Michelle K. Lawrence Dr. Littleton English 1020 July 30. 2014 How Do Corporations and Governments Influence the Media? How do corporations and the government influence the media? Is that influence real and are the effects noticeable? Some people would argue the media is not influenced by corporations and governments. As with the director of the newsroom for the morning broadcast of the Chattanooga, Tennessee local ABC affiliate, owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. When asked, was the media influenced by corporations, and did the media produce propaganda in response to that influence? V.Lawson, responded clearly to the question. She quickly answered, the media is never influenced by corporations, and the media does not produce propaganda. Is the local news director for the morning broadcast correct in telling us the media is not influenced by corporations”, or maybe it is just her wishful journalistic response to believe and thus declare that in her opinion, the news outlets are objective, and unbiased in its reporting of the news? A recent ZBN study conducted; findings, illustrates how media conglomerates are producing less investigative news reports, due to rising costs and declining viewership. The corporate media conglomerates are continuing to change their strategies to increase profits, and produce cheaper news stories. This also included ZBN. These changes in reporting were due to the many different, smaller business mergers with giant media-conglomerates. The report questions the validity of actual unbiased news reports, because now media conglomerates have their own commercial business interest to protect. (Haggard, C. R., & Lapoint, P.A.,2013) A direct quote from the ZBN report, Representatives of corporations will say that good journalism is good business, and so there is no conflict. It is true that a news outlets credibility is one of its assets, which can be eroded by blatantly biased reporting. But to corporate owners, the value of that asset may be far outweighed by the gains to be made by using their media to promote their other lines of business. As news operations become smaller and smaller parts of ever larger conglomerates, which trade-off will become more profitable--and news decisions will more often be subordinated to corporate strategies.” (Naureckas, 1995) These facts really show how much corporations owned by media conglomerates get favoritism by the media conglomerates by which they are owned. This evidence does not support V. Lawsons claim that corporations are not influencing the media,” on the contrary, they are doing just that, influencing the media. How much are these corporations controlling? Who are these corporations and how much good do they serve, and how much damage have they caused, today and throughout history. The history of how corporations have been influencing the media, including governments is leading us down a very long road. There are many case examples of how corporations and governments have influenced the media and in turn how the media has used that influence to produce propaganda warfare on an unsuspecting public. Before we go further, lets look at the definition of what the effect of corporate influence is. The meaning of propaganda” is defined as- Propaganda is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population toward some cause or position. Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. Propaganda can be used as a form of ideological or commercial warfare. Propaganda techniques are used in character assassinations, or even used to create feelings of patriotism. These techniques are swaying the emotions of the masses and can effectively control and alter an enormous amount of peoples emotions in a single broadcast. Propaganda has been used in world history for mass murder, such as in the history of Germany Third Reich. These propaganda techniques influenced the media, so much so, that the Nazis in Hitler Regime, used propaganda to cause the Holocaust that in effect killed twenty-six million people within a very short amount of time. (Wikipedia, 2014) This is dangerous, and it has been used to perpetrate murder against millions of innocent civilians. Corporations, regimes, governments, and government paramilitaries have been influencing the media. The arm of the media-generated propaganda machine can produce a world domination effect. American children, for the past one hundred years, are prepared through the media, and through the use of toys, to participate as very young children in war games.” They are also being taught tactical procedures that teach the children about the importance of being good soldiers. The propaganda produced by toy maker and the media are continuing to target American children to accept the military and through role-play using toys such as G. I. Joe. These toy corporations and manufacturers use the media through television advertisement and television programming. They are able to reach their target audience- young children. (Machin & Van Leewen, 2009) This is teaching American kids that military solutions are the answers to solving are global problems. There are other instances in American history where our own government influenced the media as in the early days of the Central Intelligence Agency, after WWII, during the battle between America and Russian to lead as the worlds Superpowers. The CIA employed an American filmmaker to make a film about George Orwells book, Animal Farm, and provided the funding to produce the film. Clearly shows, that as early as post- WWII the US government; corporations were influencing the media to produce and generate propaganda through the making of propaganda films for the American people. The American Government and the filming of George Orwell’s Animal Farm in the 1950s is an another example how corporations such CIA influenced the media, That the CIA paid for the first filming of George Orwells Animal Farm in the 1950s is relatively well-known among scholars of the cultural cold war. (Leab, 2006) The writer also quotes another journalist, as journalist Evan Thomas pointed out; many CIA records leak. As a result of such leaks, it is now possible to document at least partially the genesis of the movie and who was involved in its production. The United States Government’s involvement in censorship and propaganda during the building of the atomic bomb is such a case how the government has influenced the media. They were distributing a publication to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 1943 the Army was concerned about the citizens who were not allowed to talk about their jobs, who were unhappy and so they created a community journal to help them. They created a publication that helped to create community and develop new interest with the workers, and their families. The publication was influenced by the government thus propaganda and censorship occurred, during a very important time in American history. This influence was a positive direction for the community of Oak Ridge, which led to more contentment among the citizens. We can even see that in other countries that the media is under the influence of larger media conglomerates that are thus controlled by governments, such as in a case that happened in the Russian media. The media in Russ Resnikia is biased because the ruling elite in Russian’s media and government is controlling the information being released to the public. (Albats, 1999) Those who own and control the media want to secure political influence, not uncover political corruption. A journalist after trying to expose the Russian government was fired for trying report a story that exposed the Russian police and police corruption. The writer then went public with the story after losing his job. Corruption in the media is everywhere. It is even in our history pages and currently is being reported as unbiased, and accurate reporting of todays events and headlines from around the world but a little investigative reporting shines a light in a darker room the media does not the public to know about. A room where the so-called elite rule and decide what the publics needs to know and what products we get to buy and very importantly - the kinds of cars we get to drive, and how much Americans pay for a gallon of gas. Americans need to pay more attention to the type of news reports that are being viewed, and how the media has been using emotional lures, and strategies to control, and manipulate their elite audience’s belief systems. The media is out to control the outcome of political events, or political oppositions, and the media also wants to gain ground so that their policies are implemented. The goal of the media is to gain control over the public. The media organization’s intentional creation of political actors who then intentionally carry-out corporate agendas that the corporations they are working for want implemented, such as paying -off policies, lobbying politicians to help them advance their media corporate agendas. These media corporations seem to be demanding more and from the American people and from our politicians to advance their own causes, which are not always democratic or capitalistic in nature. (Page, 1996) The government saw this happening as far back as Lyndon Johnsons Presidential Administration, but more recently the Supreme Courts have tried to curb the advance of corporate interest controlling the media by political contributions within the corporations themselves such as in the case in 1978, a well-documented article by (Kerr, 2011) Kerr’s, accurate reporting of the decision and ruling, the Supreme Court upheld in 1978 concerning political spending by corporations, is such an example. The professor Kerr, clearly lays out the difficulties the Supreme Court Justices experienced, and particularly how Justice Powell ruled, about how corporate managers, without political consensus within the corporations, could not contribute to any political media outlet. The Court ultimately decided that there should be some ground rules set in place for corporation mangers, wanting to make large donations to their favorite political candidates. Justice Powell ruled about how corporate managers, without political consensus within the corporations could not contribute to any political media outlet. Which brings up the point: where is all this media control of the population headed again? If the goals of the media are to gain control over the public, then the question becomes why? Are we going to end up with less rights and more personal loss of our personal data? And why are corporations, using our religious and political opinions, and what for? Is there a master plan in place the public has yet to realize? Let’s just see who is buying whom, and let’s start with the consumer. The media it is acquiring from sources, such as your “Facebook” account, your personal data. Facebook is then sending your personal information to other sources outside of Facebook. This is also how the media is obtaining your religious and political opinions, which are also showing up on the Internet. This is how corporations are influencing the media, by working together with information collection companies, to obtain detailed information about their customers; using the clients personal data to market more products for the advertisers. This is how Internet companies know the likes and dislikes of their customers. They are literally “selling their customers personal information”, the consumer, and paying them nothing in return. (Angwin & Singer-Vine, 2012) This issue of media corporate conglomerates mergers, and how these mergers are leading to favoritism of certain entertainment products by some parents companies, opens up real concerns about the journalistic integrity of the modern journalist now working for news organizations own by primarily one larger media corporation. (Tien-Tsung & Hasiao-Fang, 2004) The new corporate mergers that took place between Apple, Steve Jobs, Pixar Animation Studios, and Disney going to affect business with other companies? , Jeffrey M. Bewkes, the president and chief operating officer of Time Warner, which owns the Warner Brothers studio, said Friday he did not think that a Disney-Pixar union would change his companys relations with either Disney or Apple. He and other media executives said they would view the union as just another of the many examples in which the many-tentacled mediaconglomerates simultaneously compete against one another in one area while working together in others. Of course it was going to affect every business relationship, and some political out-comes as well. The media has taken giant steps to bring the greatest creative minds, and technological advances together, to create the superior dream team. A team designed to captivate its audience, control their buying spending, and even help them decide who they like in Hollywood, and elsewhere. These are the media giants- the newly and pain-painstakingly, formed conglomerates; with so many branches, (companies); that they are in the business of protecting as their parent company. (Siklos, 2006) The mega-media giants continue to attract new business, and even newer relationships. The need for these giants’ conglomerates to stay competitive with other studios is a must. These newly formed media conglomerates work together, on many of the same projects. Yes, the corporations within the media are controlling and most of all influencing the media, to produce major profits. Showing us, just how many corporations are influencing the media, and all the many different companies merging, with so many different “entertainment products that need equal time to be represented. It was all about using their influence over the media. Some people can see just how much influence over advertisers, and consumers, a single media conglomerate needs to have to increase their entities profit margins, every year. Branding becomes the rule, not honest reporting by the news media, because of the many companies that their parent company owns. With so many different entertainment products to promote, a single media conglomerate has to consider the financial well-being of all its corporations as a whole, if the major giant- media conglomerates, are to survive. The question now is not “Are corporations’ influencing governments and the media?” obviously the answer is definitely, “yes”. We must as Americans and citizens of the world become more aware of how that power in the media is being used and find a way to strike a balance through regulating the media. Protesting against injustices within the media when it occurs and asking our government for more regulatory restriction on mega mergers, without turning the power of the press over to the government.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 14:08:12 +0000
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