approach the topic with some of his own perspectives and biases. I will attempt to overcome this fact by evaluating sources written by authors from a range of backgrounds and opinions. During the course of my investigation (mostly due to my chosen topic), I have come to believe that a lot of the main stream media is somewhat unreliable.
This is inherently so since any debate on this topic is unavoidably critical of the mass media and they are the main outlets of information; hence it is unreasonable to expect for the media to be self critical.
I have considered using several Russian authors to support my work; however it has often turned out that their criticism of the US media is not impartial and is often over the top while based on less than reputable first hand sources.
Another issue I was forced to overcome was the copious amounts of conspiracy theories which have been linked to this particular topic therefore I used works by reputable authors that for the most part attempt to remain as objective as possible while meticulously referencing their work.
In addition it is important to note that a lot of the criticism of US media comes from the leftist point of view which is not inherently bad; nevertheless in the interest keeping as much objectivity as possible I have attempted to overcome this by using an extensive range of sources and introducing some Quantative evidence to support my argument.
The objective of this project is predominantly to establish and demonstrate that the majority of the media in US lacks objectivity as a result of which there is a lack of free press and a informed political participation. To clarify the press is free from the influence of the government but it is largely influenced by corporate interest (in a sense similar to the government) and the nature of free market economics. This essay will also attempt to establish some pattern in the behaviour of the media and thus determine whether media outlets have an agenda of their own (and if so what that agenda might be).
While the investigation will for the most part be of a Qualitative nature many examples will be brought forward in an attempt to establish some form of continuation in media behaviour in order to establish whether a separate and ultimately undemocratic agenda exists. Therefore there will be an attempt at a #“systematic collection and objective evaluation of data related to past occurrences” in order to substantiate any conclusions or claims made in the project itself.
In addition some historical background will be brought in so as to demonstrate that the current state of democracy and the arguable deficiency in the freedom of the press is not what was intended when the US was formed.
Introduction
1. History
The First Amendment of the US constitution guarantees that the #“Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. This essentially means that in theory any individual in the US can set up his/her own news outlet and report the events as he/she sees fit. In reality however establishing a news reporting agency has been historically constrained by factors dictated by the free market as it was reported as early as 1945 #“Even small-newspaper publishing is big business…[and] is no longer a trade one takes up lightly even if he has substantial cash - or takes up at all if he doesn’t.” Therefore it was recognised that while in theory anyone could start a newspaper there are financial constraints on such an act. Furthermore it was argued that #“While there is nothing singular about newspapers being private business, there is cause for concern about business having a monopoly on a nation's sources of information…Monopoly of the press by any group by labour or government no less than by business is the one thing that freedom cannot endure.” Therefore political thinkers and democrats in general have always considered it important for the media remain free and objective of all influences.
Nevertheless, the collaboration between the press and the US government is a well documented fact noted in law cases dating as early as the first world war. In the case of Debs v. the United States a man (Mr. Debs) was #“convicted on three counts of promoting insubordination, obstructing recruiting, and encouraging resistance” under the Espionage Act simply for publicly speaking his mind about the conflict the United States was involved in at the time. Socialist by political conviction Debs had publicly argued against the war which he saw as another way for the elites to exploit the poor. The star witness of the prosecution was a news reporter who had interviewed Mr. Debs on his opinions on the war. Perhaps the main reason Mr. Debs was convicted by a district judge for promoting ‘anarchy’ (and had his conviction upheld by the Supreme Court on the grounds of a ‘reasonably probable effect’ of his words having a negative effect on the war effort) was mainly due to the governments campaign to popularize the war through the utilization of the media. At the outbreak of the war the cable lines between Germany and the US were cut as a result of which the percentage of front-page news originating from Germany decreased from 30 percent in July 1914 to #“4 percent during the first half of August”. This meant that all news the media was receiving had to come either from the US government or through Britain and neither of the two had an impartial view of the conflict from the start. Even though during war time it has seldom been the case that the press had the freedom to write independently there are few academics that would argue against a free and independent press.
2. The Benefits of Free Press; Free Press and Democracy
The advantage of having a free press in a modern society is seldom questioned as political thinkers often argue that the media #“…is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision.” As a result we (the public) are often told that the media in a Liberal Democratic country such as the US is independent, that it reports news indiscriminately and that as a whole the news industry reports news objectively in an attempt to give us an overall clear and balanced picture of global events. Many believe that simply because anyone can in theory start a newspaper or because all news outlets are private (not government owned) that this situation must result in media independence and objectivity. This, unfortunately, is simply not the case.
While it is clear that the media does not replace the need for transparency in government policy; it is rarely questioned whether this ‘searchlight’ is directed by individuals with an agenda of their own or it simply acts as an impartial phenomenon which brings events into the public eye. This is especially true in today’s free market democratic societies such as that of the US.
Therefore in theory “free press” is supposed to have a beneficial effect on the quality of US democracy by having a stimulating effect on the political involvement of the citizenry and additionally improving the general level of political education while also informing the public; thus allowing them to hold the government accountable for its actions. Perhaps the underpinning argument for free press in a democracy is the belief that #“The free flow of information and opinion from diverse and antagonistic sources is the best way to ensure that voters will learn what they need to know about candidates and about government policies and public issues” The reality is however somewhat more complex as #“America’s “free press” cannot be free. Restricted by the limited tastes of the audience and reliant upon political elites for most information, journalists participate in an interdependent news system, not a free market of ideas.” The reality is therefore drastically different from the #“ideal vision of a free press as civic educator and guardian of democracy.” Therefore the media essentially competes for higher ratings while maintain a form of self censorship in order not to antagonize the elite.
Indeed it can be argued that not only does the media not act as a ‘guardian of democracy’ but rather it could be seen as the guardian to the establishment as #“it is certainly true that the media rarely challenge the conceptual framework, the fundamental assumptions, that underlie establishment views and set the range of respectable opinion.” Therefore the scope of any debate in the media is inherently shortened as fundamental questions that frame any debate are often omitted by the media. Therefore it is not surprising that at least for some critics #“…the danger feared from alleged lack of diversity in the media today is not so much ignorance or error as excessive power over the public agenda on part of the major media.”
As early as 1975 a study titled “The Crisis of Democracy; report on the governing ability of Democracies” performed by the Trilateral Commission concluded that the media has become a #“notable new source of national power”. This, the Commission argues has led to #“reduction of governmental authority” and as such poses a cause for concern. The Commission argued that this resulted from #“the efforts of previously marginalised sectors of the population to organize and press their demands, thereby creating an overload that prevents democratic process from functioning properly”. The study urged some restriction or moderation in democracy in order to overcome this crisis. In essence the Commission argued that in order for democracy to survive it is necessary for ordinary people not to be politically active and to return to a state of #“apathy and obedience”.
It can be argued that this return to apathy is precisely what has occurred in the last twenty-five years or so as US citizens have become increasingly uninterested in politics and as political education has declined so has political participation. The reason behind this occurrence is debatable but some have argued that market forces along with rampant advertising are mainly to blame/credit for this occurrence as #“In practice, the competition prevents journalists from supplying the kind of news that would allow the average American to practice sophisticated citizenship. Because most members of the public know and care relatively little about government, they neither seek nor understand high-quality political reporting and analysis.” However what exactly changed since 1975 to this day to initiate this transition to political apathy and population ignorance is highly debatable. It can be argued that it was a combination of many factors such as: media ownership, globalisation, the end of the Cold War (end of socialist struggle) etc. Whatever the cause may be the result is undoubtedly easier population control followed by increased political influence of the mass media. This project will attempt to determine the scope of this influence and just what is the interest of those wilding this new and great power.
3. Elitism and the Media
Essentially it is fairly difficult to believe that the media outlets do not represent both interests and political positions of those who are majority stock holders in those same outlets and in turn it is equally difficult to believe that those who are majority stock holders do not share the same or similar interests to other members of the societal elite. Thus it can be argued that it is in the interest of the media outlets to perpetuate the political system they operate within; therefore any news reported by the mass media outlets (even that which is critical of the establishment) serves simply as a tool to satisfy the need of the public for so called ‘checks‘. Essentially the critical news can be seen as a tool in a way convincing the audience into believing the so called ’objectivity’ of the mass media. Nevertheless it is crucial to understand that the aims of those individuals and companies who are in the position to be majority stock holders of large news outlets and those individuals who are in positions of political power, more often than not, coincide. The fundamental interest of most social elite is to perpetuate the system so that they can maintain their position of power.
The role of the media in US politics is a topic which has not been evaluated or investigated sufficiently and there are no real restrictions on the impartiality of news reported. This often means that the motives behind why some news are reported while others are ignored often remain unquestioned.
Chapter One: The Power of the Media
1. Agenda Setting
Arguably it could be said that it is practically impossible for the media to convince the public into falsehoods as there is no way to assure total population control by any means short of brain washing. Indeed in the past it was believed that the influence of the media on the populace is limited at best of times while non existent at others as it was (is?) assumed that people have their own free will and hence can make up their own mind. However #“The central assumption of the more recent research on agenda setting has been that media do exert significant influence… In this view, the news can affect what people think about, not what they think.”
One of the first documented research on the agenda setting power of the media was performed during the 1968 presidential elections in the US. In this investigation one hundred local residents of a small town called Chapel Hill were selected at random assuring that they were #“economically, socially and racially representative of the community”. The aim of the study was to determine how much influence the media had on issues that were of importance to voters in the presidential elections. In order to best determine the influence it was decided that those selected to participate had to be individuals with no prior political convictions i.e. those who were not registered members of a party. The result was that #“The media appear to have exerted a considerable impact on voters judgements of what they considered the major issues of the campaign (even though the questioner specifically asked them to make judgements without regard to what politicians might be saying at the moment).” In essence the media had influenced the voters as to what the important issues were while it did not necessarily influence who they were going to vote for or how they personally felt about these issues. #“In short, the data suggests a very strong relationship between the emphasis placed on different campaign issues by the media (reflecting to a considerable degree the emphasis by candidates) and the judgements of voters as to the salience and importance of various campaign topics.”
Arguably not only does this research imply that the media has a strong influence on agenda setting when it comes to voters but it could be assumed that this influence is also probable on candidates themselves. To clarify, if the important issues change for the voters due to the influence of the media it is natural for the politician to change his manifesto accordingly emphasizing the newly important issues in attempt to maximise his chance of winning.
In essence agenda setting is the main power of today’s media; to put it bluntly #“…the media may not tell us what to think, they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about.” While the media arguably cannot have a strong influence on what our individual opinions may be on specific issues they can effectively choose which issues will be in the spotlight. Hence, it could be argued that #“The way to control attitudes is to provide a partial selection of information for a person to think about, or process. The only means of influencing what people think is precisely to control what they think about.”
Therefore the influence exerted by the media is most profound in limiting and directing the scope of debate on any single issue. If it is decided that the scope of debate is unfavourable or that the public opinion is going the wrong way the headlines can simply be replaced by something new until the old debate is completely pushed out of the picture. #“The methods of sensationalism and selective omission ‘can be used to sway public opinion while disabling pubic criticism,’ and the result may be a kind of ‘ideological domination.’” In this way any further information brought to the debate is either dismissed for lacking credibility or seen as not equally trustworthy as the information put forward by the mainstream media. Therefore most voices of discontent are effectively silenced before they arise by the vastness of reach and the perceived credibility possessed by the mass media.
Some sociologists and political thinkers have gone further in their analysis of the media influence on public opinion by arguing that the media in essence constructs our
#“‘reality’, [through] an ever- unfolding discursive locale that deeply influences public opinion on social issues and significantly affects the assumptions that bracket how we talk about politics.” According to this view the media acts as a main link most people have to the world outside of their reach and therefore its influence goes further than simple agenda setting. Others political thinkers have gone even further in their analysis of the mass media influence by arguing that it is essentially possible to #“…overcome the fact that …people have the right to vote.” Critical thinkers dealing with the US such as Chomsky argue that it is essentially possible to #“manufacture consent and make sure that …choices and attitudes will be structured” in such a way to guarantee the desired outcome. He essentially argues that the influence of the media is so great that it nullifies any democratic potential within US society. In order for this theory to be considered - it is important to note that almost all media plays a role in this process including magazines, films, series, news and most TV programs.
2. The Influence Of Soft Media
The influence of the mass media exclusively through news broadcasts would mean that those individuals who do not follow current events would simply remain out of reach and would therefore remain unaffected by this manipulation.
However it is certainly possible to argue that individuals who do not follow the news are still being influenced by the mass media on issues raging from foreign policy to education and crime through the use of so called ‘Soft Media’ which includes tabloids, films and entertainment magazines. In essence #“…soft news increasingly serves as a source of information about a select few political issues”. This again can be attributed to the media hunger for profits as #“the Soft Media are in the business of packaging human drama as entertainment.” such as films and TV series.
Indeed Matthew Baum in his work “Soft News goes to war” argues that it has become increasingly difficult for the American public to simply ‘tune out’ of current events. To demonstrate this point he compares the public awareness during the period of the Vietnam war with public awareness of the Persian Gulf conflict of ‘91 noting that even though one might expect the general public at the time to have been well informed about the Vietnam War (due to the political protests and the length of the war), the Persian Gulf Conflict is still undoubtedly more present in the minds of American citizens. Therefore it can be argued that #“…few issues are as likely to capture the public’s imagination as the prospect of a large-scale violence and the potential death of large numbers of Americans at the hands of a clearly identifiable ‘villain‘” and this in turn makes #“…foreign crisis an appealing subject matter for the largely apolitical, entertainment orientated soft news media.” Essentially it can be argued that the Soft Media uses foreign policy issues such as war and sensationalises them in order to capture the attention of their audience. Undoubtedly in the process the audience of this so called ‘soft media’ will have been influenced by the way the conflicts are portrayed on film or in a magazine article. Hence it can be said that the ‘Soft Media’ represents a kind of continuation of News Media influence on the apolitical audience since it can be justly presumed that the ‘Soft Media’ will get the bulk of its information about foreign policy issues from the Main Stream media (often from their parent news paper).
3. The Cult of Innocence
In the process of creating a ‘reality’ for US citizens, the media has also played a vital role in spreading the so called ‘cult of innocence’ which in part includes the construction of a belief that all US casualties of terrorism are innocent as was argued in the case of the 1983 Lebanon US barracks bombing. More than 200 US marines killed are described by the US state department as ‘innocent Americans‘; similarly the same can be said of the military personnel killed in the Khobar Towers bombings of 1996 in Saudi Arabia. Arguably this so called #“myth of an innocent nation” is in many ways responsible for the difficulty the Americans face when it comes to dealing with terrorism as the mass media and the government both perpetuate this myth of #“America…as an innocent child among nations, untainted by the finite dimensions of human history” as a “embodiment of a new golden age of liberty and justice”. Ronald Regan in his state of Union Address of 1987 stated that the US is an “…endless experiment in freedom, with no limit to our [its] reaches, no boundaries to what we [it] can do, no end point to our [its] hopes.” According to the this theory the implication is that all Americans are represented as innocent by the media and the government just as those Americans killed in September 2001 attacks are. As Condoleeza Rice argues terrorists #“…take the lives of innocents willingly in terrorist attacks against office buildings or against the Pentagon.” Therefore it can be argued that there is an effort being made on the part of the mass media and the US government #“…to establish that all victims of terrorism are by definition ’innocent’ - even if they work in the headquarters of the most powerful military in the world.”
This view is never challenged by the media but merely perpetuated hence showing some confirmation of the belief that the media fails to question the most fundamental aspects of terrorism (such as motives) and the US led campaign against it. Indeed it can be argued that this ‘cult of innocence’ is imbedded so deeply within the US culture that if an article was written or another form of media investigation into the topic was performed there would be a public outrage and the flak filter would come into play as would the loss of advertising/sponsorship.
Chapter Two: The Dependence of Media
1.The Propaganda Model
One of the most discussed issues in political science works concerning US media is the supposed existence of the propaganda model.
The propaganda model is a theory developed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in the early 1980’s which #“assumes that regularities of misrepresentation in media flow directly from the concentration of power in society. It holds that media interlock with other institutional sectors in ownership, management, and social circles, effectively circumventing their ability to remain analytically detached from the power structures of which they themselves are integral parts.” It essentially argues that the result of the media’s socio-economical position is a form of self-censorship.
The propaganda model theory is based on a set of five inter-related filters which govern the behaviour of the media as whole.
In short these filters are: ownership, advertising/sponsors, the #“symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information” i.e. the government, Flak i.e. the #“negative responses to a media statement or program” , anti-communism (anti-terrorism).
2. Media Ownership Concentration: the Implications
The increasing concentration of both US and Global media ownership is an issue of concern in its own right as it raises possible questions about the objectivity of the media and subsequently the quality of democracy in the United States.
Recently there has been an increase in media consolidation by the few US corporations and coincidently there has been a loosening regulations concerning media ownership in recent years. In 2000 ‘the local TV ownership rule’ was amended so as to allow #“a single entity…[to] own two television stations in the same local market” as long as they do not #“reach more than 35 percent of television households.”; previously this limit was held at 25 percent. In addition in the early 2008 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) relaxed and some areas abolished the Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Limit thus allowing #“a daily newspaper seeks to combine with a radio station in a top 20 designated market area (“DMA”), or when a daily newspaper seeks to combine with a television station in a top 20 DMA”. The concerns about media ownership consolidation were brought into the spot light when over #2 million Americans sent letters of concern to the FCC after the rules had been changed as a result of which #“The Senate spoke for a huge majority of Americans …by voting to overturn the flawed FCC decision gutting…long-standing ban on newspaper broadcast cross-ownership.” The final decision however is still within the hands of the US Court of Appeal as #“A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals…agreed to delay ruling on challenges to the FCC's loosening of the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rules” and allow 21 days for interested parties to voice their opinion as to #“why it should not lift the stay on the FCC rule change”. The delay and possible overturning of the FCC relaxation of rules was of coarse opposed by all major media outlets such as CBS, FOX etc. It is however important to note that this deregulation process was started under Kevin J. Martin who is now under investigation for attempting to push through this plan that would “…relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.” The letter sent to the FCC by the House Energy and Commerce Committee which headed the investigation stated that it aims to address “a growing number of allegations received by the committee relating to management practices that may adversely affect the agency's operation." Mr Martin publicly argued that #"A robust competitive marketplace is the best regulator and protector of public interest". Among the main victors of deregulating ruling would be #“Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor …seeking to complete a buyout of the Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has lobbied against the rule for years so that he can continue controlling both The New York Post and a Fox television station in New York.”
In reality the consolidation of media ownership has been rapidly progressing since the early 80’s when the majority of the US media was owned by some 50 corporations to the present level when just 5 corporations (AOL/Time Warner, Walt Disney Co, News Co, Viacom and Vivendi/Universal) own the same amount. Arguably the consolidation of US media can be seen as undemocratic as there is effectively less sources to potentially scrutinize the government while also posing a possible concern due to the monopolistic implications. The fact that there are fewer companies owning the majority US media arguably allows greater control over the national agenda of the press i.e. what issues will be press headlines and thus increasing the potential political power of the media. This concern was noted in 2003 by the present FCC commissioner (Michael J. Copps sworn in Jan, 2006) as he argued that #“today the Federal Communications Commission empowers America’s new Media Elite with unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information upon which our society and our democracy so heavily depend.”
In addition to agenda concerns, the increasing number of mergers means that these media giants can now practically control the flow of information as well as entertainment on a national level; As such they are in a position to dictate both the price and the quality of the service to the consumer while he/she has increasingly less alternatives. Ben Bagdikian, a life time journalist and the editor of Washington Post responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers, argues in his book that these new media corporations #“constitute a new Private Ministry of Information and Culture” that can practically set a national agenda on their own.
Supporters of the FCC deregulation such as the Heritage Foundation have argued that all concerns are generally unfounded as according to them #“Americans today actually enjoy more diversity and competition in the media than at any other time in history, thanks to cable TV, Internet, the licensing of new broadcast stations and other factors.” The reality is that the supporters do not take into account the fact that most of these media outlets are owned by the same small number of corporations and this raises further concerns as #“…the concentration of the media, and their degree of penetration within a mass audience, restricts the range of information and ideas to which the audience is exposed.” Arguably the full scope of the dilemma is best seen through the case of the 27 million AOL/Time Warner internet users who spend #“an incredible 84 per cent of their Internet time on AOL alone.” This effectively means that the users rely on their internet provider as the sole information and entertainment source and thus end up seeing the world through a kind of AOL “filter“.
Furthermore the reality is that while there may still be a large number of small town media that offer a form of independent news reporting they can not compete with the reach or the sensationalism of the large media outlets. In addition independent news organisations such as newspapers, local channels and internet blogs simply cannot afford to cover global or even national events to their full extent and thus must in large part rely on the large media networks for that information.
Some media analysts such as Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism have expressed beliefs that #“Print may be dying” as there is an increasing number of people getting their news from the internet. The global reality is that the
#“different rates of computer and internet use result from such factors as income, education, use at school, and use at work in different occupations”. At the same time in the US analysts argue that the #“education levels remain a major indicator of who is among the 137 million Americans using the Internet”. Therefore there is an overwhelming number of Americans still one-hundred percent reliant on the newspapers and broadcasted media. Perhaps more worrying is the fact that those with internet access still heavily rely on mainstream media internet sites for their information (as shown below).
(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933312.html)
All of these factors undoubtedly leave the large US media corporations in a position of unprecedented advantage with huge and practically unchecked levels of influence on the mind of the average US citizen allowing the media to be the force to potentially make or break a US president.
3.Capitalism and the Private Media; Influence of Advertising
The fact that the Stocks of US media Corporations are traded on the global stock markets essentially means that the loyalty of the editors and the whole media organisation arguably rests in the hands of the corporations board of directors who are in turn responsible to the stock holders. In other words as a part of the free market economy the US media corporations are subjected to a constant quest to increase ratings and profitability and this is arguably often if not always in direct opposition to media objectivity and independence.
According to Herman and Chomsky #“media stocks have become market favourites” as a result of which unsurprisingly media giants #“…focus ever more aggressively and unequivocally on profitability”. This increasingly means that there is a filtering process that all news must go through to assure that the media network will not loose money as a result of reporting it.
Similarly the importance of finance was recorded very early in other liberal democratic societies such as Britain as it was noted that #“advertisers…acquired a de facto licensing authority since, without their support, newspapers ceased to be economically viable.” Therefore in essence the media does not stand independent and objective and hence can not work as a tool of democracy as it remains in a constant struggle aimed at increasing its audience and the price of its stocks.
It should be noted that this is by no means an occurrence exclusive to the media, indeed the whole US political system works along similar lines as Congressmen have in most cases pledged their allegiance to big interests in exchange for campaign finance long before they are elected. #“As the media keeps the country over-organized, money controls the workings of Congress.” Essentially; the six-term South Carolina Senator Ernest F. Hollings argues that people no longer read the news to gain objective information and form opinion but rather they get ready made opinions on which they base their political participation on. In addition he also argues that since the televising of Congress begun it has become a kind of a public show which requires politicians #“to be confrontational” mainly due to the fact that this is practically the only kind of news that the media report - hence it is the only chance a party or a politician has of gathering national support.
The advertising filter as it is referred to by Chomsky also plays a very important role in media concentration due to the fact that larger media outlets are more likely to be able to attract advertisers by offering better coverage and lower add prices. Therefore a corporate owned news outlet is more likely to survive against its local competitors, in this way media ownership concentrates even further without any corporate buy outs. #“A market share and advertising edge on the part of one paper or television station will give it additional revenue to compete more effectively - promote more aggressively, buy more saleable features and programs - and the disadvantaged rival must add expenses it cannot afford to try to stem the cumulative process of dwindling market (and revenue) share.” In addition the larger corporate media can cover a wider demographic and can offer packaged adds that cover more than one advertising medium.
In 1985 a television network, WNET, broadcasted a program titled “Hungry for Profit”. The program investigated the role of big agribusiness corporations in displacing local farmers across ten nations in order to obtain cheap and fertile land to grow crops which were then exported to wealthier states. As a result of this program the television network lost corporate funding from one of its major contributors Gulf+ Western. The chief executive of the corporation wrote a letter to the network in which he stated that the actions of WNET #“had not been those of a friend and that the film was virulently anti-business, if not anti-American”. Similarly a PBS program presented by Jonathan Kwitney was cancelled rather quickly after the host stated that Jonas Savimbi (an ant-Communist Angolan rebel) was #“just one more blood-stained autocrat on the U.S. taxpayers payroll”. These examples demonstrate the influence which advertisers and program sponsors can have on a mass media network through their finance and shows the almost editorial control they can have on the programming.
In addition this kind of editorial control perpetuates the so called ‘cult of innocence’ a prime example of which is the fate of a documentary titled the “The Africans” which explored the history of the African continent. The documentary was made by Ali A. Mazrui, a Kenyan who received a doctorate from Oxford University and was employed by the University of Michigan where he taught political science. #“The film was co-produced by Washington’s WETA [a public broadcasting service in the Washington D.C. area] and the BBC, and had received $600,000 from the National Endowment for Humanities.” The NEH chairwoman (Lynne Cheney) accused the program of being “narrow [and] politically tendentious” furthermore she argued that the film was #“Worse than unbalanced [and that it] frequently degenerates into anti-Western diatribe.” The nine hour program for its part tried to tell the story of the continent through the eyes of an African; it argued that the west had played an important role in bringing the continent into its present state. The author argued that the transfer of technology had been very limited in some aspects and that the largest amount of technology imported was weaponry. As a result the NEH withdrew its funding and requested that its name be withdrawn from the credits. This demonstrates not only an attempt to exercise a form of editorial control (on documentaries no less) but in addition a general unwillingness to accept the role America (and the west as a whole) has had in shaping the world and its problems, thus perpetuating the so called ‘cult of innocence’ and this in turn arguably perpetuates the ‘flak‘ filter as Americans find it increasingly difficult to deal with political realities. In essence this ‘advertising filter’ plays an important role in the shaping of media ownership and media programming thus shaping the reality for most American citizens who get the bulk of their information through mass media outlets. Therefore the interconnectedness of all of the filters is one of the crucial factors which allows for their continued existence.
4.The Symbiotic Relationship: the Press and the Government
In 2005 Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin experienced an enormous amount of pressure from the Conservative press for publicly stating that the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility was similar to #“those used by repressive regimes, including the Nazis and Soviets.” Senator Durbin was criticised by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader (of the time) Bill Frist but an overwhelming amount of pressure was also felt from #“…conservative Web commentators and radio talk show hosts, followed by other media outlets with strong conservative following, including Fox News and the Washington times.” The end result was that Senator Durbin publicly apologised for his statements and the media focus had shifted from the issue in question (i.e. the US treatment of prisoner) to what it means to be an American and the extend of the suffering experienced by the Jews during the second world war. Senator Durbin later stated that the conservatives #“…are extremely well organised, and inevitably, they drag the mainstream media behind them.” This arguably demonstrates that the conservative forces within US politics have a drastic influence to direct the attention of the public through the use of the mass media. Similarly Richard A. Clarke a government employee of thirty years argued (after his falling out with the Bush Jr. administration over the war in Iraq) that individuals involved in US politics knew that if anyone #“…went after the Bush administration on something that mattered to them, they would be the targets of Karl Rove’s revenge.” He argued that as a result of this many of those in the position to criticise the government were simply afraid to do so. It is important to understand that the #“…press is a part of …[the] establishment” and that the policy makers and the reporters interact privately and deal with each other on a daily basis thus making #“…the political spectrum, when we are talking about Washington…very narrow.”
Arguably this demonstrates that in some cases the direct influence of the government extends far more than just to the so called ‘spin’ to almost a kind of editorial control. This can be explained in large part by the fact that #“…sustained debate in the news is usually produced by disagreement among political elites who are perceived by the press to wield enough power to affect the course of policy.” As a result of this any outside opinion or criticism of government policy is more often than not marginalised and rarely reported by the mass media.
The government is always seen as the largest source of information when it comes to politics, as a result the mass media outlets chosen as the insiders are the first to get news updates and are also the ones who will benefit from increased advertising, increased audiences which will then result in higher stock prices. Therefore it can be said that #“…the safest place for the elite press to be is in the “non ideological” space found in an implicit understanding of news as whatever the most powerful officials say it is.” resulting in a symbiotic relationship between the mass media and the government.
5. Organised “Public” Opinion: Flak
Flak refers to a negative response from the general public, it can come from other media outlets, the public, the government; it can be organised or entirely independent and it can take form of letters, FCC rulings or lawsuits.
The consequence of flak is almost exclusively negative in terms of ratings, advertising income and subsequently stock prices. Organised flak is more often than not a tool used by corporate interests to assure that the media as a whole do not step out of line. This is evident in the fact that large businesses are the majority financiers of organisations such as the Capital Legal Foundation, the American Legal Foundation, the Media Institute, the Centre for Media and Public Affairs and Accuracy in Media (AIM). These institutions can be seen as tools made for the #“specific purpose of producing flak” and #“Flak institutions essentially discipline the mass media through complaint.” Therefore these institutions are in essence a way for big businesses to act as a censorship group on all US media outlets.
The influence of corporate business and subsequently #“serious flak has increased in close parallel with business’s growing resentment of media criticism and the corporate offensive of the 1970’s and 1980’s” - it should be noted that this coincides with the report made by the Trilateral Commission on the governing ability of Democracies. Nevertheless the mass media and television networks more specifically have started practising a form of self-censorship as they #“learned back in the 1950’s that the best way to prevent such flak was to sharply curtail the programming that makes it to the nation’s living room” those that did not learn experienced pressure from the above mentioned organisations and other interest orientated groups.
Even mass media itself can be act as a form of flak as when smaller media outlets produce a story, which does not go in line with the news reported by the main stream media, it is discredited and placed under a huge amount of public pressure. The most notable example is that of San Jose Mercury News which in 1996 published a series of articles titled ‘The Dark Alliance; the story behind the crack explosion’ that had been investigated for a period longer than a year. One of the Mercury News journalists (Gary Webb) had discovered that #“For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” The articles essentially described a CIA operation that brought Cocaine into the US that was then sold on the streets to sponsor the Contras in Nicaragua. Many of the claims brought forward in the articles were later confirmed by a CIA internal investigation but at the time the pressure the newspaper felt from mass media outlets such as the New York and L.A. Times was so extraordinary that the author of the articles was forced to quit and the newspapers he had previously wrote for publicly distanced itself from his work. In addition they destroyed practically all the files he had used to write the story. Therefore not only is news reporting and investigative journalism financially difficult for small press but there is also a significant amount of pressure on all smaller news outlets to fall in line and publish the headlines dictated by the major media outlets or news that does not challenge the mainstream views.
It also worth noting that that while organised groups such as AIM steadily bash the media they do not respond with equal measures questioning their motives. On the contrary #“they receive respectful attention, and their propagandistic role and links to a larger corporate program are rarely mentioned or analysed.” This can be explained by the fact that any such investigation into these organisations would be in fact damaging to the media that performed them as they would loose out on advertising funds; in addition they would most likely experience flak themselves from other media outlets and other organised flak groups.
6. The Ultimate “Evil”: Communism - Terrorism
The final filter can be perhaps seen as one of the forces that had actively encouraged the media to increase its inter-dependence with the government of all liberal democracies including the US. Communism is seen as the ultimate evil by all elites and property owners #“as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status”. During the Cold War the anti-Communist ‘crusade’ was utilized by elites including the media as tool for fragmenting the Labour movements and as a kind of ‘political-control mechanism’. Due to the fact that #“the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests”. In addition this meant that its application was practically unlimited in all efforts of the elites to increase de-regulation and minimise government involvement in big business.
While the US public, to large extent, still remains sensitive to all issues that may be construed as Communist the issue has nevertheless somewhat faded away from the media spot light as there is little realistic threat to sensationalize upon. Some political analysts have argued that while the anti-Communist filter has not yet completely faded it has #“been replaced more prominently with an anti-Terrorism filter.” The existence of the anti-Terrorism filter is most notably experienced by the fact that as before with Communism #“many journalists fear appearing to be ‘anti-American’ by examining social or cultural issues behind ‘terrorism‘, or even sometimes of interrogating the complicity of Western democracies in financing and establishing ‘terrorists’.” It could be argued that even this ‘filter’ which one would assume was exclusive to the US is in existence globally or perhaps it simply shows the global reach of the US media giants. This is arguably best observed through the lack of will on part of any major media outlet to fully investigate the background to 9/11 even though according to research the majority of the international public remains unconvinced as #“On average [only] 46 percent say that al Qaeda was behind the attacks” If one takes into account the remarkable impact the events of September 11th 2001 have had on Western society and the world as whole #“it is remarkable that [more than] seven years later there is no international consensus about who was behind them”.
According to critics Anti-Terrorism has also been used by the US government to curtail liberties of its citizens with legislation such as the Patriot Act which was drafted and brought into effect in just over a month after September 11th 2001. Such a large bill would have normally taken months for Congress to agree upon but with huge media and public pressure it was pushed through in less than forty five days.
According to Chomsky there are two ways to approach the study of Terrorism #“a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power.” It can be argued that the second approach is utilised by both the US government and the US mass media. When the issue of terrorism is debated both presidents and the media have utilised the threat of terrorism for their own goals and have been less than objective in their analysis. The examples of this are pretty common most notable is the repeated rhetoric of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (the good vs. the evil) that has been used by US presidents for years. Indeed even before the end of the Cold War, while the US was utilising ‘terrorists’ for their own goal of fighting Communism, US president Ronald Regan for example referred to the #“the evil scourge of terrorism” while president Bush jr. practiced an even more apparent form of demagoguery that is only paralleled by leaders of most nationalistic governments that ever existed. He repeatedly argued that his government #“will rid the world of the evil-doers" while he was also perhaps the first ever ‘serious’ politician that labelled a group of nations as simply “evil”. This populist oratory was rampant during his administration and other members of his government practiced similar tactics as did Condeleeza Rice when she argued that the US is waging #“…a war against the evil of terrorism.” There has to this day been very few mass media articles that have spent time addressing the nature of a government that uses such tactics to gather popular support for military conflicts hence arguably demonstrating the link between the media and the government, hence arguably proving the existence of anti-Terrorism as one of the filters of the mass media.
Conclusion: The Failed System
The media is undoubtedly an extremely powerful tool that can influence public opinion to great lengths. While it is generally accepted that the media as a whole has a role in agenda setting by deciding what people think about, it is my belief that the media has a much larger influence as it increasingly informs the public about the most mundane events in great detail earning its trust in the process. This results in the public increasingly accepting the news as facts rather than opinion. Ironically the US media has become increasingly opinionated with news reporters telling people ‘what the public thinks’ and thus implying that they too should somehow fall in line with ‘popularly accepted’ opinions.
Furthermore it is difficult to believe that there is an easy solution to many of the problems facing today’s media. Anti-Monopolisation laws are definitely a step in the right direction towards insuring a more diverse and objective news reporting environment. Nevertheless so long as mass media is profit orientated with its stocks traded as a commodity it will continue its progression towards a more bland, un-stimulating form of programming that will eventually quite possibly lead to a complete end of democracy through complete voter apathy. Therefore one possible solution is to impose stricter regulations on media financing and establish some form of nationally accepted ethical rules about news reporting. It would also be necessary to provide some form of subsidies for small town and minority owned media for a period of time in order to even out the playing field and encourage diversity.
There must also be a change in popular culture, ‘the cult of innocence’ must be destroyed by internal mechanisms in order to assure the survival of independent thought. Students in schools from an early age must be taught the flaws of their government so as not to perpetuate imperfections and create an improved system, essentially they must be encouraged to examine things from different perspectives to assure progress of the society as a whole.
The internet potentially acts as a serious challenger to the influence of mass media however its use remains restricted to those with higher education and higher income therefore a way of potentially curtailing the influence of mass media is by providing investing in projects which aim to provide free wireless internet on a national level. However the influence of the internet should not be overstated as a large part of the US population still does not poses even the basic IT knowledge, in addition the expansion of media giants onto the online medium should not be underestimated. Big business and corporate media will almost certainly lobby the US government in the near future for some kind of internet restrictions to be introduced (most likely on the basis of Cyber-Terrorism or Copyright infringement)
It is also important to encourage a diversity through media education. Future journalists should be encouraged to question the social order they work in by challenging the authority of the government and the influence of big business.
This would help to inform the public of different points of view present in society by expanding most debates which would most likely #“help mobilize broad-based social action [as a result of which] journalism might begin to look very different.”
All of these changes are fairly unlikely to happen due to the fact that the US population is to a large extent almost ‘brain washed’ by the profound influence of the mass media and simply lacks the necessary amount of political education to understand the complexities of problems their society is facing. Many would simply argue that any regulation of the media is un-American and that any subsidies are ‘communist’ policies. This would not be helped by the fact that their trusted news bringers such as Fox and CNN would most likely oppose any such actions vigorously.
Perhaps the only ‘bright star’ on the horizon is the fact that according to research PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) remains the #most trusted news provider for four years in a row. In addition according to the same poll source for the first time ever #“PBS ties with military defence as #1 in tax value among 20 federally funded services and institutions” Therefore perhaps an increase in funding for PBS would mean an increase in quality programming. It is important to note that at this stage most programming broadcasted by PBS is bought from other providers. For any significant change to occur this would need to be undone and PBS would need to manufacture its own shows that propagate different values than those generally spread through soft media. However this unfortunately is fairly unlikely due to the large role financing plays in US politics as any such legislation would require approval from congress whose members in great part depend on the financial support of big business and ‘air’ time from the mass media.
Essentially it is my belief that the US political system is flawed which is reflected on the media in such a way that it propagates mediocrity and voter apathy. Due to the economic and political system it operates in, the media fails to stimulate the public in any kind of way, rarely challenging the generally accepted norms and marginalising alternative opinions to such an extent that they are more likely heard from stand up comedians (such as George Carlin) than on the news.
The fact that there are organisations such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Media Alliance, Media Channel, the Centre for Digital Democracy and Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting that fight for similar reforms of the media should give us some optimism about the eventual outcome of the struggle for independent press but the reality is that #“…for the most part, these and other local media watch groups are resource-poor organizations.” Therefore, unfortunately, they have very little chance of making a difference.
Written Sources:
Angharad N. Valdivia, "A companion to media studies", Wiley-Blackwell (2003)
Ben Bagdikian, “The Media Monopoly”, 2nd ed., Beacon Press (1987)
B.G. Kutais. “Internet Policies and Issues, vol4”, Nova Publishers (2002)
Earl L. Vance, "Freedom of the Press for Whom?", Virginia Quarterly Review, XXI (Summer, 1945)
Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, “Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media”, Pantheon Books (2002)
Ernest F. Hollings, Kirk Victor, "Making government work", University of South Carolina Press (200
Gajendra K. Verma and Kanka Mallick, “Researching education; Perspectives and themes”, Routledge (1999)
J. Michael Sproule, "Propaganda and democracy: the American experience of media and mass persuasion", Cambridge University Press, (1997)
James Ledbetter, "Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States", Verso (199
Judith Lichtenberg, “Democracy and the mass media”, Cambridge University Press (1990)
Jules Boykoff, "Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States", AK press (2007)
Mark Hampton, "Visions of the press in Britain, 1850-1950", University of Illinois Press, (2004)
Matthew A. Baum, "Sex, Lies, and War: How Soft News Brings Foreign Policy to the Inattentive Public", The American Political Science Review, Vol. 96, No. 1 (Mar., 2002)
Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media “, The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Summer, 1972)
Maxwell E. McCombs, “Setting the agenda: the mass media and public opinion” Polity Press (2004)
Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Douglas Kellner, "Media and cultural studies", Wiley-Blackwell (2001)
Noam Chomsky, “Necessary Illusions; Thought Control in Democratic Societies”, Pluto Press (1989)
Noam Chomsky, "Pirates and emperors, old and new", South End Press (2002)
Richard Jackson, "Writing the War on Terrorism", Manchester University Press (2005)
Richard Thomas Hughes, “Myths America Lives By”, University of Illinois Press (2004)
Robert M. Entman, “Democracy without citizens: media and the decay of American politics”, Oxford University Press US (1989)
Robin Andersen , Jonathan Gray, “Battleground: The Media”, Greenwood Publishing Group (200
W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, Steven Livingston, "When the press fails", University of Chicago Press (2007)
Walter Lippmann, “Public Opinion”, Courier Dover Publications (2004)
Internet Sources:
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
Thomas Jefferson
1787
"…if someone monopolizes the cosmetics field, they're going to take money out of consumers' pockets, but the implications for democratic values are zero. On the other hand if they monopolize books, you're talking about implications that go way beyond what the wholesale price of books may be."
Robert Pitofsky, chair, U.S. Federal Trade Commission
International Herald Tribune, November 30, 2000
Methodology
The investigation into assessing the current state of free press in the US and its influence on the state of democracy will be based mainly on Qualitative research as most of the data that will be gathered will come from secondary sources such as books and articles. In addition there will be some use of some secondary Quantative data to demonstrate trends in media ownership and internet use in the US.
This means that the design of the whole project emerged in the process of investigation. As a result of the fact that in qualitative research the primary data gathering instrument is the author it is unavoidable for the author to approach the topic with some of his own perspectives and biases. I will attempt to overcome this fact by evaluating sources written by authors from a range of backgrounds and opinions. During the course of my investigation (mostly due to my chosen topic), I have come to believe that a lot of the main stream media is somewhat unreliable.
This is inherently so since any debate on this topic is unavoidably critical of the mass media and they are the main outlets of information; hence it is unreasonable to expect for the media to be self critical.
I have considered using several Russian authors to support my work; however it has often turned out that their criticism of the US media is not impartial and is often over the top while based on less than reputable first hand sources.
Another issue I was forced to overcome was the copious amounts of conspiracy theories which have been linked to this particular topic therefore I used works by reputable authors that for the most part attempt to remain as objective as possible while meticulously referencing their work.
In addition it is important to note that a lot of the criticism of US media comes from the leftist point of view which is not inherently bad; nevertheless in the interest keeping as much objectivity as possible I have attempted to overcome this by using an extensive range of sources and introducing some Quantative evidence to support my argument.
The objective of this project is predominantly to establish and demonstrate that the majority of the media in US lacks objectivity as a result of which there is a lack of free press and a informed political participation. To clarify the press is free from the influence of the government but it is largely influenced by corporate interest (in a sense similar to the government) and the nature of free market economics. This essay will also attempt to establish some pattern in the behaviour of the media and thus determine whether media outlets have an agenda of their own (and if so what that agenda might be).
While the investigation will for the most part be of a Qualitative nature many examples will be brought forward in an attempt to establish some form of continuation in media behaviour in order to establish whether a separate and ultimately undemocratic agenda exists. Therefore there will be an attempt at a #“systematic collection and objective evaluation of data related to past occurrences” in order to substantiate any conclusions or claims made in the project itself.
In addition some historical background will be brought in so as to demonstrate that the current state of democracy and the arguable deficiency in the freedom of the press is not what was intended when the US was formed.
Introduction
1. History
The First Amendment of the US constitution guarantees that the #“Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. This essentially means that in theory any individual in the US can set up his/her own news outlet and report the events as he/she sees fit. In reality however establishing a news reporting agency has been historically constrained by factors dictated by the free market as it was reported as early as 1945 #“Even small-newspaper publishing is big business…[and] is no longer a trade one takes up lightly even if he has substantial cash - or takes up at all if he doesn’t.” Therefore it was recognised that while in theory anyone could start a newspaper there are financial constraints on such an act. Furthermore it was argued that #“While there is nothing singular about newspapers being private business, there is cause for concern about business having a monopoly on a nation's sources of information…Monopoly of the press by any group by labour or government no less than by business is the one thing that freedom cannot endure.” Therefore political thinkers and democrats in general have always considered it important for the media remain free and objective of all influences.
Nevertheless, the collaboration between the press and the US government is a well documented fact noted in law cases dating as early as the first world war. In the case of Debs v. the United States a man (Mr. Debs) was #“convicted on three counts of promoting insubordination, obstructing recruiting, and encouraging resistance” under the Espionage Act simply for publicly speaking his mind about the conflict the United States was involved in at the time. Socialist by political conviction Debs had publicly argued against the war which he saw as another way for the elites to exploit the poor. The star witness of the prosecution was a news reporter who had interviewed Mr. Debs on his opinions on the war. Perhaps the main reason Mr. Debs was convicted by a district judge for promoting ‘anarchy’ (and had his conviction upheld by the Supreme Court on the grounds of a ‘reasonably probable effect’ of his words having a negative effect on the war effort) was mainly due to the governments campaign to popularize the war through the utilization of the media. At the outbreak of the war the cable lines between Germany and the US were cut as a result of which the percentage of front-page news originating from Germany decreased from 30 percent in July 1914 to #“4 percent during the first half of August”. This meant that all news the media was receiving had to come either from the US government or through Britain and neither of the two had an impartial view of the conflict from the start. Even though during war time it has seldom been the case that the press had the freedom to write independently there are few academics that would argue against a free and independent press.
2. The Benefits of Free Press; Free Press and Democracy
The advantage of having a free press in a modern society is seldom questioned as political thinkers often argue that the media #“…is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision.” As a result we (the public) are often told that the media in a Liberal Democratic country such as the US is independent, that it reports news indiscriminately and that as a whole the news industry reports news objectively in an attempt to give us an overall clear and balanced picture of global events. Many believe that simply because anyone can in theory start a newspaper or because all news outlets are private (not government owned) that this situation must result in media independence and objectivity. This, unfortunately, is simply not the case.
While it is clear that the media does not replace the need for transparency in government policy; it is rarely questioned whether this ‘searchlight’ is directed by individuals with an agenda of their own or it simply acts as an impartial phenomenon which brings events into the public eye. This is especially true in today’s free market democratic societies such as that of the US.
Therefore in theory “free press” is supposed to have a beneficial effect on the quality of US democracy by having a stimulating effect on the political involvement of the citizenry and additionally improving the general level of political education while also informing the public; thus allowing them to hold the government accountable for its actions. Perhaps the underpinning argument for free press in a democracy is the belief that #“The free flow of information and opinion from diverse and antagonistic sources is the best way to ensure that voters will learn what they need to know about candidates and about government policies and public issues” The reality is however somewhat more complex as #“America’s “free press” cannot be free. Restricted by the limited tastes of the audience and reliant upon political elites for most information, journalists participate in an interdependent news system, not a free market of ideas.” The reality is therefore drastically different from the #“ideal vision of a free press as civic educator and guardian of democracy.” Therefore the media essentially competes for higher ratings while maintain a form of self censorship in order not to antagonize the elite.
Indeed it can be argued that not only does the media not act as a ‘guardian of democracy’ but rather it could be seen as the guardian to the establishment as #“it is certainly true that the media rarely challenge the conceptual framework, the fundamental assumptions, that underlie establishment views and set the range of respectable opinion.” Therefore the scope of any debate in the media is inherently shortened as fundamental questions that frame any debate are often omitted by the media. Therefore it is not surprising that at least for some critics #“…the danger feared from alleged lack of diversity in the media today is not so much ignorance or error as excessive power over the public agenda on part of the major media.”
As early as 1975 a study titled “The Crisis of Democracy; report on the governing ability of Democracies” performed by the Trilateral Commission concluded that the media has become a #“notable new source of national power”. This, the Commission argues has led to #“reduction of governmental authority” and as such poses a cause for concern. The Commission argued that this resulted from #“the efforts of previously marginalised sectors of the population to organize and press their demands, thereby creating an overload that prevents democratic process from functioning properly”. The study urged some restriction or moderation in democracy in order to overcome this crisis. In essence the Commission argued that in order for democracy to survive it is necessary for ordinary people not to be politically active and to return to a state of #“apathy and obedience”.
It can be argued that this return to apathy is precisely what has occurred in the last twenty-five years or so as US citizens have become increasingly uninterested in politics and as political education has declined so has political participation. The reason behind this occurrence is debatable but some have argued that market forces along with rampant advertising are mainly to blame/credit for this occurrence as #“In practice, the competition prevents journalists from supplying the kind of news that would allow the average American to practice sophisticated citizenship. Because most members of the public know and care relatively little about government, they neither seek nor understand high-quality political reporting and analysis.” However what exactly changed since 1975 to this day to initiate this transition to political apathy and population ignorance is highly debatable. It can be argued that it was a combination of many factors such as: media ownership, globalisation, the end of the Cold War (end of socialist struggle) etc. Whatever the cause may be the result is undoubtedly easier population control followed by increased political influence of the mass media. This project will attempt to determine the scope of this influence and just what is the interest of those wilding this new and great power.
3. Elitism and the Media
Essentially it is fairly difficult to believe that the media outlets do not represent both interests and political positions of those who are majority stock holders in those same outlets and in turn it is equally difficult to believe that those who are majority stock holders do not share the same or similar interests to other members of the societal elite. Thus it can be argued that it is in the interest of the media outlets to perpetuate the political system they operate within; therefore any news reported by the mass media outlets (even that which is critical of the establishment) serves simply as a tool to satisfy the need of the public for so called ‘checks‘. Essentially the critical news can be seen as a tool in a way convincing the audience into believing the so called ’objectivity’ of the mass media. Nevertheless it is crucial to understand that the aims of those individuals and companies who are in the position to be majority stock holders of large news outlets and those individuals who are in positions of political power, more often than not, coincide. The fundamental interest of most social elite is to perpetuate the system so that they can maintain their position of power.
The role of the media in US politics is a topic which has not been evaluated or investigated sufficiently and there are no real restrictions on the impartiality of news reported. This often means that the motives behind why some news are reported while others are ignored often remain unquestioned.
Chapter One: The Power of the Media
1. Agenda Setting
Arguably it could be said that it is practically impossible for the media to convince the public into falsehoods as there is no way to assure total population control by any means short of brain washing. Indeed in the past it was believed that the influence of the media on the populace is limited at best of times while non existent at others as it was (is?) assumed that people have their own free will and hence can make up their own mind. However #“The central assumption of the more recent research on agenda setting has been that media do exert significant influence… In this view, the news can affect what people think about, not what they think.”
One of the first documented research on the agenda setting power of the media was performed during the 1968 presidential elections in the US. In this investigation one hundred local residents of a small town called Chapel Hill were selected at random assuring that they were #“economically, socially and racially representative of the community”. The aim of the study was to determine how much influence the media had on issues that were of importance to voters in the presidential elections. In order to best determine the influence it was decided that those selected to participate had to be individuals with no prior political convictions i.e. those who were not registered members of a party. The result was that #“The media appear to have exerted a considerable impact on voters judgements of what they considered the major issues of the campaign (even though the questioner specifically asked them to make judgements without regard to what politicians might be saying at the moment).” In essence the media had influenced the voters as to what the important issues were while it did not necessarily influence who they were going to vote for or how they personally felt about these issues. #“In short, the data suggests a very strong relationship between the emphasis placed on different campaign issues by the media (reflecting to a considerable degree the emphasis by candidates) and the judgements of voters as to the salience and importance of various campaign topics.”
Arguably not only does this research imply that the media has a strong influence on agenda setting when it comes to voters but it could be assumed that this influence is also probable on candidates themselves. To clarify, if the important issues change for the voters due to the influence of the media it is natural for the politician to change his manifesto accordingly emphasizing the newly important issues in attempt to maximise his chance of winning.
In essence agenda setting is the main power of today’s media; to put it bluntly #“…the media may not tell us what to think, they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about.” While the media arguably cannot have a strong influence on what our individual opinions may be on specific issues they can effectively choose which issues will be in the spotlight. Hence, it could be argued that #“The way to control attitudes is to provide a partial selection of information for a person to think about, or process. The only means of influencing what people think is precisely to control what they think about.”
Therefore the influence exerted by the media is most profound in limiting and directing the scope of debate on any single issue. If it is decided that the scope of debate is unfavourable or that the public opinion is going the wrong way the headlines can simply be replaced by something new until the old debate is completely pushed out of the picture. #“The methods of sensationalism and selective omission ‘can be used to sway public opinion while disabling pubic criticism,’ and the result may be a kind of ‘ideological domination.’” In this way any further information brought to the debate is either dismissed for lacking credibility or seen as not equally trustworthy as the information put forward by the mainstream media. Therefore most voices of discontent are effectively silenced before they arise by the vastness of reach and the perceived credibility possessed by the mass media.
Some sociologists and political thinkers have gone further in their analysis of the media influence on public opinion by arguing that the media in essence constructs our
#“‘reality’, [through] an ever- unfolding discursive locale that deeply influences public opinion on social issues and significantly affects the assumptions that bracket how we talk about politics.” According to this view the media acts as a main link most people have to the world outside of their reach and therefore its influence goes further than simple agenda setting. Others political thinkers have gone even further in their analysis of the mass media influence by arguing that it is essentially possible to #“…overcome the fact that …people have the right to vote.” Critical thinkers dealing with the US such as Chomsky argue that it is essentially possible to #“manufacture consent and make sure that …choices and attitudes will be structured” in such a way to guarantee the desired outcome. He essentially argues that the influence of the media is so great that it nullifies any democratic potential within US society. In order for this theory to be considered - it is important to note that almost all media plays a role in this process including magazines, films, series, news and most TV programs.
2. The Influence Of Soft Media
The influence of the mass media exclusively through news broadcasts would mean that those individuals who do not follow current events would simply remain out of reach and would therefore remain unaffected by this manipulation.
However it is certainly possible to argue that individuals who do not follow the news are still being influenced by the mass media on issues raging from foreign policy to education and crime through the use of so called ‘Soft Media’ which includes tabloids, films and entertainment magazines. In essence #“…soft news increasingly serves as a source of information about a select few political issues”. This again can be attributed to the media hunger for profits as #“the Soft Media are in the business of packaging human drama as entertainment.” such as films and TV series.
Indeed Matthew Baum in his work “Soft News goes to war” argues that it has become increasingly difficult for the American public to simply ‘tune out’ of current events. To demonstrate this point he compares the public awareness during the period of the Vietnam war with public awareness of the Persian Gulf conflict of ‘91 noting that even though one might expect the general public at the time to have been well informed about the Vietnam War (due to the political protests and the length of the war), the Persian Gulf Conflict is still undoubtedly more present in the minds of American citizens. Therefore it can be argued that #“…few issues are as likely to capture the public’s imagination as the prospect of a large-scale violence and the potential death of large numbers of Americans at the hands of a clearly identifiable ‘villain‘” and this in turn makes #“…foreign crisis an appealing subject matter for the largely apolitical, entertainment orientated soft news media.” Essentially it can be argued that the Soft Media uses foreign policy issues such as war and sensationalises them in order to capture the attention of their audience. Undoubtedly in the process the audience of this so called ‘soft media’ will have been influenced by the way the conflicts are portrayed on film or in a magazine article. Hence it can be said that the ‘Soft Media’ represents a kind of continuation of News Media influence on the apolitical audience since it can be justly presumed that the ‘Soft Media’ will get the bulk of its information about foreign policy issues from the Main Stream media (often from their parent news paper).
3. The Cult of Innocence
In the process of creating a ‘reality’ for US citizens, the media has also played a vital role in spreading the so called ‘cult of innocence’ which in part includes the construction of a belief that all US casualties of terrorism are innocent as was argued in the case of the 1983 Lebanon US barracks bombing. More than 200 US marines killed are described by the US state department as ‘innocent Americans‘; similarly the same can be said of the military personnel killed in the Khobar Towers bombings of 1996 in Saudi Arabia. Arguably this so called #“myth of an innocent nation” is in many ways responsible for the difficulty the Americans face when it comes to dealing with terrorism as the mass media and the government both perpetuate this myth of #“America…as an innocent child among nations, untainted by the finite dimensions of human history” as a “embodiment of a new golden age of liberty and justice”. Ronald Regan in his state of Union Address of 1987 stated that the US is an “…endless experiment in freedom, with no limit to our [its] reaches, no boundaries to what we [it] can do, no end point to our [its] hopes.” According to the this theory the implication is that all Americans are represented as innocent by the media and the government just as those Americans killed in September 2001 attacks are. As Condoleeza Rice argues terrorists #“…take the lives of innocents willingly in terrorist attacks against office buildings or against the Pentagon.” Therefore it can be argued that there is an effort being made on the part of the mass media and the US government #“…to establish that all victims of terrorism are by definition ’innocent’ - even if they work in the headquarters of the most powerful military in the world.”
This view is never challenged by the media but merely perpetuated hence showing some confirmation of the belief that the media fails to question the most fundamental aspects of terrorism (such as motives) and the US led campaign against it. Indeed it can be argued that this ‘cult of innocence’ is imbedded so deeply within the US culture that if an article was written or another form of media investigation into the topic was performed there would be a public outrage and the flak filter would come into play as would the loss of advertising/sponsorship.
Chapter Two: The Dependence of Media
1.The Propaganda Model
One of the most discussed issues in political science works concerning US media is the supposed existence of the propaganda model.
The propaganda model is a theory developed by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in the early 1980’s which #“assumes that regularities of misrepresentation in media flow directly from the concentration of power in society. It holds that media interlock with other institutional sectors in ownership, management, and social circles, effectively circumventing their ability to remain analytically detached from the power structures of which they themselves are integral parts.” It essentially argues that the result of the media’s socio-economical position is a form of self-censorship.
The propaganda model theory is based on a set of five inter-related filters which govern the behaviour of the media as whole.
In short these filters are: ownership, advertising/sponsors, the #“symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information” i.e. the government, Flak i.e. the #“negative responses to a media statement or program” , anti-communism (anti-terrorism).
2. Media Ownership Concentration: the Implications
The increasing concentration of both US and Global media ownership is an issue of concern in its own right as it raises possible questions about the objectivity of the media and subsequently the quality of democracy in the United States.
Recently there has been an increase in media consolidation by the few US corporations and coincidently there has been a loosening regulations concerning media ownership in recent years. In 2000 ‘the local TV ownership rule’ was amended so as to allow #“a single entity…[to] own two television stations in the same local market” as long as they do not #“reach more than 35 percent of television households.”; previously this limit was held at 25 percent. In addition in the early 2008 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) relaxed and some areas abolished the Radio/Television Cross-Ownership Limit thus allowing #“a daily newspaper seeks to combine with a radio station in a top 20 designated market area (“DMA”), or when a daily newspaper seeks to combine with a television station in a top 20 DMA”. The concerns about media ownership consolidation were brought into the spot light when over #2 million Americans sent letters of concern to the FCC after the rules had been changed as a result of which #“The Senate spoke for a huge majority of Americans …by voting to overturn the flawed FCC decision gutting…long-standing ban on newspaper broadcast cross-ownership.” The final decision however is still within the hands of the US Court of Appeal as #“A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals…agreed to delay ruling on challenges to the FCC's loosening of the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rules” and allow 21 days for interested parties to voice their opinion as to #“why it should not lift the stay on the FCC rule change”. The delay and possible overturning of the FCC relaxation of rules was of coarse opposed by all major media outlets such as CBS, FOX etc. It is however important to note that this deregulation process was started under Kevin J. Martin who is now under investigation for attempting to push through this plan that would “…relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.” The letter sent to the FCC by the House Energy and Commerce Committee which headed the investigation stated that it aims to address “a growing number of allegations received by the committee relating to management practices that may adversely affect the agency's operation." Mr Martin publicly argued that #"A robust competitive marketplace is the best regulator and protector of public interest". Among the main victors of deregulating ruling would be #“Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor …seeking to complete a buyout of the Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has lobbied against the rule for years so that he can continue controlling both The New York Post and a Fox television station in New York.”
In reality the consolidation of media ownership has been rapidly progressing since the early 80’s when the majority of the US media was owned by some 50 corporations to the present level when just 5 corporations (AOL/Time Warner, Walt Disney Co, News Co, Viacom and Vivendi/Universal) own the same amount. Arguably the consolidation of US media can be seen as undemocratic as there is effectively less sources to potentially scrutinize the government while also posing a possible concern due to the monopolistic implications. The fact that there are fewer companies owning the majority US media arguably allows greater control over the national agenda of the press i.e. what issues will be press headlines and thus increasing the potential political power of the media. This concern was noted in 2003 by the present FCC commissioner (Michael J. Copps sworn in Jan, 2006) as he argued that #“today the Federal Communications Commission empowers America’s new Media Elite with unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information upon which our society and our democracy so heavily depend.”
In addition to agenda concerns, the increasing number of mergers means that these media giants can now practically control the flow of information as well as entertainment on a national level; As such they are in a position to dictate both the price and the quality of the service to the consumer while he/she has increasingly less alternatives. Ben Bagdikian, a life time journalist and the editor of Washington Post responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers, argues in his book that these new media corporations #“constitute a new Private Ministry of Information and Culture” that can practically set a national agenda on their own.
Supporters of the FCC deregulation such as the Heritage Foundation have argued that all concerns are generally unfounded as according to them #“Americans today actually enjoy more diversity and competition in the media than at any other time in history, thanks to cable TV, Internet, the licensing of new broadcast stations and other factors.” The reality is that the supporters do not take into account the fact that most of these media outlets are owned by the same small number of corporations and this raises further concerns as #“…the concentration of the media, and their degree of penetration within a mass audience, restricts the range of information and ideas to which the audience is exposed.” Arguably the full scope of the dilemma is best seen through the case of the 27 million AOL/Time Warner internet users who spend #“an incredible 84 per cent of their Internet time on AOL alone.” This effectively means that the users rely on their internet provider as the sole information and entertainment source and thus end up seeing the world through a kind of AOL “filter“.
Furthermore the reality is that while there may still be a large number of small town media that offer a form of independent news reporting they can not compete with the reach or the sensationalism of the large media outlets. In addition independent news organisations such as newspapers, local channels and internet blogs simply cannot afford to cover global or even national events to their full extent and thus must in large part rely on the large media networks for that information.
Some media analysts such as Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism have expressed beliefs that #“Print may be dying” as there is an increasing number of people getting their news from the internet. The global reality is that the
#“different rates of computer and internet use result from such factors as income, education, use at school, and use at work in different occupations”. At the same time in the US analysts argue that the #“education levels remain a major indicator of who is among the 137 million Americans using the Internet”. Therefore there is an overwhelming number of Americans still one-hundred percent reliant on the newspapers and broadcasted media. Perhaps more worrying is the fact that those with internet access still heavily rely on mainstream media internet sites for their information (as shown below).
(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933312.html)
All of these factors undoubtedly leave the large US media corporations in a position of unprecedented advantage with huge and practically unchecked levels of influence on the mind of the average US citizen allowing the media to be the force to potentially make or break a US president.
3.Capitalism and the Private Media; Influence of Advertising
The fact that the Stocks of US media Corporations are traded on the global stock markets essentially means that the loyalty of the editors and the whole media organisation arguably rests in the hands of the corporations board of directors who are in turn responsible to the stock holders. In other words as a part of the free market economy the US media corporations are subjected to a constant quest to increase ratings and profitability and this is arguably often if not always in direct opposition to media objectivity and independence.
According to Herman and Chomsky #“media stocks have become market favourites” as a result of which unsurprisingly media giants #“…focus ever more aggressively and unequivocally on profitability”. This increasingly means that there is a filtering process that all news must go through to assure that the media network will not loose money as a result of reporting it.
Similarly the importance of finance was recorded very early in other liberal democratic societies such as Britain as it was noted that #“advertisers…acquired a de facto licensing authority since, without their support, newspapers ceased to be economically viable.” Therefore in essence the media does not stand independent and objective and hence can not work as a tool of democracy as it remains in a constant struggle aimed at increasing its audience and the price of its stocks.
It should be noted that this is by no means an occurrence exclusive to the media, indeed the whole US political system works along similar lines as Congressmen have in most cases pledged their allegiance to big interests in exchange for campaign finance long before they are elected. #“As the media keeps the country over-organized, money controls the workings of Congress.” Essentially; the six-term South Carolina Senator Ernest F. Hollings argues that people no longer read the news to gain objective information and form opinion but rather they get ready made opinions on which they base their political participation on. In addition he also argues that since the televising of Congress begun it has become a kind of a public show which requires politicians #“to be confrontational” mainly due to the fact that this is practically the only kind of news that the media report - hence it is the only chance a party or a politician has of gathering national support.
The advertising filter as it is referred to by Chomsky also plays a very important role in media concentration due to the fact that larger media outlets are more likely to be able to attract advertisers by offering better coverage and lower add prices. Therefore a corporate owned news outlet is more likely to survive against its local competitors, in this way media ownership concentrates even further without any corporate buy outs. #“A market share and advertising edge on the part of one paper or television station will give it additional revenue to compete more effectively - promote more aggressively, buy more saleable features and programs - and the disadvantaged rival must add expenses it cannot afford to try to stem the cumulative process of dwindling market (and revenue) share.” In addition the larger corporate media can cover a wider demographic and can offer packaged adds that cover more than one advertising medium.
In 1985 a television network, WNET, broadcasted a program titled “Hungry for Profit”. The program investigated the role of big agribusiness corporations in displacing local farmers across ten nations in order to obtain cheap and fertile land to grow crops which were then exported to wealthier states. As a result of this program the television network lost corporate funding from one of its major contributors Gulf+ Western. The chief executive of the corporation wrote a letter to the network in which he stated that the actions of WNET #“had not been those of a friend and that the film was virulently anti-business, if not anti-American”. Similarly a PBS program presented by Jonathan Kwitney was cancelled rather quickly after the host stated that Jonas Savimbi (an ant-Communist Angolan rebel) was #“just one more blood-stained autocrat on the U.S. taxpayers payroll”. These examples demonstrate the influence which advertisers and program sponsors can have on a mass media network through their finance and shows the almost editorial control they can have on the programming.
In addition this kind of editorial control perpetuates the so called ‘cult of innocence’ a prime example of which is the fate of a documentary titled the “The Africans” which explored the history of the African continent. The documentary was made by Ali A. Mazrui, a Kenyan who received a doctorate from Oxford University and was employed by the University of Michigan where he taught political science. #“The film was co-produced by Washington’s WETA [a public broadcasting service in the Washington D.C. area] and the BBC, and had received $600,000 from the National Endowment for Humanities.” The NEH chairwoman (Lynne Cheney) accused the program of being “narrow [and] politically tendentious” furthermore she argued that the film was #“Worse than unbalanced [and that it] frequently degenerates into anti-Western diatribe.” The nine hour program for its part tried to tell the story of the continent through the eyes of an African; it argued that the west had played an important role in bringing the continent into its present state. The author argued that the transfer of technology had been very limited in some aspects and that the largest amount of technology imported was weaponry. As a result the NEH withdrew its funding and requested that its name be withdrawn from the credits. This demonstrates not only an attempt to exercise a form of editorial control (on documentaries no less) but in addition a general unwillingness to accept the role America (and the west as a whole) has had in shaping the world and its problems, thus perpetuating the so called ‘cult of innocence’ and this in turn arguably perpetuates the ‘flak‘ filter as Americans find it increasingly difficult to deal with political realities. In essence this ‘advertising filter’ plays an important role in the shaping of media ownership and media programming thus shaping the reality for most American citizens who get the bulk of their information through mass media outlets. Therefore the interconnectedness of all of the filters is one of the crucial factors which allows for their continued existence.
4.The Symbiotic Relationship: the Press and the Government
In 2005 Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin experienced an enormous amount of pressure from the Conservative press for publicly stating that the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility was similar to #“those used by repressive regimes, including the Nazis and Soviets.” Senator Durbin was criticised by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader (of the time) Bill Frist but an overwhelming amount of pressure was also felt from #“…conservative Web commentators and radio talk show hosts, followed by other media outlets with strong conservative following, including Fox News and the Washington times.” The end result was that Senator Durbin publicly apologised for his statements and the media focus had shifted from the issue in question (i.e. the US treatment of prisoner) to what it means to be an American and the extend of the suffering experienced by the Jews during the second world war. Senator Durbin later stated that the conservatives #“…are extremely well organised, and inevitably, they drag the mainstream media behind them.” This arguably demonstrates that the conservative forces within US politics have a drastic influence to direct the attention of the public through the use of the mass media. Similarly Richard A. Clarke a government employee of thirty years argued (after his falling out with the Bush Jr. administration over the war in Iraq) that individuals involved in US politics knew that if anyone #“…went after the Bush administration on something that mattered to them, they would be the targets of Karl Rove’s revenge.” He argued that as a result of this many of those in the position to criticise the government were simply afraid to do so. It is important to understand that the #“…press is a part of …[the] establishment” and that the policy makers and the reporters interact privately and deal with each other on a daily basis thus making #“…the political spectrum, when we are talking about Washington…very narrow.”
Arguably this demonstrates that in some cases the direct influence of the government extends far more than just to the so called ‘spin’ to almost a kind of editorial control. This can be explained in large part by the fact that #“…sustained debate in the news is usually produced by disagreement among political elites who are perceived by the press to wield enough power to affect the course of policy.” As a result of this any outside opinion or criticism of government policy is more often than not marginalised and rarely reported by the mass media.
The government is always seen as the largest source of information when it comes to politics, as a result the mass media outlets chosen as the insiders are the first to get news updates and are also the ones who will benefit from increased advertising, increased audiences which will then result in higher stock prices. Therefore it can be said that #“…the safest place for the elite press to be is in the “non ideological” space found in an implicit understanding of news as whatever the most powerful officials say it is.” resulting in a symbiotic relationship between the mass media and the government.
5. Organised “Public” Opinion: Flak
Flak refers to a negative response from the general public, it can come from other media outlets, the public, the government; it can be organised or entirely independent and it can take form of letters, FCC rulings or lawsuits.
The consequence of flak is almost exclusively negative in terms of ratings, advertising income and subsequently stock prices. Organised flak is more often than not a tool used by corporate interests to assure that the media as a whole do not step out of line. This is evident in the fact that large businesses are the majority financiers of organisations such as the Capital Legal Foundation, the American Legal Foundation, the Media Institute, the Centre for Media and Public Affairs and Accuracy in Media (AIM). These institutions can be seen as tools made for the #“specific purpose of producing flak” and #“Flak institutions essentially discipline the mass media through complaint.” Therefore these institutions are in essence a way for big businesses to act as a censorship group on all US media outlets.
The influence of corporate business and subsequently #“serious flak has increased in close parallel with business’s growing resentment of media criticism and the corporate offensive of the 1970’s and 1980’s” - it should be noted that this coincides with the report made by the Trilateral Commission on the governing ability of Democracies. Nevertheless the mass media and television networks more specifically have started practising a form of self-censorship as they #“learned back in the 1950’s that the best way to prevent such flak was to sharply curtail the programming that makes it to the nation’s living room” those that did not learn experienced pressure from the above mentioned organisations and other interest orientated groups.
Even mass media itself can be act as a form of flak as when smaller media outlets produce a story, which does not go in line with the news reported by the main stream media, it is discredited and placed under a huge amount of public pressure. The most notable example is that of San Jose Mercury News which in 1996 published a series of articles titled ‘The Dark Alliance; the story behind the crack explosion’ that had been investigated for a period longer than a year. One of the Mercury News journalists (Gary Webb) had discovered that #“For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funnelled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” The articles essentially described a CIA operation that brought Cocaine into the US that was then sold on the streets to sponsor the Contras in Nicaragua. Many of the claims brought forward in the articles were later confirmed by a CIA internal investigation but at the time the pressure the newspaper felt from mass media outlets such as the New York and L.A. Times was so extraordinary that the author of the articles was forced to quit and the newspapers he had previously wrote for publicly distanced itself from his work. In addition they destroyed practically all the files he had used to write the story. Therefore not only is news reporting and investigative journalism financially difficult for small press but there is also a significant amount of pressure on all smaller news outlets to fall in line and publish the headlines dictated by the major media outlets or news that does not challenge the mainstream views.
It also worth noting that that while organised groups such as AIM steadily bash the media they do not respond with equal measures questioning their motives. On the contrary #“they receive respectful attention, and their propagandistic role and links to a larger corporate program are rarely mentioned or analysed.” This can be explained by the fact that any such investigation into these organisations would be in fact damaging to the media that performed them as they would loose out on advertising funds; in addition they would most likely experience flak themselves from other media outlets and other organised flak groups.
6. The Ultimate “Evil”: Communism - Terrorism
The final filter can be perhaps seen as one of the forces that had actively encouraged the media to increase its inter-dependence with the government of all liberal democracies including the US. Communism is seen as the ultimate evil by all elites and property owners #“as it threatens the very root of their class position and superior status”. During the Cold War the anti-Communist ‘crusade’ was utilized by elites including the media as tool for fragmenting the Labour movements and as a kind of ‘political-control mechanism’. Due to the fact that #“the concept is fuzzy it can be used against anybody advocating policies that threaten property interests”. In addition this meant that its application was practically unlimited in all efforts of the elites to increase de-regulation and minimise government involvement in big business.
While the US public, to large extent, still remains sensitive to all issues that may be construed as Communist the issue has nevertheless somewhat faded away from the media spot light as there is little realistic threat to sensationalize upon. Some political analysts have argued that while the anti-Communist filter has not yet completely faded it has #“been replaced more prominently with an anti-Terrorism filter.” The existence of the anti-Terrorism filter is most notably experienced by the fact that as before with Communism #“many journalists fear appearing to be ‘anti-American’ by examining social or cultural issues behind ‘terrorism‘, or even sometimes of interrogating the complicity of Western democracies in financing and establishing ‘terrorists’.” It could be argued that even this ‘filter’ which one would assume was exclusive to the US is in existence globally or perhaps it simply shows the global reach of the US media giants. This is arguably best observed through the lack of will on part of any major media outlet to fully investigate the background to 9/11 even though according to research the majority of the international public remains unconvinced as #“On average [only] 46 percent say that al Qaeda was behind the attacks” If one takes into account the remarkable impact the events of September 11th 2001 have had on Western society and the world as whole #“it is remarkable that [more than] seven years later there is no international consensus about who was behind them”.
According to critics Anti-Terrorism has also been used by the US government to curtail liberties of its citizens with legislation such as the Patriot Act which was drafted and brought into effect in just over a month after September 11th 2001. Such a large bill would have normally taken months for Congress to agree upon but with huge media and public pressure it was pushed through in less than forty five days.
According to Chomsky there are two ways to approach the study of Terrorism #“a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power.” It can be argued that the second approach is utilised by both the US government and the US mass media. When the issue of terrorism is debated both presidents and the media have utilised the threat of terrorism for their own goals and have been less than objective in their analysis. The examples of this are pretty common most notable is the repeated rhetoric of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (the good vs. the evil) that has been used by US presidents for years. Indeed even before the end of the Cold War, while the US was utilising ‘terrorists’ for their own goal of fighting Communism, US president Ronald Regan for example referred to the #“the evil scourge of terrorism” while president Bush jr. practiced an even more apparent form of demagoguery that is only paralleled by leaders of most nationalistic governments that ever existed. He repeatedly argued that his government #“will rid the world of the evil-doers" while he was also perhaps the first ever ‘serious’ politician that labelled a group of nations as simply “evil”. This populist oratory was rampant during his administration and other members of his government practiced similar tactics as did Condeleeza Rice when she argued that the US is waging #“…a war against the evil of terrorism.” There has to this day been very few mass media articles that have spent time addressing the nature of a government that uses such tactics to gather popular support for military conflicts hence arguably demonstrating the link between the media and the government, hence arguably proving the existence of anti-Terrorism as one of the filters of the mass media.
Conclusion: The Failed System
The media is undoubtedly an extremely powerful tool that can influence public opinion to great lengths. While it is generally accepted that the media as a whole has a role in agenda setting by deciding what people think about, it is my belief that the media has a much larger influence as it increasingly informs the public about the most mundane events in great detail earning its trust in the process. This results in the public increasingly accepting the news as facts rather than opinion. Ironically the US media has become increasingly opinionated with news reporters telling people ‘what the public thinks’ and thus implying that they too should somehow fall in line with ‘popularly accepted’ opinions.
Furthermore it is difficult to believe that there is an easy solution to many of the problems facing today’s media. Anti-Monopolisation laws are definitely a step in the right direction towards insuring a more diverse and objective news reporting environment. Nevertheless so long as mass media is profit orientated with its stocks traded as a commodity it will continue its progression towards a more bland, un-stimulating form of programming that will eventually quite possibly lead to a complete end of democracy through complete voter apathy. Therefore one possible solution is to impose stricter regulations on media financing and establish some form of nationally accepted ethical rules about news reporting. It would also be necessary to provide some form of subsidies for small town and minority owned media for a period of time in order to even out the playing field and encourage diversity.
There must also be a change in popular culture, ‘the cult of innocence’ must be destroyed by internal mechanisms in order to assure the survival of independent thought. Students in schools from an early age must be taught the flaws of their government so as not to perpetuate imperfections and create an improved system, essentially they must be encouraged to examine things from different perspectives to assure progress of the society as a whole.
The internet potentially acts as a serious challenger to the influence of mass media however its use remains restricted to those with higher education and higher income therefore a way of potentially curtailing the influence of mass media is by providing investing in projects which aim to provide free wireless internet on a national level. However the influence of the internet should not be overstated as a large part of the US population still does not poses even the basic IT knowledge, in addition the expansion of media giants onto the online medium should not be underestimated. Big business and corporate media will almost certainly lobby the US government in the near future for some kind of internet restrictions to be introduced (most likely on the basis of Cyber-Terrorism or Copyright infringement)
It is also important to encourage a diversity through media education. Future journalists should be encouraged to question the social order they work in by challenging the authority of the government and the influence of big business.
This would help to inform the public of different points of view present in society by expanding most debates which would most likely #“help mobilize broad-based social action [as a result of which] journalism might begin to look very different.”
All of these changes are fairly unlikely to happen due to the fact that the US population is to a large extent almost ‘brain washed’ by the profound influence of the mass media and simply lacks the necessary amount of political education to understand the complexities of problems their society is facing. Many would simply argue that any regulation of the media is un-American and that any subsidies are ‘communist’ policies. This would not be helped by the fact that their trusted news bringers such as Fox and CNN would most likely oppose any such actions vigorously.
Perhaps the only ‘bright star’ on the horizon is the fact that according to research PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) remains the #most trusted news provider for four years in a row. In addition according to the same poll source for the first time ever #“PBS ties with military defence as #1 in tax value among 20 federally funded services and institutions” Therefore perhaps an increase in funding for PBS would mean an increase in quality programming. It is important to note that at this stage most programming broadcasted by PBS is bought from other providers. For any significant change to occur this would need to be undone and PBS would need to manufacture its own shows that propagate different values than those generally spread through soft media. However this unfortunately is fairly unlikely due to the large role financing plays in US politics as any such legislation would require approval from congress whose members in great part depend on the financial support of big business and ‘air’ time from the mass media.
Essentially it is my belief that the US political system is flawed which is reflected on the media in such a way that it propagates mediocrity and voter apathy. Due to the economic and political system it operates in, the media fails to stimulate the public in any kind of way, rarely challenging the generally accepted norms and marginalising alternative opinions to such an extent that they are more likely heard from stand up comedians (such as George Carlin) than on the news.
The fact that there are organisations such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Media Alliance, Media Channel, the Centre for Digital Democracy and Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting that fight for similar reforms of the media should give us some optimism about the eventual outcome of the struggle for independent press but the reality is that #“…for the most part, these and other local media watch groups are resource-poor organizations.” Therefore, unfortunately, they have very little chance of making a difference.
Written Sources:
Angharad N. Valdivia, "A companion to media studies", Wiley-Blackwell (2003)
Ben Bagdikian, “The Media Monopoly”, 2nd ed., Beacon Press (1987)
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