Anth/Soc 345: Media, Politics and Propaganda
Winter 2011
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Media bias,
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Liberal journalists There is a lot of talk about how journalists are liberal. Think of the ones who are best known. Tom Brokaw at NBC (recently retired, replaced by Brian Williams). Peter Jennings at ABC (recently deceased). Dan Rather (recently left CBS, replaced by Katie Couric). Anderson Cooper (CNN). Bill O'Reilly (Fox). Okay, maybe not Bill O'Reilly, but the others are often seen as moderate to liberal in their views. The question is, based on what information? How do people come to the understanding that these journalists might be liberals?? Sociological theory suggests that as people get more formal education, their views become more liberal. We're talking probabilities here--this doesn't mean that when you leave EOU you'll be a card-carrying communist, or even democrat. It just means that most people, given more education, tend toward more liberal views on issues as their sources of information about those issues change and expand. Social theory also suggests that as people age, their views get more liberal. Call it wisdom, experience, senility, whatever. However, theory also suggests that as people's incomes increase, their views become more conservative. Why? Well, maybe they would like to hang on to more of their money (i.e., pay less taxes, support smaller government), but we don't know for sure. BUT . . . we ALSO know that people's incomes tend to increase over time. Confused yet? Well, the point is that journalists as professionals generally have an above average level of formal education. This is probably a good thing--journalists should be well-trained, and should probably have some experiences beyond the communities in which they were raised, if they're to be well-informed and open-minded about events occurring on which they're reporting. Their views are likely to be more liberal than people with less than a college degree. However, some journalists get by, others do fabulously well. This is referred to by some economists as a 'winner take all market,' and it can work not only for the celebrity journalists, but for professional basketball players, opera stars, university professors, NASCAR racers, etc. Research also suggests that journalists tend to be social liberals, but often fiscal conservatives (The research is based on a 1981 study, results from which you can see here. A more recent 1998 study by David Croteau shows journalists' fiscally conservative streak). In other words, they're likely to be pro-choice, but also likely to oppose new taxation, or universal health insurance for all Americans. They do tend to vote more often for democrats in election. Does the way journalists vote mean they're biased toward liberals in their presentation of the news? That would represent an individualist approach to understanding the news media--that they're made up of individuals, and we can understand what news media corporations do by understanding the views of those who work for them. It is also taking one measure, and using it to draw some pretty broad conclusions about a professional class. In terms of a persuasive social science argument, the logic is pretty weak. However . . . let's imagine you work at a fast food restaurant. You're also a vegan. You continue to try to convince the lunch hour crowd to order the salads (without eggs!) and bottled water. Does that mean that your restaurant patrons will, within the next few months, begin boycotting furriers and tossing blood on their clients' coats? What about their bosses? Let's look at the other end of the spectrum: ownership. The owners of the largest TV networks are all multinational corporations, with financial interests in a variety of media industries, such as cinema, radio, print, as well as telecommunications infrastructure (satellite services, cable TV, etc.). Some, such as General Electric (owner of NBC among hundreds of other things), have their fingers in most every economic pot imaginable. Here are some of the larger media corporations, and what they own:
When you hear about the big 5, though, they're ABC (Disney), NBC (GE), CBS (Viacom), CNN (Time Warner), and Fox (News Corporation). And one thing stands out in looking at media ownership over time--the owners keep changing, but the industry gets more and more concentrated in the hands of fewer corporate owners. There are no mom n' pop media shops out there that can compete with the Big 5 in the mainstream, commercial media. And t hese are the corporations that those liberal journalists work for. The former CEO of General Electric, owner of NBC, once made sure the President of NBC knew who his boss was. Journalists who cross the line are likely to lose their jobs. This happened to Peter Arnett in Baghdad (he had been a journalists' hero in the 1991 Gulf War), and also to Geraldo Rivera (who thankfully has returned--God how we missed him!). Bill Maher at ABC. Dan Rather was forced out at CBS. Even PBS--the Public Broadcasting System and the CPB, Corporation for Public Broadcasting--recently went through a period of purging liberal programs under the direction of then-chair Kenneth Tomlinson. See Digital Democracy's write-up if you're interested). Have things changed much under an Obama Administration? It would appear that large corporations still wield greater influence than the public, and that there is little effort being put toward helping the public understand some of the complex issues, like 'net neutrality.' In any case, media corporations are worth tens and in some cases hundreds of billions of dollars. As the above shows, they each own various kinds of media outlets, and other types of firms as well. They have a broad range of economic interests that they certainly don't want to endanger by reporting news that may threaten their bottom lines, or those of one of their subsidiaries. And to top it off, even their news divisions are expected to make money, meaning they have to sell audiences and high ratings to advertisers, who aren't likely to take kindly to stories that expose corporate scandal, excess, or that promote social change and justice. They benefit quite nicely from the status quo, thank you.
Concentration of media ownership Now, let's consider corporate concentration of media over time:
It's no coincidence that much of the recent media concentration occurred after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed, which relaxed restrictions on ownership. For instance, before 1996, no company could own more than 40 radio stations in the country. Now Clear Channel alone owns 1,225. Does ownership affect what we see, hear, read? Here are a couple of telling quotes:
As for concentration of ownership:
No one is saying there aren't liberal journalists. But there are conservative journalists, too, and they both work for large profit-making enterprises, often vertically integrated, and multinational in scope. They'd benefit from the status quo, wouldn't they? Do these companies seem likely to be forces for social change? Do we really think Dan Rather called the shots at CBS, or Peter Jennings ran the show at ABC? Or that Katie Couric is a power-hungry bleeding heart liberal now orchestrating radical change at CBS's news division? Take the example of Bill Maher. After 9/11 he said that it was difficult for him to understand how the terrorists could be called cowards. After all, they hijacked planes with box cutters, and flew them into the pentagon and world trade towers. This took months if not years of planning, and quite a bit of courage. We may not agree with it or even understand it, but to call it cowardice is missing the point, said Maher. He went further stating that the U.S. military were cowards when they dropped bombs on people from thousands of miles away. And anyway, aren't these the kinds of discussions we should have, especially in the media, if we're to understand why this happened? Apparently not on ABC, who "let Maher go" shortly thereafter. Why did they fire him? After all, it was a talk show, and that's what talk shows do--drum up controversy. In this case, ABC no doubt was worried about the bottom line--what if the White House criticized the network for airing such anti-American views? What if groups around the country initiated a boycott against the network as being unpatriotic? What if people decided to go to Six Flags instead of Disney World (insert gasp here)?? People were pretty hypersensitive at the time. ABC could have lost viewers, and valuable advertising revenues had it not done something. So it made the decision to support the bottom line, rather than free speech. And stockholders were no doubt relieved. Maher now works for cable company HBO (owned by Time Warner!), and has more latitude to speak freely. As Noam Chomsky has said, the idea that the important question is whether the media is biased toward liberals is ridiculous on its face. Multibillion dollar companies are not liberal, don't espouse liberal views, generally don't support liberal political candidates, and can use massive marketing and public relations budgets--which amount to a great deal of power--to influence public opinion. Do corporations benefit from higher wages and benefits for workers, more safe workplaces, more strict pollution laws, reductions in consumer spending (which most scientists studying the issue say is necessary to combat global warming), or in credit card debt? No, says Chomsky, the real question to ask is, Are the media free to report the news as they see fit? What would prevent the Media from reporting news that might jeopardize a corporation or its stock value? You'll be surprised by some of the things our government and others are doing that apparently the corporate news media didn't think would boost their ratings (from projectcensored). Some other concerns about ownership concentration:
Why is ownership important? Media ownership is important for a variety of reasons:
So . . . think back to the conservative and liberal views about government. Yes, journalists may tend to vote more often for democrats. But do their personal politics wield great influence over corporate behavior? Did their liberal views slow down the push to invade Iraq? They increasingly work for corporations that benefit from less government, less regulation, more tax breaks, etc. As these companies get larger, they have more interests, more kinds of companies, and there isn't likely to be much news that wouldn't affect one of their companies in some way. Does that mean they won't print anything controversial? No. They'd lose all credibility if they went that way. It does mean that they will be careful about protecting the bottom line, though. Remember all the editorial latitude media organizations have ... Also, keep in mind the role of advertising. Advertisers can exert great pressure on the media. Yes, the media have audiences, presumably which they know something about through market research. And they sell these audiences to advertisers. The more readers/viewers/ listeners, the more attractive a media outlet is to advertisers. Anything that threatens ratings, threatens the sacred bottom line, shareholders' interests, etc., will be dealth with delicately, walking that fine line between credibility with the public, and the need to please owners/ shareholders. You will see and hear lots of media outlets and journalists talk about a liberal bias in the media. You must decide for yourself--is it true, or effective public relations? If a liberal bias can be portrayed as 'radical,' can stories that appear to question the status quo, their motives, their public statements, be dismissed as dangerous and unworthy of serious consideration? In this class, we will talk about bias, and we all have our biases. As a sociologist, my bias is toward a structural view of the world--individual behaviors are often constrained by large social structions, institutions, government, laws, corporations, employers, cultural norms, etc. I'll end this page with what journalist A.J. Leibling once said: ' a free press belongs to those who own one . . . ' And, do media represent a valuable form of social control for their owners? |
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