McChesney _Rich Media, Poor Democracy -Communication Politics in Dubious Times

8/13/2019 McChesney _Rich Media, Poor Democracy -Communication Politics in Dubious Times

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merican democracy is in a decrepit state—exempli-

fied by a d epoliticization that would make a tyrant

k.envious—and the corporate commercial media sys-tem is an important factor in understanding how this sorrystate came to be. The corporate media cement a systemwhereby th e wealthy and powerful fe w make the most impor-tant decisions with virtually no informed publicparticipation. Crucial political issues are barely covered bythe corporate media, or else ar e warped to fit the confines o felite debate, stripping the ordinary citizenry of the tools theyneed to be informed, active participants in a democracy. For

those who regard inequality and unt rammeled commercial-ism a s undermining the requirements of a democratic society,media reform must be on the political agenda.

The corporate media system is not the only factor that

explains the woeful state of U.S. democracy, nor is it neces-

sarily the most important one. But it is among the mostimportant problems we face and, accordingly, it has to be on

an y short list of issues around which al l progressive and demo-cratic activists should organize. Likewise, media reform is notwinnable a s a single-issue campaign; reforming our media sys-tem will be impossible unless it is part of a broader movement.

The neoliberal right understands the importance of media

fa r better than the left and has devoted considerable resourcesto its campaigns to push the media to an explicitly pro-corporate, anti-labor position. Bi llionaire right-wingersestablish political media primarily to propagate pro-businesspolitics and to push the range of political debate ever right-ward. The leading U.S. right-wing foundations have devotednearly all their resources to pushing the media and educa-tional systems to provide more explicitly pro-businesspositions. The political right also leads the f ight against any

and al l forms of noncommercial an d nonprofit media. Failingthat, it leads the battle to see that public broadcasting stayswi;_iin the same narrow ideological boundaries as the com-mercial media. As a result, PBS refuses to permit labor to

sponsor programs about workers but permits business to sub-sidize programs extolling free enterprise.

Until recently, liberals, progressives and the left in the

United States have been notably missing in action in the bat-tie over the media. The response of the progressive and

mainstream foundations, fo r example, to this right-wing ide-ological assault has been tepid at best. These groups are

uncomfortable about being seen as political. Regrettably,

organized labor, too, has been snoozing for the most part, pro-viding little to counter this right-wing ideological class war.The political right plays to win; labor and the left are not

even playing at all.

T here are two general areas—and they sometimes over-lap—for media activism. In each, a nascent left,

organized labor and the progressive foundations mustbecome active. First, labor (and the left can create betternoncommercial media and generate better results from com-mercial media independent of changes in governmentpolicies and the corporate media system. All of labor needsnot only to support aggressively its ow n newspapers, maga-zines, broadcast stations and Web sites; it also needs to givemoney and resources to community and nonprofit mediathat have no direct labor affil iat ion. This is a crucial point:

Labor needs to be willing to grant considerable editorial lee-way to the media it subsidizes. Unless it does so, the mediawill tend to be timid, overly concerned with pleasing labor'spolitical hierarchy, and unlikely to produce a medium withvitality and broad appeal. The same holds true for progres-sive philanthropies: Alternative media cannot be

micromanaged by funders and at the same time develop an

audience. This is something the right understands, and it

has contributed to the success of its media program.)

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In addition, labor and the left need to take another pagefrom th e political right, which manipulates traditional U.S.journalism practices as m asterfully as a surgeon does a scalpel.Like the right, labor and the progressive philanthropic com-

muni ty also need to support think tanks of experts who canprovide labor and left perspectives on social issues fo r com-mercial an d noncommercial journalists alike. These thinktanks ca n also monitor the massive right-wing campaigns to

shape news coverage. The re cently formed Institute for PublicAccuracy, under the direction of Norman Solomon and SamHusseini, is doing a terrific job of providing such a service.For the political right, these sorts of activities are especiallyeffective because their op eratives and ideas are so comfortablein the halls of the corporate media. Hence so many of the TV

pol i t ica l commenta tors

Progressives Have

an

been

providing little to counter

tKe right-wing ideological

class war. The political rightplays to win; labor and the

left aren t playing at all.

that hail from th e righthave become interchange-

able w i th the so-calledmains t r eam ana lys ts .These activit ies will neve rsuffice for the left , bu tthey ca n help vitalize a

nonc om m e r c i a l m e d iasector on the margins and

guarantee the best possi-bl e pe r formance by thecomm ercial system.

B ut the second, and

most im po rtant, area of political activity is organizing tochange government media polic ies. The core problem withthe U.S. media system re la tes to how it is owned, its profitmotivation and its reliance upon advertising. The m e d iasystem is not the result of the blind workings of the m y th i -ca l free market. In fact, it is a highly noncompetitive

industry that is the direct result of explic it gove rnme nt sub-sidies an d polic ies. Almost all of the important laws an d

policies that created ou r media sys tem—like th e dreadful1996 Telecommunications Act, which opened the door to

an unprecedented wave of corporate mergers—have been

made wi th zero public input. They are the direct result ofsuper-powerful corporate lobbies muscling their way to the

public trough. The corruption of this policy-making processcan hardly be exaggerated.

Any a t temp t to affect U.S. media that does not addressstructural issues directly through government policies willprove inconsequential in the long run. It is the right and

duty of the public to intervene and see that policies enactedin their name ref lect their informed consent. Corporate

media power must be confronted directly an d reduced. Afundamen ta l question that needs to be raised, fo r example , iswhy it is OK for the g overnm ent to quietly subsidize themedia giants through tax breaks, deregulation and the gift o fthe public spectrum, but let the nonprofit and noncommer-cial media sector starve. Why not use governm ent policiescreatively to funnel resources into a nonprofit media sector?For instance, economist Dean Baker has proposed letting all

Americans direct up to $150 of their federal tax payments tothe nonprof it medium of their choice. If we made this anissue, there m ig h t b e numerous other ways w e could improveth e quality of our media culture without dredging up thespecter of an overbearing government.

This is the great advantage of the left: It can provide realsolutions to the problems of the media . The right often

taps into legitimate concerns people have about me dia, but itssolutions are illusory or counterproductive. Many left mediacritics present superb analysis of the weaknesses of the statusqu o bu t have been reticent about providing concrete solutions;these will develop, they argue, over the course of political

struggle and debate. But by the end of the 90s, we have

reached the point where me dia reformers have to provide con-crete examples of an alternative; otherwise, many people willhave no idea of what exactly they are fighting for.

The heartening news is that over the course of the

90s there has been a decided shift in public sentiment, and

increased openness to structural criticism of the

media system. The hyper-commerc ia l i sm of the

system, staggering corpo-

rate concentration and

low-grade journalism haveunde r m ine d the claimsthat ours is a free press ded-icated to public service and

democracy, or even theclaim that the handful of

conglomerates that ruleover ou r media system are giving the people whatthey want.

This activism has taken the form of nume rous local m ediawatch groups, which monitor the lame content of local TV

news an d work, fo r example , to have liquor an d cigarettebillboards removed from working-class and minority residen-tial neighborhoods. It also takes the form of

microbroadcasters who use low-power radio signals to makean end run around the banality of corporate radio fare. At

th e national level, ne w groups like Citizens fo r Independent

Public Broadcasting are organizing to establish a genuine ,well- funded public radio and TV system, replacing the low-budget, increasingly commercial, elitist operation that iscurrently under the thum b of corporate unde rwriters and

careerist bureaucrats. There is also the newly formed Peoplefor Better TV, which is demanding that commercial broad-casters actually provide some public service in exchange fo rthe pub lic ly owned te levision spectrum they are licensed to

use at no charge. The value of this exam ple of corporate we l-fare over the past six decades runs well into the hundreds of

billions of dollars.In the short term, the immediate need is to connect the

struggle for media reform with the movement fo r campaignfinance reform. Much of the estimated $3.5 billion that will be

spent on electoral campaigns in 2000 will pay for TV ads oncommercial stations. This is an enormous cash cow for thecorporate media, and it has struck a dagger into the integrityof our political culture. The corporate media are the foremostopponents of any reform in campaign finance that mightremove ou r electoral system from the private reserve of thewealthiest one quarter of one percent of Am ericans, who by

some estimates presently make a whopping 80 percent o f indi-vidual campaign contributions. Instead, why not make it a

condition of ge tting a broadcast license that a broadcaster willair no paid political advertising during electoral campaigns?

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Elsewhere, Sen. Paul We llstone is among the most outspo-ken of severa l members of Congress who can see thedisastrous im plications of permitting our me dia and telecom-munications system to fall into so few hands. Indeed, it is verydifficult to reconcile any notion of democracy with such alightly held system accountable only to Wall Street an dMadison Avenue. There is a resurgent movement to rechargeou r antit rust laws with th e same popul ist commitment to

democracy that brought them into existence 10 0 years ago.There ar e numerous other policy proposals to democratize

our media system floating around. The key point is to createa diverse me dia system with a significant nonprofit and non-commercial sector. Corporate media PR flacks argue that an y

effort to reduce their power would lead to government con-trol of the media. The concern with the state having an

improper role in the med ia is quite legitimate, but eve n if al lof the proposals w ere enacted, the corporate media w ould still

be the dominant sector of our media system. In truth, th e cor-porate media actually welcome th e government playing anaggressive role in the media system, as long as it is in theirinterests and not those of the citizenry.

1 11 is easy to be depressed about the prospects for media/'l reform, ju st like it is easy to lose hope for progressive socialchange altogether. Th e media giants are unusually powerful

adversaries, w ith massive lobbies. They also are in the enviableposition of owning th e very news media that people w ould lookto for coverage of m edia reform issues.

But there ar e reasons to be optimistic. When o ne sees th eexten t to w h ic h th e media giants go to keep their lobbyingactivities in Washington secret, you can understand the irfear that th e publ ic wil l learn th e truth behind this corruptsystem. When Am ericans actual ly hear about th e giveawayof the p ubl ic spectrum or who benefits from political adver-tising, they ar e outraged. The job for media activists is tomake this a public issue. If we can get that far, our chances

of w inning im prove dramatica lly.Moreover, what is beginning to take shape in the United

States is happening al l over the world, as the corporate media

system globalizes in conjunction with free market econom-ic policies. Across the world, democratic left political partiesan d m ovements are m aking media reform a cornerstone issuein their platforms, an d they ar e enjoying success at the polls.

Finally, media reform offers certain advantages to the U.S.left. It is an issue that affects every strand of the left and couldbring diverse groups together to form common ground. Butmedia reform also resonates across the political spectrum.Even so-called conservatives often ar e appalled by the com-mercial saturation of our culture. Th e average Ame rican nowspends nearly 12 hours per day consuming some form ofmedia , so media reform addresses something that al lAmericans experience directly.

The fate of media reform and the U.S. left are inexorablyintertwined, and in their fortunes resides perhaps th e besthope for the United States to become a democracy ruled bythe m any ra ther than the few.

McChesney teaches a t t h e Un ivers i ty o f I llinois . Thisart icle is adapted f r o m Rich Media , Poor Democracy:Com munication Politics in Dubious Times. Used with permis-

s ion of the Univers i ty of I l l inois Press <www.press .ui l l inois .edu).

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McChesney _Rich Media, Poor Democracy -Communication Politics in Dubious Times