Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Neoconservatism--Another Word for Fascism
Fascism--Everyone is Afraid of the Word and Has Learned to Igore It When They See It In Action! What is this? And, how can this be O.K.? Watch this propaganda clip!
Startling Statistics
- 80 percent of the television market is controlled by 5 corporations: General Electric, Walt Disney, Bertelsmann, News Corp, CBS. Radio and Publishing are also being strangled by huge conglomerates.
- On Dec 7, 2007 the FCC lifted the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership which prevented corporations from owning a television, radio station, and a daily newspaper in the same area; big media has the pass to get even bigger, thanks to the FCC.
- The media landscape is dominated by huge corporations whose main objective is profit at the expense of democratic discourse: lack of diversity, commercialized news that is out of touch with local concerns, and a news environment where only the powerful have a voice.
- Stopbigmedia reports, "Between 1995 and 2003, ten of the largest TV-station owners went from owning 104 stations with $5.9 billion in revenue to owning 299 stations with $11.8 billion in revenue."
- The Newspaper Guild, (CWA), reports that 44,000 news industry employees lost their jobs from 2001 to mid-2006 -- at least 34,000 of them at newspapers alone. As many as several thousand more have been laid off by big conglomerates since then.
- Common Cause reports: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted ownership limits for radio stations, leading to an extreme consolidation of radio station ownership. One company alone, Clear Channel Inc., now owns nearly 1,200 radio stations across the country. Before the change, a company could not own more than 40 stations nationwide.
- Free Press reports, Media consolidation results in a loss of unbiased, independent, critical journalism needed to prevent abuses of power.
THE DANGERS OF MEDIA CONSOLIDATION
Leaders Taking Their Positions
A National Movement for Media Reform is underway; and luckilly the Bush Administration is out of the way. Obama is stepping up to the plate and challenging corporate media. Antrust action is underway. Will corporate media is will be held accountable for a capitalist agenda that is out of control? Is it possible for the public interest to win in battling the corporate elite? Is Net Neutrality the answer? I think so. How about you? Net Neutrality is freedom of speech in action--blocking out capitalist agenda's that are dangerous and deadly for American Democracy, Net Neutrality gives the public's voice back. Capitalism shouldnt be preserved at the expense of democracy.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Cananda Stands Up Against Media Consolidation
Let me reiterate a important fact media scholars face in the United States, today: there is little to no public debate centered on the media today. There isn't a debate confronting media consolidation nor the important role a free press play in shaping a democracy. However, in Canada, media is a topic of debate.
Robert McChesney reports, "In 2001, there was an explosion of serious debate over the damage that monopoly ownership of newspapers does to the editorial freedom of individual publications and the quality of the broader public discourse." In Canada media reform and activism is a hot topic.
McChesney then points us to Alexa McDonough, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party from 1995 until 2003, and a leading activist in the media reform in Canada. McDonough, forced a public debate on media and democracy in 2002 after a scandalous Canadian Newspaper: CanWest Global began buying up newspapers across the country, and wanted to impose a single, editorial ideology," and firing employees who wouldn't comply with it. Canada would have one voice. However, McDonough set out to ensure that would not happen. She joined other opposition party member within Canada's House of Commons and McChesney details the remarkable debate that took place in the summer of 2002, where Canada's new democratic party put big media of the forefront of public debate.
McDonough said, "As unsettling as these abuses of journalistic practice are, focusing on the high-handed actions of the Aspers alone ignores the real disease that is eating away at our democratic fabric--the truly alarming scale of media concentration and commercialization in this country. Last weeks reversal of the past 15 to 20 years of media and broadcast policy in this country. The multimedia conglomerates must be broken up. They have been encouraged by federal policymakers in the mistaken belief they would defend the country's cultural sovereignty. They are having the opposite effect."
I do wonder how long it is going to take before the United States takes the steps that are essential for a strong media reform, which starts with a public debate. Other countries are fed up with lack of regard for the public interest and commercialization of American culture. The myth that every country aspires the capitalist prosperity that American culture provides is beginning to shine through, but corporate shareholders in broadcast television aren't telling this to the public.
Mc Chesney points us to The Canandian New Democratic Party's stance in public debate:
Our cultural identity has been put in jeopardy by an American media tide, globalizing economic forces, and the new communications technologies. The liberals have done nothing to stem this tide. In fact, their trade deals have turned our culture into commodities--opening the door to split run magazines today and other U.S. attacks tomorrow. Severe funding cuts have undermined our public broadcaster, the CBC. And, media barons have been able to buy up our newspapers, television, and radio stations, severely limiting the scope of information that reaches the public," the platform declared. In a global information society, the voices of our artists, writers, creators, and citizens need to be strengthened, not undermined. Media ownership must be balanced with strong independent voices to ensure the free flow of ideas and the health of our democracy. And governments must make it clear that our culture identity is not for sale by ensuring that trade deals include protection for our culture. New Democrats are fighting for investments and policies that protect Canadian culture."
Maybe the United States needs to encorporate Canadian culture from within!
Robert McChesney reports, "In 2001, there was an explosion of serious debate over the damage that monopoly ownership of newspapers does to the editorial freedom of individual publications and the quality of the broader public discourse." In Canada media reform and activism is a hot topic.
McChesney then points us to Alexa McDonough, leader of Canada's New Democratic Party from 1995 until 2003, and a leading activist in the media reform in Canada. McDonough, forced a public debate on media and democracy in 2002 after a scandalous Canadian Newspaper: CanWest Global began buying up newspapers across the country, and wanted to impose a single, editorial ideology," and firing employees who wouldn't comply with it. Canada would have one voice. However, McDonough set out to ensure that would not happen. She joined other opposition party member within Canada's House of Commons and McChesney details the remarkable debate that took place in the summer of 2002, where Canada's new democratic party put big media of the forefront of public debate.
McDonough said, "As unsettling as these abuses of journalistic practice are, focusing on the high-handed actions of the Aspers alone ignores the real disease that is eating away at our democratic fabric--the truly alarming scale of media concentration and commercialization in this country. Last weeks reversal of the past 15 to 20 years of media and broadcast policy in this country. The multimedia conglomerates must be broken up. They have been encouraged by federal policymakers in the mistaken belief they would defend the country's cultural sovereignty. They are having the opposite effect."
I do wonder how long it is going to take before the United States takes the steps that are essential for a strong media reform, which starts with a public debate. Other countries are fed up with lack of regard for the public interest and commercialization of American culture. The myth that every country aspires the capitalist prosperity that American culture provides is beginning to shine through, but corporate shareholders in broadcast television aren't telling this to the public.
Mc Chesney points us to The Canandian New Democratic Party's stance in public debate:
Our cultural identity has been put in jeopardy by an American media tide, globalizing economic forces, and the new communications technologies. The liberals have done nothing to stem this tide. In fact, their trade deals have turned our culture into commodities--opening the door to split run magazines today and other U.S. attacks tomorrow. Severe funding cuts have undermined our public broadcaster, the CBC. And, media barons have been able to buy up our newspapers, television, and radio stations, severely limiting the scope of information that reaches the public," the platform declared. In a global information society, the voices of our artists, writers, creators, and citizens need to be strengthened, not undermined. Media ownership must be balanced with strong independent voices to ensure the free flow of ideas and the health of our democracy. And governments must make it clear that our culture identity is not for sale by ensuring that trade deals include protection for our culture. New Democrats are fighting for investments and policies that protect Canadian culture."
Maybe the United States needs to encorporate Canadian culture from within!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Shaking Hands With Capitalism--I would Rather Shake Hands With Democracy
Has anyone seen a story lately related to Blue Collar Workers? I ha vent--protests, low wages, anything? Me neither. Journalism is a business and securing democracy and all class systems isn't on their agenda.
McChesney sees a news environment full of stories pitched at the richest residing in the United States--great investments, whats up on Wall Street, and, capitalism at its greatest. He points out a story that seems to be ignored, or lost in the mess: Military spending in a bad light. But, stories attacking spending on health care, environmental concerns, or education are everywhere.
Why is that? I never really thought about it. But, after McChesney points it out. I'm a little angry. Killing people through war is more important than improving polices in the United States, advancing health care, or caring about the environment. "Since no element of the economic elite is harmed by military spending, and nearly all of them benefit by having an empire to protect profit making worldwide, it rarely gets criticized--unlike federal spending..."
I cant even find a video in U-Tube, made in the United States that is critical of military spending! But, foreign news sees things just the way they are.
McChesney sees a news environment full of stories pitched at the richest residing in the United States--great investments, whats up on Wall Street, and, capitalism at its greatest. He points out a story that seems to be ignored, or lost in the mess: Military spending in a bad light. But, stories attacking spending on health care, environmental concerns, or education are everywhere.
Why is that? I never really thought about it. But, after McChesney points it out. I'm a little angry. Killing people through war is more important than improving polices in the United States, advancing health care, or caring about the environment. "Since no element of the economic elite is harmed by military spending, and nearly all of them benefit by having an empire to protect profit making worldwide, it rarely gets criticized--unlike federal spending..."
I cant even find a video in U-Tube, made in the United States that is critical of military spending! But, foreign news sees things just the way they are.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Where is the Public Debate?
In the United States, The First Amendment is being interpretted as a commercial protection by media monopolies, and they are using it to further consolidate their interests and the market.The first Amendment wasnt designed to protect commercial speech, but media conglomerates are using The First Amendment a defense in monopolizing the market. But, public participation in the process is null and void. So, the question remains how do we get the public to take part in a democracy, rather than feeding the media leading a dangerous evolution towards a fascist over-commercialized culture.
According to Steven Hill in his new book, 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy,"A better legal foundation of the First Amendment should be to enhance in the words of free speech champion Justice William Brennan, "a robust public debate of issues" The real problem is nobody wants to talk about it. Media consolidation is a problem that much in the public is left in the dark about. The problem itself cannot seem to get any attention unless it is commercialized.
"How the media is controlled, structured, and subsidized should be at the Center of Public Debate," Robert McChesney reports in what I call my "new bible" for media reform: The Political Economy of Media, Induring Issues Emerging Dillemas (I am religious, and in no way am I taking this out of context and downplaying the real bible, in my life or anyone elses.) But this book is the bible for democracy.
What McChesney and I see is a, "Democracy Without Citizens," and to have a public debate civic participation is a requirement. B ig Media Monopolies do not want public debate, they want control, power, and money.
If we ask Big Media why there isnt any public debate; McChesney predicts what these media giants might say: "The First Amendment tob the U.S. constitution authorizes that corporations and advertisers rule U.S. media without public interference."
Many scholars, activists, and reformers (incuding myself), believe that it is time for the public to intervene. Getting the public to participate seems to be the next hurdle. Canada's doing it! I'll detail that in my next blog entry. The competitive nature that lies inside many of us may wake up and say ,"Wow Canada's on to something here!"
According to Steven Hill in his new book, 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy,"A better legal foundation of the First Amendment should be to enhance in the words of free speech champion Justice William Brennan, "a robust public debate of issues" The real problem is nobody wants to talk about it. Media consolidation is a problem that much in the public is left in the dark about. The problem itself cannot seem to get any attention unless it is commercialized.
"How the media is controlled, structured, and subsidized should be at the Center of Public Debate," Robert McChesney reports in what I call my "new bible" for media reform: The Political Economy of Media, Induring Issues Emerging Dillemas (I am religious, and in no way am I taking this out of context and downplaying the real bible, in my life or anyone elses.) But this book is the bible for democracy.
What McChesney and I see is a, "Democracy Without Citizens," and to have a public debate civic participation is a requirement. B ig Media Monopolies do not want public debate, they want control, power, and money.
If we ask Big Media why there isnt any public debate; McChesney predicts what these media giants might say: "The First Amendment tob the U.S. constitution authorizes that corporations and advertisers rule U.S. media without public interference."
Many scholars, activists, and reformers (incuding myself), believe that it is time for the public to intervene. Getting the public to participate seems to be the next hurdle. Canada's doing it! I'll detail that in my next blog entry. The competitive nature that lies inside many of us may wake up and say ,"Wow Canada's on to something here!"
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Universities Arent Stepping Up to the Plate..
Media monopolies have found a number of allies in there race to conquer democracy and worship capitalism, and unfortunatly colleges just will not step up to the plate and demand media reform. Thousands of departments within the schools of journalism are established through commercial media and rely on these close relationships to survive.
McChesney points us to John DeMotts work published in a trade publication:
"We all now, whether we're candid enough to acknowledge it or not, that the advertising, news and public relations industry that provide employment for out students--plus other benefits expect us to follow the "company line" on issues involving the special interests of mass media."
McChesney reports that these departments of journalism have had little difficulty accepting the, "corporate line that attacks on a corporate media are attacks on a free press. Generations of students have been and are being trained that this is the best possible and only conceivable media system available to the U.S. people. The issue is generally not even open to contemplation."
The press was created to secure democracy. If that isnt happening. We as a society are no longer living in a democracy. Take this seriously, I want my readers to truly understand the crisis at hand. Commercialism is out of control, and the press has forgotten its purpose. Decommercializing is essential here. Democracy isnt a commercial.
McChesney further outlines the pressures universities face to support these media monopolies, and "link education and research explicitly to the needs of business...The stars on campus are the departments and individuals who attract the most grant money, and departments and scholars who fail to do so face an uncertain future."
"The lesson of the last fifty years on U.S. campuses is clear. If the field of communication does not do it, nobody else will. It will make for a rocky road, but what other choice is there."
McChesney points us to John DeMotts work published in a trade publication:
"We all now, whether we're candid enough to acknowledge it or not, that the advertising, news and public relations industry that provide employment for out students--plus other benefits expect us to follow the "company line" on issues involving the special interests of mass media."
McChesney reports that these departments of journalism have had little difficulty accepting the, "corporate line that attacks on a corporate media are attacks on a free press. Generations of students have been and are being trained that this is the best possible and only conceivable media system available to the U.S. people. The issue is generally not even open to contemplation."
The press was created to secure democracy. If that isnt happening. We as a society are no longer living in a democracy. Take this seriously, I want my readers to truly understand the crisis at hand. Commercialism is out of control, and the press has forgotten its purpose. Decommercializing is essential here. Democracy isnt a commercial.
McChesney further outlines the pressures universities face to support these media monopolies, and "link education and research explicitly to the needs of business...The stars on campus are the departments and individuals who attract the most grant money, and departments and scholars who fail to do so face an uncertain future."
"The lesson of the last fifty years on U.S. campuses is clear. If the field of communication does not do it, nobody else will. It will make for a rocky road, but what other choice is there."
Monday, February 16, 2009
The World Wide Web--a Tool not an Answer
I thought the World Wide Web could build a media reform movement that would save democracy and journalism from capitalism gone crazy. I was sure that the World Wide Web would give reformers a strong voice, but where would it be advertised? TV? Radio? I dont think so.
Media consolidation and commercialism has put journalism in a crisis. The news is sensationalized: Whose boobs are bigger this week? and what did Britney Spears do last week? This isnt journalism. Journalism wasnt created for a commercial invironment. Journalism was created to sec
ure Democracy. And, that just isnt happening. Robert McChesney makes it very clear that universal access to the Internet is highly unlikely. Lets take a long hard look at what the World Wide Web doesnt have to offer.
Not everyone can afford a computer. His research reveals, that a significant portion of the American popolution doesnt have cable television, and one third doesnt even have telephone service. McChesney points his readers to Shapiro who argues that public policy is there answer, and reformers should move aggressivilly to promote and protect a public forum in cyberspace. Hmm! But is that enough?
McChesney provides enormous insight into the Technological Explosion of the World Wide Web: "I am not advancing a Luddite argument I merely point out that a central part of democratic communication policymaking is to evaluate the effects of a new technology before adopting it, to look before we leap. That has not been the case with the Internet or the information highway. Communications technologies have unanticipated and unintended effects, and one function of policymaking is to understand them so that we may avoid or minimize the undesirable ones." With capitalism gone crazy throughout Broadcast television and just about everywhere else how can we ensure that doesnt happen to the Internet?
Communication policy needs to change. And I support McChesney's solution: A well subsidized and democratic noncommercial and nonprofit media sector needs to be created.
But exactly how do we do to take part in building a communication revolution that serves a democracy? Stay tuned.
Media consolidation and commercialism has put journalism in a crisis. The news is sensationalized: Whose boobs are bigger this week? and what did Britney Spears do last week? This isnt journalism. Journalism wasnt created for a commercial invironment. Journalism was created to sec
ure Democracy. And, that just isnt happening. Robert McChesney makes it very clear that universal access to the Internet is highly unlikely. Lets take a long hard look at what the World Wide Web doesnt have to offer.Not everyone can afford a computer. His research reveals, that a significant portion of the American popolution doesnt have cable television, and one third doesnt even have telephone service. McChesney points his readers to Shapiro who argues that public policy is there answer, and reformers should move aggressivilly to promote and protect a public forum in cyberspace. Hmm! But is that enough?
McChesney provides enormous insight into the Technological Explosion of the World Wide Web: "I am not advancing a Luddite argument I merely point out that a central part of democratic communication policymaking is to evaluate the effects of a new technology before adopting it, to look before we leap. That has not been the case with the Internet or the information highway. Communications technologies have unanticipated and unintended effects, and one function of policymaking is to understand them so that we may avoid or minimize the undesirable ones." With capitalism gone crazy throughout Broadcast television and just about everywhere else how can we ensure that doesnt happen to the Internet?
Communication policy needs to change. And I support McChesney's solution: A well subsidized and democratic noncommercial and nonprofit media sector needs to be created.
But exactly how do we do to take part in building a communication revolution that serves a democracy? Stay tuned.
Robert McChesney Creates and I Report
I'm asking all of you if you know what American democracy is? Of course we do right? We live in one! OR DO WE? Merriam Webster, our favorite dictionary provides a basic definition of a democracy: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." Hmm! and what happens when everyone who cares about these elections cares nothing about democracy, and everything about capitalism. Capitalism is not democracy. But, it seems as if we are building a culture that fears critisizing capitalism. No one is debating it, no one seems to care of the consequences of capitalism held in greedy hands. Wake up!
According to Robert McChesney, acclaimed scholar and researcher, whom I have come to truly admire, A ParticipatoryDemocracy requires communication and commercial journalism in the United States fail to provide the groundwork for an informed citizenry.
Corporate Media cares about profits, and thats about it! And, Corporate media doesnt give the public interest a second thought; the public blinded by commercialism, isnt paying attention to the media stomping on thier rights. Media monopolies feed the public what they want them to hear, and could care less about what you want to hear! Broadcast Television works for investors, and could care less about the public making it even harder for a media reform to build. Broadcast Television is everywhere the public is; but a media reform lies hidden struggling to grab an audience while competing with television. This is where the World Wide Web comes in, and documentary film as media reformers greatest tools!
According to McChesney, "The implications of the global order for political culture are mostly negative. Capitalism's two inherent and negative traits for democracy--class stratification and the demise of civic virtue in the face of commercial values--are enhanced in the new global regime. There is nothing short of a wholesale assault on the very notion of democracy, as the concept of people newsgathering, debating, and devising policy has been supremely truncated..."
The United States is in the midst of a communication revolution, but the television isnt going to tell us that! But Robert McChesney and other reformers will. Wake up Amercia, and stand up for your democratic rights! Fascism doesnt just happen it builds while nobody's paying attention. And guess what: NOBODY IS PAYING ATTENTION!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Media Reform: A Requirement Rather than a Request
I am woring towards a degree in Electronic Journalism. I plan pursuing a career in the journalism industry, preferably with a nonprofit news organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism such as Journalism.org, Project for Excellence in Journalism: Understanding News in the Information Age; which is a non-partisan, non-political research organization that analyzes the performance of the news media. It is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington D.C. and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. My project entitled: Media Reform: A Requirement Rather Than a Request—is a study of the media, as well as attempt to build a media reform movement that will achieve results.
The Electronic piece of my concentration includes courses geared towards writing for the online arena as well as the basics of web design. I learned the essentials needed to keep an online audience. Interactivity is the key to keeping an audience of online newsreaders; interactivity includes an abundance of organized links, videos, and using message boards where newsreaders opinions are included. Professor Steve Klein at George Mason University taught his students that Newsreaders of today do not only want to read the news they want to be part of the news making process. Naturally, an effective media reform needs to have message boards where the public’s opinions are included. Without the publics participation a media reform is nearly impossible.
While pursuing courses within the Journalism piece of my concentration I learned to write for the Associated Press, how to interview sources, and to practice journalistic integrity and ethics in all news stories. I can design websites using Dreamweaver, use Photoshop to touch up photos so they are ready for publication, and use Flash to design slideshows. While pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Electronic Journalism I acquired the skills I need to stand up for a free and democratic press.
For my project, I am building a website designed to encourage scholars, activists, students and lawmakers to create a media reform the public deserves. Through my blog and website, I will attack the problems big media brings to American democracy, and develop probable solutions. Many scholars assert Journalism is in desperate need of a serious and dedicated reform led by both members of the press and the public. First, it is essential to understand the history of the problem with the journalism industry today. Second, the solutions require the actions of citizens demanding that journalism acts in behalf of the public interest and not corporate greed. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first attempt to revise and rewrite the Communications Act of 1934.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. This new law allowed anyone to enter any communications business, and to let any of the communications businesses compete in any market against each other. The intentions of Telecommunications Act of 1996 were to “promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers, and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies” (Federal Communications Commission, ¶1). Many believe the Act resulted in just the opposite.
Ben Bagdikian has been a respected journalist since 1941 and has published numerous scholarly articles regarding media consolidation and the consequences that it brings to American Democracy. According to Bagdikian’s research the Telecommunications Act of 1996 spurred huge media mergers and greatly increased media concentration. Together 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- control most of the media industry in the U.S--General Electric's, NBC, is close to making it six media giants (Bagdikian, 2004, p. 22). It is estimated that 90 percent of primetime content comes from these media giants. (Miller, 1996).
Many can argue that these huge media mergers in the United States have increased the information available and decreased the cost of delivering the news to the public. Consumers can surf the web twenty-four-hours a day in search of the news, or get personalized news delivered via email. However, is this stuff really news or “info-tainment?” Is today’s news really in the public’s best interest, or in the interest of corporate shareholders? Both media scholars McChesney and Bagdikians create a view where American Democracy as an empty commercialized culture, where profits determine happiness.
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. McChesney is a scholar whose focus is on the history and development of the political economy of communication. McChesney reports:
What such a commercial tends to produce—and what the avalanche of commercialism encourages—is profound cynicism and greed, both cancerous to public life. The message is constant: all our most reassured values—democracy, freedom, individuality, security, cultural diversity, equality, education, community, love, health, human development—are reduced in one way or another to commodities provided by the market. Social Problems either cannot be solved or can be solved through individual material consumption Likewise, human happiness, is to be located in individual material consumption as well. (2008, p. 280)
Steve Rendall is the senior analyst for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, (FAIR). He is co-host of CounterSpin, FAIR's national radio show. His work received awards from Project Censored. Rendall found in a study conducted by the Media Access Project and the Benton Foundation that 25 percent of broadcasting stations no longer offer local news or public affairs programming. Talk radio consists of conservative opinions with no debate from the liberal side. Virtually all of the leading political talk show hosts are conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Reagan. Liberals appear to be denied a voice in combating conservative opinion (2005, ¶35).
Scholars including Jeff Chester, Robert McChesney, and many others insist that the public, over the last twenty-five years, is stuck with a journalism industry that is suffering from huge jobs cuts, massive deregulation, media consolidation, and a weakening of federal public policy. The stakes are high. The independence and vitality of both the “old” media—including major newspapers and broadcast and cable outlets—as well as the Internet and other digital networks are at stake.
Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit organization whose focus is on ensuring that digital media serves the interest of the the public. Chester warns that these media monopolies: AOL Time Warner, General Electric/NBC, News. Corp./ Fox and Viacom/CBS—continue to aggressively campaign for deregulation that allows them to own more and more media outlets that feed Americans commercialized news that benefits the interests of corporate shareholders, and not the public. This is a major concern for the future of journalism. This is a “broad industry effort to scuttle or weaken the remaining handful of federal public policies on media ownership” (Chester, 2007, p. 24).
Today there are hundreds of cable channels and web sites delivering news, but the problem is, “control over the access to these critical pipelines of information is more centralized than ever. Indeed, each of the media giants has moved aggressively into the Internet and is willing to take on huge losses to keep away smaller rivals.” (Chaplin & Knoedler, 2002, p 537). Robert McChesney points out that “For a Disney or Time Warner or Viacom to lose $200–300 million annually on the internet is a drop in the bucket, if it means their core activities worth tens of billions of dollars are protected down the road” (2002, p3).
Media consolidation is an ongoing problem that requires the attention of an informed citizenry and congressional lawmakers. Chester warns of the nation's largest cable and telephone companies currently offering up their latest empty promises. “If Washington supports their political agenda, the companies vow that the nation will benefit from advances in healthcare, improvements in the quality of life for senior citizens, and major boosts for jobs and the economy” (Chester, 2008, p. 1).
Chester (2008) reports the consequences that media consolidation brings to American democracy in his new book entitled Digital Destiny:
From the rising income gap between the rich and the poor, to the tens of millions without health insurance, to our tattered relationship globally, our news media has become incapable of protecting the public interest. Instead of focusing the nation’s attention on its troubles and helping to champion solutions, our major news media are squandering their journalistic resources. They have become timid self-serving, and a hazard to our economic and political well-being. (p. 14)
A majority of these issues and debates surrounding media consolidation pass by ignored by the news media. “One of the consistent themes about media ownership and communications in general has been the failure of the press, especially TV news, to report and explain the issues to the public” (Chester, 2008, p. 4).
The United States has taken great strides to battle media consolidation. McChesney, (2007) reports in his new book entitled Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of the Media.
Over the past three years, organized citizens have won dramatic victories on a number of media policy fights—from media ownership rules and protecting public broadcasting to stopping government and corporate propaganda masqueraded as news. Perhaps most important is the battle keeping the largest telephone and cable companies from privatizing the Internet. Such victories would have been unthinkable only a decade ago…these victories, this movement, these ideas, get virtually no coverage in the mainstream media. (p. XIV)
According to Gene Kimmelman (2002), Senior Director for Public Policy and Advocacy Media, Media Consolidation is an ongoing fight o behalf of an informed citizenry. Media conglomerates continuously devise new plans over time to monopolize the market. It is up to the American people to keep media conglomerates from infringing on their right to a free marketplace of ideas. Students, teachers, members of the press, and the public are invited to join forces in understanding and combating media monopolies in the United States. Kimmelman explains:
Ownership rules are essential to a healthy democracy. Americans depend on mass media to learn about current affairs, keep abreast of local issues, and make informed political choices. These rules were adopted to ensure that the public would receive a wide range of contrasting perspectives from the media, not simply the opinions of a handful of conglomerates. They protect the public's First Amendment rights to a diverse media marketplace of ideas. The stakes for consumers, citizens, and the nation are enormous. Congress has directed the Federal Communication Commission, (FCC), to periodically review its regulations. The latest review over the past two years, a federal appeals court has wiped out several media-ownership regulations because the court felt that the FCC had not adequately justified them (Bollier D., & Watts T. Body Section, p.5).
The focus of this research project is to describe thoroughly the evolution of media consolidation, commercialism, and one-sided news reporting, in an attempt to get scholars, activists, and most importantly the public, involved in efforts to reform the media. The project will include a website designed to get the publics attention and involvement in a media reform. The content of the website will attempt to call the public into action, and get the attention of lawmakers and big media, to demand change using the World Wide Web.
My research will help the public understand the negative impact of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the severe consequences media consolidation brings to the public interest, the news industry, and the marketplace. I will also attempt to call the public into action and take a stand against big media. In my research I will outline how The World Wide Web can be one of the most powerful tools the public can use to invite argument and demand media reform.
Scholars Chester, McChesney and many others assert that Media reform is essential—restoring a healthy democratic media to the United States aimed at promoting a healthy democratic policy that serves the public interest. This creative project will involve developing a website as well as a blog that will inform the public of the problems with media monopolies, promote changes in U.S. law, and take a stand against media conglomerates in television, radio, publishing, and newspapers that violate the first amendment rights of U.S. citizens, as well as censor the news.
According to James Smart, scholar and historian, when media monopolies take over the journalism market the traditional partisanship of the press no longer serve a democracy. The editorial perspective of the paper invariably reflecting the perspective of the owner, would no longer work for the market. It is one thing to have highly partisan journalism in competitive markets where a broad range of views were available, where a new newspaper could be launched without massive amounts of capital. It is quite another thing to have highly partisan journalism in monopolistic markets where barriers to entry prevent new competition; in this environment, highly partisan journalism is suspect from a democratic perspective (1988, p. 26).
President Reagan and his administration launched a battle against federal regulations on television and radio in the 1980s. There was a “seven station rule” limiting a single corporation, “to the ownership of seven television stations, seven AM and seven FM radio stations nationwide; while the duopoly rule limited them to one of each in given market” (Kunz, 2007, p. 98).
In the early 1980s, the wave of media deregulation began. Deregulation includes eliminating media restraints. According to Kristen Lee (2003), with The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press in an issue for Voices for Media Democracy explains, President Reagan reversed regulation laws and demolished media restraints, and then, in 1987, he initiated the major overturning of media regulation. President Bush and his administration sought to end the usage of the fairness doctrine. The courts ruled in the court case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, that the Federal Trade Commission was no longer responsible for regulating the Fairness Doctrine because Congress did not mandate it (Body, ¶ 8).
For those who are unaware of the Fairness Doctrine, it was a Federal Communications Commission policy that required broadcast outlets to provide equal time airtime for opposing viewpoints in controversial opinions. As cable TV grew in the 1980s there were more outlets for communication, and “the courts freed the FCC, which feared the doctrine actually inhibited free speech and might violate the First Amendment, to drop it. It did so in 1987 (Gloede, 2008, ¶).
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 achieved massive deregulation of the Communalizations Market. President Ronald Reagan started the tide of deregulation, and President Bill Clinton finished it, when he signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law. Clinton saw the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as an important piece of legislation full of opportunities (High Beam Research, 1998).
The broadcast television networks capitalized on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and now the U.S. has scarce and powerful outlets that control the dissemination of the news on both local and national levels. Concentration of media ownership, or to put it bluntly, media monopolies became obvious in 1995; that year the FCC did not prosecute Rupert Murdoch for misleading the FCC concerning the extent of his foreign ownership of Fox Television Stations Inc (Miller, 1998, p 3). Soon after the FCC let Murdoch off the hook, “ABC was then sucked into Disney, CBC swallowed by Westinghouse, and Ted Turner’s mini empire became part of Time Warner—a grand consolidation that the press, the White House, Congress and the FCC all failed to question” (Miller, 1998, p.4).
Merely two years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed into law, Mark Crispin Miller (1998), Chairman of the Media Access Project reports:
Four giant corporations now control the major TV news divisions: GE, Westerhouse, Disney, and Time Warner. Two of these four giant corporations are defense contractors (both involved in nuclear production), while the other two are mammoth manufactures of fun and games…Tom Brokaw might find it difficult to introduce stories critical of nuclear weapons. Or, why it is unlikely ABC News will ever again air an expose of Disney’s practices as Prime Time Live did in 1990. Or, indeed why CNN—or any of the others will not touch the biggest story of them all: the media monopoly itself. (p.9)
Media Consolidation results in less civic engagement, less political and corporate accountability, and a weak democracy. In other words, the quality of American journalism is deteriorating, and so is American Democracy (Nichols & McChesney, 2002 ¶3). Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. in a recent interview with the New York Times said, “Corporate Interests are determining what most Americans see, hear and read” (Labaton, 2008, ¶9). The U.S. public is stuck with a media that is powerful dangerous, monopolistic, and corporate controlled Not only is commercialization and consolidation major problems in the industry, job cuts are making it hard for journalists to secure democracy and even harder for journalists to earn a living.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism in its Annual Report on American Journalism (2008) reveals:
Financial pressure and shrinking staff are most acute at big city metros. To take an extreme case, the San Jose Mercury News now operates with less than half the news staff it fielded in the Silicon Valley boom times of the 1990s. The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Dallas Morning News, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and all Tribune papers except the Chicago flagship are among others that have experienced deep – 30 percent to 50 percent -- newsroom cuts. In the newest round, announced in February, the Los Angeles Times would lose 5% to 6% more from news from its total of 887 (40 to 50 people), the Baltimore Sun 45 people from all departments, the Hartford Courant the same (¶2).
The project is creative in nature and its overall objective is to find and create a sound foundation for a successful a media reform. This project involves designing a website and a blog dedicated to describing the problems with today’s media and implementing a plan for a successful media reform based on the work of media scholars. My research question asks, what is the best way to link together the work of top media scholars and create a media reform, through an interactive website and thorough research that best details the problems that media consolidation, sensationalized news, and deregulation bring to American Democracy?
The conceptual framework for my research includes both qualitative and quantitative research. The conceptual framework of my research links together the literature of scholars, core concepts, and my research question. First, this project entails a thorough literature review and analysis of the work of top scholars including Robert McChesney, Jeff Chester, Bill Moyars and through this literature review the process of qualitative research begins.
Chad Perry (1995) defines Qualitative research as a broad structure of data collection and analysis that sensitizes a researcher to what to look for and how to look, and is built as information becomes known. Perry describes Quantitative Research as the process where real “theories and hypothesis can be built” to design a successful media reform.
Concept mapping is an important part of a conceptual framework:
Media
Consolidation Stop deregulation
Sensation-alized news
Democracy requires Real News
The Fairness Doctrine
Bring it Back
Media Reform
Public Interest
The World Wide Web
Regulation
This creative project involves implementing a reform agenda through an interactive website. The website will fight for what is in the public’s best interest, and highlight successes of the reform broadcast media has ignored, and incorporate future successes needed to counteract the interests of media monopolies. The content of the website is going to be dedicated to the public’s best interest, and not the private interests of media monopolies.
Public Interest can be best described in brief as efforts to satisfy the needs all of the people in the U.S. rather than merely a few. The Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), is an organization created to stand up against powerful special interests on behalf of the American public, is currently working to win concrete results for the health and well-being of all Americans rather than only the American elite.
PIRGs explain in more detail how the public interest correlates with media consolidation:
The Supreme Court has long held that ‘the rights of the viewers and listeners are paramount’ and that ‘the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.’ The largest media conglomerates, however, see things differently. That’s why they tirelessly lobby the Federal Communications Commission for fewer restrictions on the size and influence of media companies, and greater authority to shut out independent voices and ideas. (¶2)
The website entitled Media Reform: A Requirement Rather than a Request will be interactive with and allow users the room to explore media reform. The site will outline the problem as well as detail the plan of action needed to reform the media. McChesney (2007) predicts the communication system and the political economic system in United States is entering a critical juncture: “a period in which the old institutions are collapsing.” (p. 9). During critical junctures the decisions made, the rules that are put in place, and the institutions that develop, are difficult to change for decades to come (2007).
The website is dedicated to changing the media landscape during a critical juncture, by getting the public involved. McChesney notes it is important for the lower and middle class to stand up for their rights and get involved in demanding a media reform. One of the primary goals of the blog and website is to engage everyone--minorities, women, and students included. The project will also entail a blog centered on the successes and failures of the media reform. It is important for the public to understand and act during a Critical junctures to support a successful media reform. Professional journalism and commercial broadcasting are in crisis and a fundamental transformation is required.
Today we are in the midst of a profound critical juncture for communication. Two of the three conditions for a critical juncture are already in place: the digital revolution is overturning all existing media industries and business models; and journalism is at its lowest ebb since the progressive Era. The third condition—the overall stability of the political and social system—is the great unknown. This is certainly grounds for suspecting that a critical juncture is imminent. Our political system is awash in institutionalized corruption and growing inequality. The economy is in turmoil, too, and it appears likely that we are entering a period of structural transformation to points unknown (McChesney, 2008, p.9)
There are a number of scholars and organizations demanding media reform. Scholars, whose research I will use, include Ben Bagdikian, Robert McChesney, Ed Herman, Noam Chomsky, John Nichols, Ben Scott, Jeff Chester, John Bellamy Foster, and others as the project progresses. Well-respected organizations who provide the latest updates with media consolidation and prove helpful in the development of my web-site and blog include: Media Access Project, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Stopbigmedia.com, Daily Kos, News Corpse, Center for Digital Democracy, Free Press, Below is a detailed description of these organizations and their agenda’s in brief.
Media Access Project (MAP) is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose purpose is to protect the public’s first amendment right to access a marketplace of diverse ideas. According to MAPs website, the organization has promoted the public interest before the FCC and the Courts for over 35 years, and provides an abundance of information regarding public interest obligations, legal filings and media ownership (2008). MAP’s resources will prove pertinent in developing the blog as part of my creative project, keeping the public updated on media reform, and reminding the public of when there first amendment rights are protected or violated.
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) is a research organization that studies the performance of the news media. According to PEJ’s website since the organizations inception in 1997 the organization has produced a score of reports on the performance of the press. PEJ gathers as much data as possible about all of the different sectors of journalism and indentify trends. For each area of journalism, PEJ produces original research and annual reports on the “health and status of American Journalism” (2008). PEJ’s annual report provides pertinent information to the public and proves essential in building a media reform.
StopBigMedia.com they are a coalition of 64 groups from across the spectrum that joined together to stop the FCC’s efforts to allow media conglomerates to dominate America’s media. According to the coalitions website their primary purpose is see to it that the FCC and Congress protect the American Public from further media consolidation. All of the organizations that make up this coalition prove helpful in the creation of my website and blog. The Public Interest, First Amendment Rights are the primary concern of StopBigMedia.com, and the same concern makes up the foundation of my creative project. This coalition consistently fights for a strong media reform in the same fashion, as my creative project.
The Daily Kos is a popular blog on the Internet. This blog is not scholarly material but it a leader in the progressive movement and keeps readers regularly updated on media consolidation. The Daily Kos is founded by Markos Moulitsas. Moulitsas co-authored the critically acclaimed book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics. He is the sole author of Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era; Moulitsas is a contributing columnist to Newsweek Magazine and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. The Daily Kos is a great example of a successful blog to emulate in the creation of my creative project.
News Corpse is another powerful progressive blog that prides itself on being the “Internet’s Chronicle of Media Decay” (2008, ¶1). Mark Howard digital artist and graphic designer is the publisher of News Corpse. News Corpse is another great example of a successful blog that highlights the problems with today’s media and the areas in need of a reform.
The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) is an organization “dedicated to ensuring the public interest is a fundamental the new digital communications landscape…CDD works to promote an electronic media system that fosters democratic expression and human rights” (¶1). CDD is helpful detailing the key problems with today’s media and the issues reformers face. CDD is consistently working on research that helps shape media reform. Currently some of the research projects include: Web 2.0 in the Public Interest, Digital Marketing Privacy and Public Interest, Network Neutrality, Promoting Public Health in the Digital Era. CDD is based in Washington D.C. and is a national not for profit group, “CDD is on the cutting edge of new media developments, especially tracking the commercial media market through outreach to the press, policymakers, reports, blogs, investigative research and organizing” (¶1).
The Free Press is a National Nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. The website of the Free Press reports Media scholar Robert W. McChesney, Journalist John Nichols and Executive Director Josh Silver, launched the Free Press in 2002. Today, Free Press is the largest media reform organization in the United States, with nearly half-a-million activists and members and a full-time staff of more than 30 based in their offices (2009).
Many articles are available through the George Mason University’s access to scholarly journals. There is also numerous books written demanding media reform. I will use all of these resources in my research and my creative project seeking to create a media reform and show the public the danger that apparently media consolidation, sensationalized news, and deregulation bring to democracy. After careful analysis of my sources, a website will be designed dedicated to calling out for a reasonable and fair design for media reform, and a blog will be updated weekly tracking the media reform movement. My Research will begin with pertinent research questions, and the answers will be the basis of my creative project, which includes my website and blog.
· What is the best way to decipher propaganda from real news?
· What are the best ways to get average citizens organized and devoted to media reform?
· How does commercial media and media consolidation depoliticize American Society?
· What telecommunication and policies and regulations are supporting consolidation? Which ones are not
· How does the communications policy making process work?
· What changes have been made to the Telecommunications Act over the years?
· What efforts to change the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did or did not pass? Why?
· What facts can provide evidence for the need to make changes to the Telecommunications Act of 1996?
· What relationship does media play in popular social movements?
· What is the most effective model for initiating popular public broadcasting and the establishment of alternative media institutions?
· What changes does the media need to make to secure they are healthy democracy in the United States?
· Who has initiated media reform in the past and who is initiating a reform now?
My Creative Project will provide for interactive research that details the effect media consolidation, deregulation, and sensationalized news has on American Democracy. My Creative project will also include a media reform agenda aimed at achieving results I will present the research findings of this study, compiled in a website and a research paper, to students, professors, and the public at a designated location at GMU. At the end of the presentation, I will provide information handouts created to get the public involved, as well as set aside time for a discussion and a question and answer segment.
Conclusion
In the year 1984 the number of media companies with a controlling interest in America's media was 50 - today that number is six! Critics of media consolidation say it has led to fewer and fewer perspectives being presented, and a serious decrease in local news coverage. Today six mega-corporation are controlling news created to preserve democracy and the public interest: General Electric, Disney, News Corp, CBS, Viacom, and Time Warner (Moyers, 2006, ¶1).
Today journalists that are not out of a job are upset about how commercialism is taking over the industry. Linda Foley, the head of the Newspaper Guild, the union for print journalists states “that the number one concern of her members by far is how commercial pressure is destroying their craft” (McChesney, 2003, p.318).
Robert Picard in his scholarly article Commercialism and Newspaper Quality points out that these current commercialized trends are developing as economic concerns as it becomes the primary force shaping the behavior of American newspaper companies. “As a result many publishers have adopted a range of strategies that have further commercialized the industry, making commercial considerations equal to, or in some cases, more important than editorial quality or social concerns” (2004, p.2).
My creative project seeks to use both a website and a Blog to get the attention of lawmakers, as well as engage the public in efforts to stop media consolidation, deregulation, commercialization, and jobs losses. I aspire to demonstrate that it is possible for the pubic to achieve sweeping changes in media policy and structures. The aim of this creative project is to involve the public in a media reform. It appears that the United States desperately needs a media system, which will promote a healthy democracy rather than only corporate interests. The website will detail the problem with today’s media and the consequences it brings to democracy, the public interest, and the media industry as a whole, and develop solutions through a political-economic analysis in journalism.
As part of my creative project, The Website and Blog will also include failed attempts of Congressional Members, Senators, and the public in the past to change the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and successes that leaders in media reform have had that Broadcast media has ignored in order to maintain public acceptance of media monopolies. The website will provide the framework for media reform.
The first and most important conclusion is that the United States needs a strong nonprofit and noncommercial media sector. Such a sector is necessary for high quality children’s programming, for providing experimental and high quality entertainment material frowned upon by the market, and a variety of other important needs. Most important, a nonprofit media sector is mandatory for providing some, perhaps much, of the journalism and public affairs material befitting a democracy. If such a sector is well funded and well managed, it can have repercussions across the entire media system. It can reverberate across the entire social and political culture (McChesney, p. 457).
The website will be a user-friendly with videos, quick links and archival news releases that prove to the public media reform is essential for democratic journalism to survive. This much needed reform will entail the prospect of possible revisions to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as well as revisited the possibility of the Federal Communications Commission restoring another form of the Fairness Doctrine, or a public broadcasting system that works in the interest of the public
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The Electronic piece of my concentration includes courses geared towards writing for the online arena as well as the basics of web design. I learned the essentials needed to keep an online audience. Interactivity is the key to keeping an audience of online newsreaders; interactivity includes an abundance of organized links, videos, and using message boards where newsreaders opinions are included. Professor Steve Klein at George Mason University taught his students that Newsreaders of today do not only want to read the news they want to be part of the news making process. Naturally, an effective media reform needs to have message boards where the public’s opinions are included. Without the publics participation a media reform is nearly impossible.
While pursuing courses within the Journalism piece of my concentration I learned to write for the Associated Press, how to interview sources, and to practice journalistic integrity and ethics in all news stories. I can design websites using Dreamweaver, use Photoshop to touch up photos so they are ready for publication, and use Flash to design slideshows. While pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Electronic Journalism I acquired the skills I need to stand up for a free and democratic press.
For my project, I am building a website designed to encourage scholars, activists, students and lawmakers to create a media reform the public deserves. Through my blog and website, I will attack the problems big media brings to American democracy, and develop probable solutions. Many scholars assert Journalism is in desperate need of a serious and dedicated reform led by both members of the press and the public. First, it is essential to understand the history of the problem with the journalism industry today. Second, the solutions require the actions of citizens demanding that journalism acts in behalf of the public interest and not corporate greed. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first attempt to revise and rewrite the Communications Act of 1934.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. This new law allowed anyone to enter any communications business, and to let any of the communications businesses compete in any market against each other. The intentions of Telecommunications Act of 1996 were to “promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers, and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies” (Federal Communications Commission, ¶1). Many believe the Act resulted in just the opposite.
Ben Bagdikian has been a respected journalist since 1941 and has published numerous scholarly articles regarding media consolidation and the consequences that it brings to American Democracy. According to Bagdikian’s research the Telecommunications Act of 1996 spurred huge media mergers and greatly increased media concentration. Together 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- control most of the media industry in the U.S--General Electric's, NBC, is close to making it six media giants (Bagdikian, 2004, p. 22). It is estimated that 90 percent of primetime content comes from these media giants. (Miller, 1996).
Many can argue that these huge media mergers in the United States have increased the information available and decreased the cost of delivering the news to the public. Consumers can surf the web twenty-four-hours a day in search of the news, or get personalized news delivered via email. However, is this stuff really news or “info-tainment?” Is today’s news really in the public’s best interest, or in the interest of corporate shareholders? Both media scholars McChesney and Bagdikians create a view where American Democracy as an empty commercialized culture, where profits determine happiness.
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. McChesney is a scholar whose focus is on the history and development of the political economy of communication. McChesney reports:
What such a commercial tends to produce—and what the avalanche of commercialism encourages—is profound cynicism and greed, both cancerous to public life. The message is constant: all our most reassured values—democracy, freedom, individuality, security, cultural diversity, equality, education, community, love, health, human development—are reduced in one way or another to commodities provided by the market. Social Problems either cannot be solved or can be solved through individual material consumption Likewise, human happiness, is to be located in individual material consumption as well. (2008, p. 280)
Steve Rendall is the senior analyst for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, (FAIR). He is co-host of CounterSpin, FAIR's national radio show. His work received awards from Project Censored. Rendall found in a study conducted by the Media Access Project and the Benton Foundation that 25 percent of broadcasting stations no longer offer local news or public affairs programming. Talk radio consists of conservative opinions with no debate from the liberal side. Virtually all of the leading political talk show hosts are conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Reagan. Liberals appear to be denied a voice in combating conservative opinion (2005, ¶35).
Scholars including Jeff Chester, Robert McChesney, and many others insist that the public, over the last twenty-five years, is stuck with a journalism industry that is suffering from huge jobs cuts, massive deregulation, media consolidation, and a weakening of federal public policy. The stakes are high. The independence and vitality of both the “old” media—including major newspapers and broadcast and cable outlets—as well as the Internet and other digital networks are at stake.
Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit organization whose focus is on ensuring that digital media serves the interest of the the public. Chester warns that these media monopolies: AOL Time Warner, General Electric/NBC, News. Corp./ Fox and Viacom/CBS—continue to aggressively campaign for deregulation that allows them to own more and more media outlets that feed Americans commercialized news that benefits the interests of corporate shareholders, and not the public. This is a major concern for the future of journalism. This is a “broad industry effort to scuttle or weaken the remaining handful of federal public policies on media ownership” (Chester, 2007, p. 24).
Today there are hundreds of cable channels and web sites delivering news, but the problem is, “control over the access to these critical pipelines of information is more centralized than ever. Indeed, each of the media giants has moved aggressively into the Internet and is willing to take on huge losses to keep away smaller rivals.” (Chaplin & Knoedler, 2002, p 537). Robert McChesney points out that “For a Disney or Time Warner or Viacom to lose $200–300 million annually on the internet is a drop in the bucket, if it means their core activities worth tens of billions of dollars are protected down the road” (2002, p3).
Media consolidation is an ongoing problem that requires the attention of an informed citizenry and congressional lawmakers. Chester warns of the nation's largest cable and telephone companies currently offering up their latest empty promises. “If Washington supports their political agenda, the companies vow that the nation will benefit from advances in healthcare, improvements in the quality of life for senior citizens, and major boosts for jobs and the economy” (Chester, 2008, p. 1).
Chester (2008) reports the consequences that media consolidation brings to American democracy in his new book entitled Digital Destiny:
From the rising income gap between the rich and the poor, to the tens of millions without health insurance, to our tattered relationship globally, our news media has become incapable of protecting the public interest. Instead of focusing the nation’s attention on its troubles and helping to champion solutions, our major news media are squandering their journalistic resources. They have become timid self-serving, and a hazard to our economic and political well-being. (p. 14)
A majority of these issues and debates surrounding media consolidation pass by ignored by the news media. “One of the consistent themes about media ownership and communications in general has been the failure of the press, especially TV news, to report and explain the issues to the public” (Chester, 2008, p. 4).
The United States has taken great strides to battle media consolidation. McChesney, (2007) reports in his new book entitled Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of the Media.
Over the past three years, organized citizens have won dramatic victories on a number of media policy fights—from media ownership rules and protecting public broadcasting to stopping government and corporate propaganda masqueraded as news. Perhaps most important is the battle keeping the largest telephone and cable companies from privatizing the Internet. Such victories would have been unthinkable only a decade ago…these victories, this movement, these ideas, get virtually no coverage in the mainstream media. (p. XIV)
According to Gene Kimmelman (2002), Senior Director for Public Policy and Advocacy Media, Media Consolidation is an ongoing fight o behalf of an informed citizenry. Media conglomerates continuously devise new plans over time to monopolize the market. It is up to the American people to keep media conglomerates from infringing on their right to a free marketplace of ideas. Students, teachers, members of the press, and the public are invited to join forces in understanding and combating media monopolies in the United States. Kimmelman explains:
Ownership rules are essential to a healthy democracy. Americans depend on mass media to learn about current affairs, keep abreast of local issues, and make informed political choices. These rules were adopted to ensure that the public would receive a wide range of contrasting perspectives from the media, not simply the opinions of a handful of conglomerates. They protect the public's First Amendment rights to a diverse media marketplace of ideas. The stakes for consumers, citizens, and the nation are enormous. Congress has directed the Federal Communication Commission, (FCC), to periodically review its regulations. The latest review over the past two years, a federal appeals court has wiped out several media-ownership regulations because the court felt that the FCC had not adequately justified them (Bollier D., & Watts T. Body Section, p.5).
The focus of this research project is to describe thoroughly the evolution of media consolidation, commercialism, and one-sided news reporting, in an attempt to get scholars, activists, and most importantly the public, involved in efforts to reform the media. The project will include a website designed to get the publics attention and involvement in a media reform. The content of the website will attempt to call the public into action, and get the attention of lawmakers and big media, to demand change using the World Wide Web.
My research will help the public understand the negative impact of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the severe consequences media consolidation brings to the public interest, the news industry, and the marketplace. I will also attempt to call the public into action and take a stand against big media. In my research I will outline how The World Wide Web can be one of the most powerful tools the public can use to invite argument and demand media reform.
Scholars Chester, McChesney and many others assert that Media reform is essential—restoring a healthy democratic media to the United States aimed at promoting a healthy democratic policy that serves the public interest. This creative project will involve developing a website as well as a blog that will inform the public of the problems with media monopolies, promote changes in U.S. law, and take a stand against media conglomerates in television, radio, publishing, and newspapers that violate the first amendment rights of U.S. citizens, as well as censor the news.
According to James Smart, scholar and historian, when media monopolies take over the journalism market the traditional partisanship of the press no longer serve a democracy. The editorial perspective of the paper invariably reflecting the perspective of the owner, would no longer work for the market. It is one thing to have highly partisan journalism in competitive markets where a broad range of views were available, where a new newspaper could be launched without massive amounts of capital. It is quite another thing to have highly partisan journalism in monopolistic markets where barriers to entry prevent new competition; in this environment, highly partisan journalism is suspect from a democratic perspective (1988, p. 26).
President Reagan and his administration launched a battle against federal regulations on television and radio in the 1980s. There was a “seven station rule” limiting a single corporation, “to the ownership of seven television stations, seven AM and seven FM radio stations nationwide; while the duopoly rule limited them to one of each in given market” (Kunz, 2007, p. 98).
In the early 1980s, the wave of media deregulation began. Deregulation includes eliminating media restraints. According to Kristen Lee (2003), with The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press in an issue for Voices for Media Democracy explains, President Reagan reversed regulation laws and demolished media restraints, and then, in 1987, he initiated the major overturning of media regulation. President Bush and his administration sought to end the usage of the fairness doctrine. The courts ruled in the court case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, that the Federal Trade Commission was no longer responsible for regulating the Fairness Doctrine because Congress did not mandate it (Body, ¶ 8).
For those who are unaware of the Fairness Doctrine, it was a Federal Communications Commission policy that required broadcast outlets to provide equal time airtime for opposing viewpoints in controversial opinions. As cable TV grew in the 1980s there were more outlets for communication, and “the courts freed the FCC, which feared the doctrine actually inhibited free speech and might violate the First Amendment, to drop it. It did so in 1987 (Gloede, 2008, ¶).
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 achieved massive deregulation of the Communalizations Market. President Ronald Reagan started the tide of deregulation, and President Bill Clinton finished it, when he signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law. Clinton saw the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as an important piece of legislation full of opportunities (High Beam Research, 1998).
The broadcast television networks capitalized on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and now the U.S. has scarce and powerful outlets that control the dissemination of the news on both local and national levels. Concentration of media ownership, or to put it bluntly, media monopolies became obvious in 1995; that year the FCC did not prosecute Rupert Murdoch for misleading the FCC concerning the extent of his foreign ownership of Fox Television Stations Inc (Miller, 1998, p 3). Soon after the FCC let Murdoch off the hook, “ABC was then sucked into Disney, CBC swallowed by Westinghouse, and Ted Turner’s mini empire became part of Time Warner—a grand consolidation that the press, the White House, Congress and the FCC all failed to question” (Miller, 1998, p.4).
Merely two years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed into law, Mark Crispin Miller (1998), Chairman of the Media Access Project reports:
Four giant corporations now control the major TV news divisions: GE, Westerhouse, Disney, and Time Warner. Two of these four giant corporations are defense contractors (both involved in nuclear production), while the other two are mammoth manufactures of fun and games…Tom Brokaw might find it difficult to introduce stories critical of nuclear weapons. Or, why it is unlikely ABC News will ever again air an expose of Disney’s practices as Prime Time Live did in 1990. Or, indeed why CNN—or any of the others will not touch the biggest story of them all: the media monopoly itself. (p.9)
Media Consolidation results in less civic engagement, less political and corporate accountability, and a weak democracy. In other words, the quality of American journalism is deteriorating, and so is American Democracy (Nichols & McChesney, 2002 ¶3). Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. in a recent interview with the New York Times said, “Corporate Interests are determining what most Americans see, hear and read” (Labaton, 2008, ¶9). The U.S. public is stuck with a media that is powerful dangerous, monopolistic, and corporate controlled Not only is commercialization and consolidation major problems in the industry, job cuts are making it hard for journalists to secure democracy and even harder for journalists to earn a living.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism in its Annual Report on American Journalism (2008) reveals:
Financial pressure and shrinking staff are most acute at big city metros. To take an extreme case, the San Jose Mercury News now operates with less than half the news staff it fielded in the Silicon Valley boom times of the 1990s. The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Dallas Morning News, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and all Tribune papers except the Chicago flagship are among others that have experienced deep – 30 percent to 50 percent -- newsroom cuts. In the newest round, announced in February, the Los Angeles Times would lose 5% to 6% more from news from its total of 887 (40 to 50 people), the Baltimore Sun 45 people from all departments, the Hartford Courant the same (¶2).
The project is creative in nature and its overall objective is to find and create a sound foundation for a successful a media reform. This project involves designing a website and a blog dedicated to describing the problems with today’s media and implementing a plan for a successful media reform based on the work of media scholars. My research question asks, what is the best way to link together the work of top media scholars and create a media reform, through an interactive website and thorough research that best details the problems that media consolidation, sensationalized news, and deregulation bring to American Democracy?
The conceptual framework for my research includes both qualitative and quantitative research. The conceptual framework of my research links together the literature of scholars, core concepts, and my research question. First, this project entails a thorough literature review and analysis of the work of top scholars including Robert McChesney, Jeff Chester, Bill Moyars and through this literature review the process of qualitative research begins.
Chad Perry (1995) defines Qualitative research as a broad structure of data collection and analysis that sensitizes a researcher to what to look for and how to look, and is built as information becomes known. Perry describes Quantitative Research as the process where real “theories and hypothesis can be built” to design a successful media reform.
Concept mapping is an important part of a conceptual framework:
Media
Consolidation Stop deregulation
Sensation-alized news
Democracy requires Real News
The Fairness Doctrine
Bring it Back
Media Reform
Public Interest
The World Wide Web
Regulation
This creative project involves implementing a reform agenda through an interactive website. The website will fight for what is in the public’s best interest, and highlight successes of the reform broadcast media has ignored, and incorporate future successes needed to counteract the interests of media monopolies. The content of the website is going to be dedicated to the public’s best interest, and not the private interests of media monopolies.
Public Interest can be best described in brief as efforts to satisfy the needs all of the people in the U.S. rather than merely a few. The Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), is an organization created to stand up against powerful special interests on behalf of the American public, is currently working to win concrete results for the health and well-being of all Americans rather than only the American elite.
PIRGs explain in more detail how the public interest correlates with media consolidation:
The Supreme Court has long held that ‘the rights of the viewers and listeners are paramount’ and that ‘the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.’ The largest media conglomerates, however, see things differently. That’s why they tirelessly lobby the Federal Communications Commission for fewer restrictions on the size and influence of media companies, and greater authority to shut out independent voices and ideas. (¶2)
The website entitled Media Reform: A Requirement Rather than a Request will be interactive with and allow users the room to explore media reform. The site will outline the problem as well as detail the plan of action needed to reform the media. McChesney (2007) predicts the communication system and the political economic system in United States is entering a critical juncture: “a period in which the old institutions are collapsing.” (p. 9). During critical junctures the decisions made, the rules that are put in place, and the institutions that develop, are difficult to change for decades to come (2007).
The website is dedicated to changing the media landscape during a critical juncture, by getting the public involved. McChesney notes it is important for the lower and middle class to stand up for their rights and get involved in demanding a media reform. One of the primary goals of the blog and website is to engage everyone--minorities, women, and students included. The project will also entail a blog centered on the successes and failures of the media reform. It is important for the public to understand and act during a Critical junctures to support a successful media reform. Professional journalism and commercial broadcasting are in crisis and a fundamental transformation is required.
Today we are in the midst of a profound critical juncture for communication. Two of the three conditions for a critical juncture are already in place: the digital revolution is overturning all existing media industries and business models; and journalism is at its lowest ebb since the progressive Era. The third condition—the overall stability of the political and social system—is the great unknown. This is certainly grounds for suspecting that a critical juncture is imminent. Our political system is awash in institutionalized corruption and growing inequality. The economy is in turmoil, too, and it appears likely that we are entering a period of structural transformation to points unknown (McChesney, 2008, p.9)
There are a number of scholars and organizations demanding media reform. Scholars, whose research I will use, include Ben Bagdikian, Robert McChesney, Ed Herman, Noam Chomsky, John Nichols, Ben Scott, Jeff Chester, John Bellamy Foster, and others as the project progresses. Well-respected organizations who provide the latest updates with media consolidation and prove helpful in the development of my web-site and blog include: Media Access Project, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Stopbigmedia.com, Daily Kos, News Corpse, Center for Digital Democracy, Free Press, Below is a detailed description of these organizations and their agenda’s in brief.
Media Access Project (MAP) is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose purpose is to protect the public’s first amendment right to access a marketplace of diverse ideas. According to MAPs website, the organization has promoted the public interest before the FCC and the Courts for over 35 years, and provides an abundance of information regarding public interest obligations, legal filings and media ownership (2008). MAP’s resources will prove pertinent in developing the blog as part of my creative project, keeping the public updated on media reform, and reminding the public of when there first amendment rights are protected or violated.
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) is a research organization that studies the performance of the news media. According to PEJ’s website since the organizations inception in 1997 the organization has produced a score of reports on the performance of the press. PEJ gathers as much data as possible about all of the different sectors of journalism and indentify trends. For each area of journalism, PEJ produces original research and annual reports on the “health and status of American Journalism” (2008). PEJ’s annual report provides pertinent information to the public and proves essential in building a media reform.
StopBigMedia.com they are a coalition of 64 groups from across the spectrum that joined together to stop the FCC’s efforts to allow media conglomerates to dominate America’s media. According to the coalitions website their primary purpose is see to it that the FCC and Congress protect the American Public from further media consolidation. All of the organizations that make up this coalition prove helpful in the creation of my website and blog. The Public Interest, First Amendment Rights are the primary concern of StopBigMedia.com, and the same concern makes up the foundation of my creative project. This coalition consistently fights for a strong media reform in the same fashion, as my creative project.
The Daily Kos is a popular blog on the Internet. This blog is not scholarly material but it a leader in the progressive movement and keeps readers regularly updated on media consolidation. The Daily Kos is founded by Markos Moulitsas. Moulitsas co-authored the critically acclaimed book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics. He is the sole author of Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era; Moulitsas is a contributing columnist to Newsweek Magazine and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. The Daily Kos is a great example of a successful blog to emulate in the creation of my creative project.
News Corpse is another powerful progressive blog that prides itself on being the “Internet’s Chronicle of Media Decay” (2008, ¶1). Mark Howard digital artist and graphic designer is the publisher of News Corpse. News Corpse is another great example of a successful blog that highlights the problems with today’s media and the areas in need of a reform.
The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) is an organization “dedicated to ensuring the public interest is a fundamental the new digital communications landscape…CDD works to promote an electronic media system that fosters democratic expression and human rights” (¶1). CDD is helpful detailing the key problems with today’s media and the issues reformers face. CDD is consistently working on research that helps shape media reform. Currently some of the research projects include: Web 2.0 in the Public Interest, Digital Marketing Privacy and Public Interest, Network Neutrality, Promoting Public Health in the Digital Era. CDD is based in Washington D.C. and is a national not for profit group, “CDD is on the cutting edge of new media developments, especially tracking the commercial media market through outreach to the press, policymakers, reports, blogs, investigative research and organizing” (¶1).
The Free Press is a National Nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. The website of the Free Press reports Media scholar Robert W. McChesney, Journalist John Nichols and Executive Director Josh Silver, launched the Free Press in 2002. Today, Free Press is the largest media reform organization in the United States, with nearly half-a-million activists and members and a full-time staff of more than 30 based in their offices (2009).
Many articles are available through the George Mason University’s access to scholarly journals. There is also numerous books written demanding media reform. I will use all of these resources in my research and my creative project seeking to create a media reform and show the public the danger that apparently media consolidation, sensationalized news, and deregulation bring to democracy. After careful analysis of my sources, a website will be designed dedicated to calling out for a reasonable and fair design for media reform, and a blog will be updated weekly tracking the media reform movement. My Research will begin with pertinent research questions, and the answers will be the basis of my creative project, which includes my website and blog.
· What is the best way to decipher propaganda from real news?
· What are the best ways to get average citizens organized and devoted to media reform?
· How does commercial media and media consolidation depoliticize American Society?
· What telecommunication and policies and regulations are supporting consolidation? Which ones are not
· How does the communications policy making process work?
· What changes have been made to the Telecommunications Act over the years?
· What efforts to change the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did or did not pass? Why?
· What facts can provide evidence for the need to make changes to the Telecommunications Act of 1996?
· What relationship does media play in popular social movements?
· What is the most effective model for initiating popular public broadcasting and the establishment of alternative media institutions?
· What changes does the media need to make to secure they are healthy democracy in the United States?
· Who has initiated media reform in the past and who is initiating a reform now?
My Creative Project will provide for interactive research that details the effect media consolidation, deregulation, and sensationalized news has on American Democracy. My Creative project will also include a media reform agenda aimed at achieving results I will present the research findings of this study, compiled in a website and a research paper, to students, professors, and the public at a designated location at GMU. At the end of the presentation, I will provide information handouts created to get the public involved, as well as set aside time for a discussion and a question and answer segment.
Conclusion
In the year 1984 the number of media companies with a controlling interest in America's media was 50 - today that number is six! Critics of media consolidation say it has led to fewer and fewer perspectives being presented, and a serious decrease in local news coverage. Today six mega-corporation are controlling news created to preserve democracy and the public interest: General Electric, Disney, News Corp, CBS, Viacom, and Time Warner (Moyers, 2006, ¶1).
Today journalists that are not out of a job are upset about how commercialism is taking over the industry. Linda Foley, the head of the Newspaper Guild, the union for print journalists states “that the number one concern of her members by far is how commercial pressure is destroying their craft” (McChesney, 2003, p.318).
Robert Picard in his scholarly article Commercialism and Newspaper Quality points out that these current commercialized trends are developing as economic concerns as it becomes the primary force shaping the behavior of American newspaper companies. “As a result many publishers have adopted a range of strategies that have further commercialized the industry, making commercial considerations equal to, or in some cases, more important than editorial quality or social concerns” (2004, p.2).
My creative project seeks to use both a website and a Blog to get the attention of lawmakers, as well as engage the public in efforts to stop media consolidation, deregulation, commercialization, and jobs losses. I aspire to demonstrate that it is possible for the pubic to achieve sweeping changes in media policy and structures. The aim of this creative project is to involve the public in a media reform. It appears that the United States desperately needs a media system, which will promote a healthy democracy rather than only corporate interests. The website will detail the problem with today’s media and the consequences it brings to democracy, the public interest, and the media industry as a whole, and develop solutions through a political-economic analysis in journalism.
As part of my creative project, The Website and Blog will also include failed attempts of Congressional Members, Senators, and the public in the past to change the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and successes that leaders in media reform have had that Broadcast media has ignored in order to maintain public acceptance of media monopolies. The website will provide the framework for media reform.
The first and most important conclusion is that the United States needs a strong nonprofit and noncommercial media sector. Such a sector is necessary for high quality children’s programming, for providing experimental and high quality entertainment material frowned upon by the market, and a variety of other important needs. Most important, a nonprofit media sector is mandatory for providing some, perhaps much, of the journalism and public affairs material befitting a democracy. If such a sector is well funded and well managed, it can have repercussions across the entire media system. It can reverberate across the entire social and political culture (McChesney, p. 457).
The website will be a user-friendly with videos, quick links and archival news releases that prove to the public media reform is essential for democratic journalism to survive. This much needed reform will entail the prospect of possible revisions to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as well as revisited the possibility of the Federal Communications Commission restoring another form of the Fairness Doctrine, or a public broadcasting system that works in the interest of the public
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