Global Media - Ownership and Control

The public's general lack of information that's crucial for proactive citizenship in a democratic setup can squarely be blamed on the current state of the media. What was once considered the 'fourth estate', the pillar of social change, has now degraded into a show of business, offering neither information nor entertainment, but a subtly lethal combination of both. The buzz word is infotainment. The media has now evolved into an ingenious multi-edged weapon that functions as nothing more than a public relations agency for wealthy and powerful multinational corporations, as well as politics and the administration. It's no longer a secret that the Fourth Estate is being selfishly utilized (thus destroying it's intended purpose) as a medium of suppression of what is intelligently perceived to be the truth, not to mention the explosion of self-interested propoganda. Unfortunately, this propaganda is psychological, and thus barely seen at face value.

Filled with twisted facts and a chaotic misrepresentation of reality, the media is now a business strategy. Widely used since it appeals to emotions rather than mere thoughts, we see people now obsessed with security, personal and community safety, terrorism, germs and whatever other abominations they're 'instructed' to feel strongly about. Hence, most people are now willing to trade a little of their freedom and personal liberty for that feeling, that 'illusion' of security. What we now have is a completely neurotic diaspora, obsessed with this, that and everything, which unfortunately could trigger various forms of mental insecurities, as well as forcefully indoctrinated views of the legitimacy of power-weilding autocrats.

The great American comedian George Carlin once remarked, 'Language, by and large, is a tool for concealing the truth'. While he might have intended it not as a joke but as an ironic musing, he receives powerful backing from Canadian author Jules Carlysle, who said "We are so cleverly manipulated and influenced by the media and establishments on both the right and left, that the truth has become hopelessly lost in semantics." While we might or might not agree word-to-word with what these influential minds think, we have to admit that what we watch, see, and hear is not what is really happening, but what the upper 1% want us to think is really happening.

In a recently concluded seminar on the Impact of Convergence Technology, which I happened to attend, Voice of America's South Asia Chief Mr. Steve Herman compared the dearth of relevant news to a transportation system devoid of vehicles. While that maybe a contradiction to the argument presented above, considering that VOA is a wing of the United Stated federal Govt, his statement bears significance while we're discussing control of the global media. The message he intended to convey can be interpreted as, although we have such a system of communication in place, which can be used for social reformation, something is lacking, and it's glaringly evident. It is indeed shocking to notice that the media influence on the public has reached such a limit that the public are no longer capable of independent critical thinking.

In addition to some of the ideas outlined above, we seem to be witnessing a paradigm shift in the organization of the mass media, not only in the developed nations but all around the world. This structural shift is bound to have major implications on the international social and political scenarios in the twenty-first century. We see, rather than independent networks of news agencies, a global media corporation has now emerged. While the defining term might be grossly inaccurate, we have seen the birth of a 'Global Media', which has emerged through global communication networks, science and technological advancements in relevant fields.

A prominent example of what we're discussing is News Corporation, founded by Rupert Murdoch. When I googled the words 'news corporation' the first search results bore this description. "News Corporation is a diversified entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments, including Filmed Entertainment; Television; Cable Network Programming; Direct Broadcast Satellite Television; Magazines and Inserts; Newspapers; Book Publishing, and Other." Interestingly, all these eight segments, come under the category of 'News'. Need I say a word more? I cited the example of Voice of America above. Their catch-phrase is "A trusted source of News and Information." It is a Government-controlled source of News.

Is this emerging phenomenon prevalent only on the international level? Let's analyze. The term 'global' could take a backseat as I mention our very own Goan Newspaper, the Navhind Times, self-proclaimedly 'The Newspaper you can trust'. This newspaper is owned by Goa's biggest corporate house, The Dempos. We can evidently and clearly see that this is a trend that's hear to stay. Coming back to Global, two more large media corporations are Viacom and Vivendi International. The size and ownership extents of Rupert Murdoch's media interests, though humongous, are not in the scope of this report.

Rupert Murdoch is not the only one. The term 'Media Consolidation' has recently come to light.' A brief explanation would be that the 'majority of the media outlets are owned by a small number of conglomerates and corporations'. Parent companies often merge their respective existing wings to have a larger audience under a single corporate umbrella. It would be fitting to mention a few examples here. Wikipedia says "The music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and TimeWarner's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG, there existed a "Big Five" (now "Big Four") of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television."

Large media conglomerates include Disney, National Amusements, Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, General Electric, Vivendi SA and Lagardère Group. Movie production has been wholly controlled by a handful of companies since the beginning of the 20th Century. So has music and telefilm production, for the most part. Though corporates inadvertantly look at consolidation as a boon, it cannot definitely be said so for the general public. It is often seen as a problem for contemporary society. If media controls are concentrated with a few powerful corporations, a number of undesirable consequences would follow, the most obvious being there being an inadequacy of diverse voices and opinions in the media. Would these corporate giants broadcast stuff that's true, but is damaging to the reputation of its advertisers and other sources of revenue? For example, in 1997, the Fox affiliate in Tampa, Florida fired two reporters and suppressed a story they had produced about one of the Fox network's major advertisers, Monsanto, concerning the health effects of Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). Fox took action after Monsanto threatened to sue over the story (Credit: Wikipedia).

To take another perspective, if the corporations dominating the media choose to suppress the stories that do not serve their interest, the public will obviously suffer, especially in cases where the issue is crucial to public reason and opinion. The question arises, if the mainstream media do not air this, who will?

In conclusion, whether we accept it or not, the Fourth estate is slowly losing its independance, an essential quality on which its very concept was initiated. Instances of Media consolidation and corporate ownerships may have been isolated in the past, but are now rampant and in future will be the norm. Not just corporations and private interests, but administrations too will soon use the media as a tool to suppress an incalcitrant population. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the USA and its corresponding organizations round the world are controlling and will continue to stifle the media. In this game, the battle for our minds, the winners are the multi-billion corporations and governments. The losers? Guess who.