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Media_Power_Conflict Review 2010 GAC
The Global Media: The new missionaries of corporate capitalism.
This book looks at how the global media system came about, what makes it so powerful and the pros and cons of a global media system.
In the introduction, an overview of the global media system is given. The book states that the global media market is dominated by approximately four dozen large, mostly American, media institutions. It serves the following functions:
1. The media acts as a “proxy” in large countries between people who will never meet, but can also “isolate” people by making them fearful of the outside world (eg. Terrorism coverage)
2. “Provided emotional outlets” (eg. Blogging)
3. “Provide information” but also escalate “myths and disinformations”
4. “Create common culture and systems of values.” The book gives the example of increasing globalisation to carry “fundamental values of the west elsewhere”- eg, women’s rights.
This chapter also makes reference to the “public sphere”, and how it is only effective if separated from “dominant economic forces” (page 3). Though out the book the point is made that public service broadcasting is at odds with entertainment and the public sphere is constantly being watered down because the private sector is only concerned with advertiser interests and not viewers.
Chapter One discusses how the biggest media powers came to be. It discusses the development of radio broadcasting before moving onto film, considered to be the “first truly global market”. After WW2, America came out as the richest capital power. As other countries we busy rebuilding themselves, the US poured money into pharmaceuticals, computers, machines and Hollywood, which at the time had a monopoly over the film industry.
With the development of satellite TV and video-cassettes, companies creating media had more to export abroad. Successful companies merged so fewer companies owned more of the media creating an “oligopoly”.
As these companies spread over the world, the concept of the “transnational firm” was created. This is a firm that doesn’t belong to anywhere, with the motto, “Think global, act local” (page 43).
Chapter Two looks further into how a company becomes transnational. 60-70% of Hollywood revenue comes from outside the US and yet viewers prefer “home grown” media. These media companies adapt the media to suit the audience: each country has a different MTV and Disney characters have “local dialects”. Successful advertising of these private sector shows has caused a drop in viewer for public broadcast TV but they cannot copy the style of these successful entertainment shows as this loses them credibility.
As these global media powers make money through advertising, they are keen on branding and product placement, for example most of the money Disney makes is from merchandise and not the films. Other factors to their success include: having many channels, but only a few genres that they know their audiences will like, ie. Pay per view, sports, porn and Internet shopping. Secondly, control with only a few companies, as good satellite sights are scarce and expensive. Thirdly, aiming their advertising at the people with money, ie. the middle classes. This is why the media develops quicker in developed countries: there is more surplus money for viewers to buy things.
The BBC can work this ‘branding’ aspect to its advantage though, as it is the second biggest ‘brand’ in the word after Coca Cola (Or was at the time this book was written).
Chapter Three discusses each ‘media giant’ in the oligopoly in depth and how they came to be so powerful. These companies are: Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, and New Corporation TCI. It then discusses the second tier companies; Universal, Sony, Polygram and NBC.
These companies pretty much everything between them, be that publishing, TV, film or theme parks making it almost impossible for any other company to break though. The only company the book names as doing so is DreamWorks, due to its shareholders carrying so much weight in the film industry.
It also discusses the “World Trade Organisation Telecommunications Agreement of 1997” which means foreign companies can buy stakes in domestic operators meaning there is an open market. However, the US, EU and Japan have blocked this when they felt it necessary.
Chapter Four is about the role of the Internet. This section was written in 1997 and is somewhat out of date in terms of how the Internet operates today. It says “Nobody is generating profit from Internet media content in 1997 and it is unclear if the medium will ever become especially lucrative for the content provider” (page 123).
It does still raise some valuable point about the Internet. It points out that although anyone can create content to go on the internet suggesting more of a public sphere, big corporate run sites have the resources to advertise and promote themselves so that more people will see their sites. The also have ready-made audiences transferred from TV channels. So the Internet is still somewhat controlled by the media giants.
Chapters Five and Six discuss America’s influence on the rest of the world and whether their culture is influenced by the global media. According to the book, culture is erodes away local “values”, “displaces the public sphere with entertainment”, “strengthens conservative political forces” and “erodes local culture”. These things can be stopped though if there is a language barrier between a country and America and/or they have a strong public service broadcast ethic.
The final chapter gives a summery for some of the arguments for why the global media system is a good thing. These are:
1. “It gives the public what they want”
2. Rise in professional journalism
3. “An active audience”, an audience are never brain-washed, they pick and choose what they want to take away from advertising.
4. The Internet moves the media away from monopolies
5. There are no better alternatives.
These arguments are all quite easily countered by previous discussions in the book though, these being that the public sphere is shrinking, there is no choice in what TV is offered, there’s a bias towards rich customers and there isn’t competition in the market.
Basically: The media is for advertisers not viewing audiences.
Tags: mediapowerconflict
Media-conflict-power
This book is written by Edward S.Herman, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, and Robert Waterman McChesney, journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin, and was first published in 1997 and contains 262 pages.
It describes in detail the most recent rapid growth and cross border activities and linkages of an industry of large global media conglomerates, including an explanation of a two-tiered grouping of large firms that dominates the world communications.
The book begins with a chapter on ‘The Rise of The Global Media’ which examines a historical overview of the global market system and it’s development.
The authors provide a chapter on the history of the western-dominated communications system, which began in the mid-nineteenth century with the formation of wire services, such as Reuters and the Associated Press. As Hollywood, radio, television, and the music industry grew to maturity, the media firms extended their reach.
I was particularly interested in one example used in this book about Disney. On page 54 the book reads “When Disney, for example, produces a film, it can also guarantee the film showings on pay cable television and commercial network television, and it can produce and sell soundtracks based on the film, I can create spin-off television series, it can produce related amusement park rides, CD-Roms, books, comics, and merchandise to be sold in Disney retail stores.
I very much enjoyed this whole passage, which contains several statistics on Disney’s profit, takings and merchandise. A fact that stood out for me in the book is again on page 54 about The Lion King, it reads “Disney’s 1994 The Lion King earned over $300 million at the U.S box office, yet generated over $1 billion in profit for Disney.?
In the book’s chapter on ‘The U.S Experience and Influence’, the authors talk about the United States as an evolutionary model. It states, as well all know, that America is the dominant world power and leading proponent and organizer of a neoliberal global order. The book then goes on to talk about the radio and its use as a vehicle for advertising. “ Then Secretary of Commerce (later President) Herbert Hoover stated in 1922 that ‘It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service to be drowned in advertising chatter.’ ?
Overall I found this book very insightful and would recommend as a valued reference to any one interested in this subject as it helps make sense of what’s going on.
Tags: media-conflict-power