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Politics And The Media Essay Research Paper (стр. 1 из 2)

Politics And The Media Essay, Research Paper

In America, the media holds a powerful and effective position in politicizing and socializing the general populace. The main political function of the media is to inform and analyze while being accountable. However the question of whether the media produces a pluralist democracy, or fosters a one dimensional society still remains unanswered. Many contemporary philosophers conclude that the media does contribute to both, some even postulate other drawbacks, for instance they posit that the media maintains elite power both in the corporate and political sector. On the other hand, some intellectual thinkers have theorized that the media, especially advertisement, is a major influence to substantiate the economy.

One common belief shared by all contemporary media critics is that the media reflects and produces values of its own, even though their onus is initially to inform. In America the media has become a corporation in a corporate dominated society, it has become a bias agency of politicization. Powerful business corporations and politicians intertwine, both using the media to indoctrinate the mass populace in order to consummate a political and social consensus. This in turn maintains their elite positions. Hollywoodism and advertisement contributes to American imperialism by generating a desire among oversea consumers to buy American products. The impact of the American media has politicized a pluralist democracy among the majority by creating a marginilized society, leaving the corporations, including the media, and the American politicians at the top of the pinnacle concerning political decisions and elite power.

Mass communications used to be, in itself, an autonomous solely owned corporation. However, this changed by the 1980 s, the majority of all major American media- magazines, televisions, radios, books, newspapers, and movies- were controlled by fifty giant corporations. Today, only twenty-three conglomerate corporations own the media. Elite theorists have articulated that giant business enterprises and politicians hold a symbiotic relationship. They are and must remain interdependent on one another in order to sustain their dominant status. The media is a corporation owned by conglomerates, therefore one cannot mistake the media s membership in the coefficient group.

In America where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite (Chomsky 1). In spite of the media s patronage with the government and corporations, one would wonder who controls whom. Not only do the politicians and huge conglomerate enterprises need ends to be met through positive political discourse and brainwashing advertisements incorporated in the media, but the media also needs ends to be served. Insofar the media is a business enterprise trying to substantiate their profits; thus the media can too dictate politicians and corporations. Any discordance amidst these three agencies will produce ramifications that would endanger the paradigm pertaining to their established elite positions. Consequently, collusion will be assessed if such a problem emerged in the symbiotic equation of power. No politician likes to lose the sympathy of even a single newspaper or radio station. For a national leader to lose the support of a major portion of all American media can be a political disaster (Bagdikian 91). This became evidently clear when Richard Berlin, the president and chief executive officer of the Hearst Corporation in New York, asked President Richard Nixon to grant him immunity from the antimonopoly law that had in previous years sent other corporate executives to jail. The Hearst Corporation owned nine newspapers, ten broadcasting stations, twenty-six magazines, and a book publishing house (Bagdikian 90). Nixon knew that if he did not exempt Berlin from the law, his actions would be remembered, come the next election. This illustrates that the government needs the media more than the media needs the government due to the fact the media has the ability to shape and form political discourse.

Also it is capable of disrupting the established paradigm, therefore threatening their dominant status.

The media and its patrons, the elite corporations and politicians, produce thought control among the non-elite, general populace. Indoctrination is the essence of democracy; propaganda to democracy is like violence to dictatorship. Mass communications has introduced new forms of social control and social cohesion suppressing dissident action. No wonder then that, in the most advanced areas of this civilization, the social controls have been introjected to the point where even individual protest is affected at its roots (Marcuse 9). Noam Chomsky, a notorious media critic, has proposed the propaganda model which traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public (Chomsky 2). The original information gathered by the press cannot be printed nor articulated before it goes through a process of filters.

The first filter illustrates the size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media. Here, one can distinguish between two types of media: the Agenda Setters and Mass Media. Harold Innis provides a guiltless definition of what an agenda setter is; A complex system of writing becomes the possession of a special class and tends to support aristocracies (Innis 4). Agenda setters are the larger media corporations that set the trends, for example, the New York Times, NBC, and CBS. The mass media are the trickle down media , which get all their information from the agenda setters. In simpler terms, the mass media is A simple flexible system of writing admits of adaptation to the vernacular but slowness of adaptation facilities monopolies of knowledge and hierarchies (Innis 4). The mass media are intended to indoctrinate the public. The belief system of the media sustains a marginal public and at the same time diverts them in accordance to the agenda setters and the mass media; therefore it maintains a hierarchy and at the same time it dictates social control. Corporations know generally what kind of a status one holds when reading the agenda setters in comparison to the mass media; as such they sell their products through advertisements accordingly. This filter also postulates the political ties the media has with the government; The media giants have a joint and close interest in favorable climate of investment in the Third World, and their interconnections and relationships with the government in these policies are symbiotic (Chomsky 13-14). This is not only favorable to the media giants but also to the American government as it strengthens its global imperialism.

The second filter process is headed under advertising as the primary income source of the mass media (Chomsky 2). Long before advertisement emerged, newspapers had to pay for their own business; for example, they had to pay for their features, format, style, and promotion. With the bombardment of advertisements, newspapers that incorporated ads from businesses were successful because their production costs were significantly lower than newspapers that were not ad-based. As a result, ad-free newspapers took a plunge in the media competition, or were marginalized to succumb to advertising agencies. Chomsky notes that today media is besieged by advertisements and as a result an advertising-based media system will gradually increase advertising time and marginalize or eliminate altogether programming that has significant public-affairs content (Chomsky 17). Television news clearly demonstrates Chomsky s point. News coverage is requested to a time limit, about 45 seconds, thus the message receiver does not obtain adequate information, instead, fascinating pictures that are sentimental are projected at rapid random sequence. On top of that, one-story follows another therefore not only does one get limited information but ones emotion changes simultaneously. This is all due to the inevitable commercial that must be televised at a certain time.

The third filter is classified as sourcing mass media news. Chomsky demonstrates how the government and business-promoters endure agony in order to ease the job for the press. They prepare rooms for the media to gather; they provide the press with advanced copies of speeches; they schedule their news conferences so that it brands the news hours; and they carefully coordinate their press conferences in accordance to photo sessions. In short, bureaucracies subsidize the mass media, and this in turn maintains their mutual relationship. What is ironic here is that the subsidy is at the taxpayers expense the citizenry pays to be propagandized in the interest of powerful groups (Chomsky 22). There is no doubt that We have become what we behold we shape our tools then they shape us *. During the Age of Print, newspapers have always advocated technological innovations, and hitherto, their implication has had serious ramifications. We invented the telegraph, the radio, and television which now invites political and social discourse into our homes, which shapes our political and social values to the interests of the dominant class.

The fourth filter is indexed as flak and the enforcer. Flak refers to negative responses to a media statement or program (Chomsky 26). A flak can be presented in the form of a letter, telephone call, petitions, law suits and so fourth. A flak can be enforced directly or indirectly. For instance, a telephone call to Gord Martineau or the Parliament is a direct flak, whereas a business corporation funding lobby group professionals intended to attack the media is an indirect flak. AIM (Accuracy in Media) is a powerful institution that harasses the media to follow right-wing conservative standards of bias. This proves that not only does the media present a monolithic ideology, it has become susceptible to institutions like AIM to convert their values so that it becomes a biassed form of communication.

The final filter is labeled anticommunism as a control mechanism. Basically, any news story that advocated the Left will be subjected to political harassment. The ideology and religion of anticommunism is a potent filter (Chomsky 31). Communism is considered as the ultimate evil in the U.S.A., not only does it threaten the government and property owners, it also affects media ownership and values. As Karl Marx envisaged The proletariat destroys the political apparatus of capitalism but retains the technological apparatus, subjecting it to socialization (Marcuse 22). The New York Times is considered the most powerful and influential agenda setter not only domestically but also in the foreign countries as well. Thus, one can easily hypothesize that anticommunism has not only become a religion in the continent of the Americas, but worldwide as well. This sway again contributes to American imperialism.

To illustrate how this propaganda model can be assessed one can analyze the case study of Cambodia and East Timor. During the years 1975 through 1978, an atrocity occurred in Pol Pots Cambodia. A ruthless genocide resulted into an estimated 250,000 lives. The media focused their whole attention to this gruesome and gory event, yet at the same time, the same genocide was happening in East Timor. Pol Pot was not the aggressor here, the American media was.

East Timor used to be colonized by Portugal for their rich natural resources. In 1975 a Populist Catholic group, coming from the Left, dubbed Fretlin instigated a civil war to break the Portuguese chains, and they were ascertain that they were the victors in August of 1975. This, unfortunately, led to Indonesian intervention. At the time President Ford was in office with Kissinger and they were, in fact, in Jakarta (capital of Indonesia) on December the 5th, a day before the invasion took place. We know that they had requested that Indonesia delay the invasion until after they (Ford and Kissinger) left because it would be too embarrassing (Chomsky 100, 1994). By 1978 East Timor reached the 200,000 genocidal level which was supported financially and backed up politically by the U.S. all the way. When the Indonesian military ran out of arms the U.S., Canada, England, and Holland sold military equipment to them, during the same time the media provided absolutely no coverage of these events. The New York Times rendered much coverage on East Timor before the invasion because they were concerned what the outcome would be after Portuguese colonization broke up. After the Indonesians invaded the coverage dropped. There was some, but it was strictly from the point of view of the State Department and Indonesian Generals. It was never a Timorese refugee (Chomsky 103, 1994). In the New York Times index coverage of the Cambodia case constituted 1,175 column inches, whereas the case for Timor consisted of an astounding column of 70 inches. Take in to consideration the genocidal level in East Timor has been suggested to be higher than Cambodia. Chomsky noted that there was a pretty accurate coverage of East Timor presented in the London Times. The New York Times revised it radically. They didn t just leave a paragraph out, they revised it and gave it a totally different cast (Chomsky 113, 1994). At the end other media gathered their information from the agenda setters and all together the revised story became a whitewash . One can clearly construe by analyzing this case that the propaganda model is a reality. Some, particularly the media, has criticized the model as being a conspiracy theory ; Chomsky likes to call it an institutional analysis . The ramification of this case demonstrates clearly that Technological rationality has become political rationality (Marcuse xvi). The American media has the endowment to marginalize other media around the world with the American anticommunist religion , they can effortlessly repress dissent, and pave way for conglomerate corporations like Westingtonhouse and G.E. (General Electric) that own the media to sell military equipment overseas.

Those who produce television news in America know that their medium favors images that move. Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well- informed people in the Western world (Postman 106). One consumes and conceives information differently from news set out in print and news elicited in television. Information in print is sequential; meaning that it is confined to one time and place without any break or interruption. On television, information is simultaneous; information is grouped with pictures that last for several seconds following one another. Facts are composed in print whereas on television, it is improvised. One receives the directive from the eyes when reading a newspaper, while the ear acquires news from the television. One must be active when reading the newspaper, while the person obtaining information from the television remains reactive. News in print is complete, whereas television news remains incomplete and time constrained. Finally, journalist s present news on prints under a self-expression format; they give analysis in editorials. Television news anchor work on group therapy; Like television commercials, image politics is a form of therapy, which is why so much of it is charm, good looks, celebrity and personal disclosure (Postman 135). Neil Postman, another well-known media analyst, argues that cosmetics have replaced ideology when politics is depicted through the media. The twenty-seventh president of the United States was Howard Taft, a double-chinned, overweight politician. Back in those days, Taft was not exposed to visual images channeled through the media, however if Taft was a candidate running for presidency in today s world The grossness of a three-hundred-pound image, even a talking one, would easily overwhelm any logical or spiritual subtleties conveyed by speech (Postman 7). Postman postulates that the American people are only concerned with the appealing pictorials elicited by television while the interpretation of words are distracted; television news is a format for entertainment, not for education or catharsis.

The medium of a message is important insofar as the meaning of a message can change depending on what word is emphasized. For any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary (McLuhan 30). For instance, one can immediately interpret the following sentence in distinct ways relying on the medium of the message; I never said you stole the money . If one accentuated the word you instead of said for example, the meaning of the sentence will alter.

A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in its cultural setting (Innis 33).

Neil Postman demonstrates how to study the characteristics of television news in his book How To Watch TV News. Postman argues that people who are not avid readers are not prepared to watch TV news. Postman agrees with Chomsky that news is made rather than gathered and is usually selected based on an event, for instance an earthquake or an assassination of a president. News is made on the basis on what the journalist thinks is important or what the journalist thinks the audience thinks is important or interesting. In America Audiences like to see fires; fires kill, and when people are killed there is drama it creates a sense of urgency and excitement (Postman 70, 1992). One would have to acknowledge that the anchorperson on TV news is an actor. The expressions of a TV anchors visage can alter the message being conceived, it gives characteristic to the medium, and has the ability to introject values into the viewer and leave him or her manipulated to the bias of their communication. On the contrary, when the anchor is a journalist in the newspaper The story is likely to be given additional dimensions, especially if the journalist-anchor does his or her own writing (Postman 31, 1992).