The Impact of the Media Industry on Culture - Essay Example

The Impact of the Media Industry on Culture with Special Reference to British Newspapers Introduction The modern mass media has grown into a colossal global enterprise. There is an increasing tendency for the media today to develop a unipolar attitude because of the drift towards the formation of monopolies. This question has engaged the attention of many writers across the globe. Does the concentration of ownership and control in the media foreshadow a new Orwellian manipulation of mass consciousness? (Deeks John, 213) Media today has become the handmaiden of gigantic conglomerates with the sole intention of churning out profits from a sphere of activity, which in the past was vigilant sentinel of the citadel of culture. The present predicament of culture is that media is deciding what culture is. This paper traces the origin of newspaper and its evolution as the guardian of civil liberties. Though the paper sees the others like the broadcast and electronic media as the offshoots of the newspaper as all of them begin ultimately with the written word, at the moment the focus of this paper is largely on the print medium. With globalization media show an alarming tendency to be in the hands of a few who see it only as an avenue for making money and thus to vitiate from its traditional role as a remedial moral force in the society. What is a newspaper? A broad definition of newspaper is a publication usually released on a daily or weekly basis, the main purpose of which is to present news. In the passage of time newspapers also started providing special information to readers, like weather reports, telecast schedules, and movement of stock prices. They offer observations on politics, economics, and art and culture, and sometimes include amusement features, like comics and crossword puzzles. The overwhelming dependence of newspapers on advertisement revenue also is included as one of its salient modern features. However there are some papers, which avoid advertisements altogether as a matter of policy. ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS Newspapers existed on the earth in some form or other because of man’s innate tendency to know news and share it with other fellow men. People disseminated news by word of mouth, written correspondence or public notices before the development of printing technology. As more people learned to read and write, news reports became more. Ancient Rome had a particularly stylish system for spreading written news. The practice of exhibiting handwritten reports called daily events (acta diurna) was prevalent from 59 BC up to at least third century AD. It publicized news of politics, trials, scandals, armed fights, and state implemented executions. There were similar government produced newssheets in China during this time. This was mainly for the court officials. During the heyday of Tang dynasty the Chinese used carved wooden blocks to print these government reports in large numbers. This might have been the humble beginning of the modern newspaper somewhere between 618-907. With the dawn of Industrial Revolution in many parts of Europe, many crude attempts have been going on for the development of a viable technique for printing large numbers of copies. As a result, a printing press that used changeable type was designed in Europe in 1450, and enterprising people started using the invention to publish news. An amalgam of stories appeared in their news books like the news of royal wedding ceremonies, triumphant combats, or other exciting stories. The genera of poetry called ballades narrated actions in verse. Executives who wanted to notify the public of important procedures also used these news books. Thus, the alliance of the printed word with bureaucracy in Europe started in the early days of European news media. However, the metamorphosis of the crude news book into a viable and regular newspaper emerged only in the passage of time. Newspapers brought out under the same name on a regular basis first emerged in Venice in the 16th century. Their stories were reports of traders and travelers who came to the city. The tradition of present day news reporting under the name of the city dates back to the Venetian gazettes, which acknowledged the place of origin of the story as a short title. This tradition soon caught up in Germany, France and England. The English newspapers were among the earliest in the world to use captions to attract readers and illustration for stories. English newspapers also lay down new business principles. The employment of women as reporters, the use of advertisements as a way of revenue earning, the employment of paid newsboys and newsgirls to market papers in the streets. This innovative genius of the English and the Anglo-Saxons in other parts of the world made the newspaper a truly English product and most of the new directions that it took are in tandem with the pre-eminent place the English speaking people enjoyed due to the establishment of the largest colonial empire the world has seen. This also gave the English language predominance over all the languages of Europe. The more users of English across the world mean a more global readership for the newspaper in English. Many scholars have studied the emergence of English as the global language. The movement of the English across the world with the historical and pioneering voyages to the Americas, Asia and the Antipodes was the beginning of a wider expansion of the English language to other continents. It was an expansion which continued with the nineteenth-century colonial developments in Africa and the South Pacific, and which took a significant further step when it was adopted in the mid twentieth century as an official or semi-official language by many newly independent states. English is now represented in every continent, and in islands of the three major oceans — Atlantic (St Helena), Indian (Seychelles) and Pacific (in many islands, such as Fiji and Hawaii). It is this spread of representation which makes the application of the label ‘global language a reality (Crystal David, 29). The development of the telegraph by Samuel Morse in 1837 radically enhanced the speed and reliability of news reporting. The major customers of the telegraph companies were the newspapers. The soaring cost of telegraph transmissions led to the creation of telegraph wire services, which circulated stories to many different papers. One of the world’s leading wire services, The Associated Press, was founded, as a joint venture by New York newspapers in 1848. The telegraph facilitated newspapers to pack their pages with news that occurred earlier in cities situated hundreds of miles away. The successful completion of a transatlantic cable in 1866 enabled American newspapers to publish stories from Europe quickly. The Emergence of British Press as The Global Model The precursors of modern newspapers, relying on advertising as revenue and providing an amalgam of political, economic and social interest stories emerged in Britain in the middle of 18th century. The emergence of Britain, as a vibrant market for industrial and commercial activity after the success of Industrial Revolution, was the right soil for the springing up of the modern newspaper. Britain had the technology, educated classes, developed urban areas, distribution system and entrepreneurs ready to shell out money on The colonies when they launched their newspapers copied the British model in the mid-19th century. Most large cities in the empire had a British model newspaper. Newspapers sprang up in not only Toronto and Melbourne during this time but also in the Indian sub-continent. It is amazing that as early as in1836 the sub-continent saw the publication of Akhbar in Urdu, the first local language newspaper. The Raj sparked a publication spree in all the major cities. Thus, Bombay had The Times of India, Calcutta The Statesman and Lahore The Civil and Military Gazette. The British model in the 19th century was not merely the benchmark in technical process of printing and distributing newspapers; it became the role model of the ideal political presence. The Times of London set the global standard for the principle of freedom of the press. The British ideal of democracy and the right for freedom of expression are nowhere better illustrated than in the functioning of the British press in the 19th century. The world has lauded this British tradition in unequivocal terms: A free press has made possible the realization of the ideal of government by the people in this (Britain) and other countries; a fearless, critical free press is the one indispensable safeguard to ensure the survival of democracy in the present dangerous crisis of civilization (Herd Harold, 327). The Pitfalls of the Consolidation of the Press The process of consolidation of the press and other tools of mass communication has been taking place in US and Canada in a big way. This process might spread to other parts of the world with the emergence of globalization as an unavoidable phenomenon in the world today .The number of newspapers in circulation keep on declining in most U.S. and Canadian cities. Many cities today have only one newspaper publisher. In Canada, only six cities are supplied by two or more independently owned newspapers. In more than 170 American cities, a solo publisher produces both a morning and an evening paper. Fewer than 30 U.S. cities have rival papers with different ownership (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2004). British newspapers also show a similar trend. The complete national press is virtually owned and managed by seven companies, of which the largest four are The News International, The Trinity Mirror, The Northern and Shell, and The Daily Mail and The General Trust. These four account for about 90 per cent of total British readership. The dangers of this trend have been engaging the attention of the academia all over the world. Role of Newspapers as the Guardians of Culture Culture is a difficult word to define. However, it is possible to formulate some of the traditional notions associated with it. There are activities in society, which are not necessarily commercial in character. Culture is one of them and religion is another. The traditional attitude to culture as expounded by the idealistic school followed by writers like Raymond Williams who has always seen culture as a realm separate from, the realm of material production and economic activity (Williams, 1995). Overall, the public cultural policies have developed from this idealist tradition. The government promotion in the form of subsidy is usually defended because culture possesses intrinsic ideals, of life enrichment, which are primarily conflicting to market forces. These values are universal and do not make any distinction between sex, class or ethnicity. It was also felt that market would not satisfy these needs. The role of the writer as a moral watchdog is nowhere better expressed than in Milton’s, Areopagetica. Milton’s defense of freedom of speech in those troubled and dangerous times begins by quoting the Greek writer Euripides: This is true liberty, when freeborn men, Having to advise the public, may speak free, Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace:(Quoted). The writers were assigning to themselves a noble and dangerous role of the guardians of values and ideals. This was the tradition of excellence held fast by Socrates, which caused him his life. In Judeo-Christian tradition we have the old time Judges and Prophets boldly safeguarding the citadel of values even to the extent of paying for it by their lives. The Greco-Judeo-Christian tradition mentioned above has been now replaced by an attitude of commercialism. Every thing is approached in terms of products and services today. Newspaper and other media are all products for marketing and aim of the press is to make profit primarily. It is true that many businessmen have already estimated the value of the media as a commercial venture. This has resulted in a frenzied attempt to take over the media the world over, resulting in a unipolar media and in stifling dissent in critical times. It is generally felt that the American press did not react sufficiently to the American invasion of Iraq. An outright hostility against present administration might jeopardize the business interests of the American press is one of the interpretation to the lack of vigor the Americans showed in opposing the war in Iraq, at least in the beginning of the war. Another school of thought is that war being a sensational thing, will give the media an opportunity to turn the crisis to an occasion for making more money from increased viewer ship and consequent revenue generation. The Iraq conflict has taken away the credibility of the American press. The U.S. media enjoyed in the past a reputation for being free and independent. However, during the Iraq invasion it is very difficult to attest that the American media has been faithful to its role. The function of the press in a democratic country consists of telling the facts as they unwind, with the only purpose of seeking the truth. If the media had taken a much more forceful stand against the war it could have abated the consequence of such a painful situation (Foa). A comparison with the acrimonious attack on Bill Clinton’s frailty in the White house and the vials of ink that flowed and the approach to the Iraq war show the interest of the press in seeking sensation in place of weightier issues of public welfare. Conclusion We are at the threshold of globalization, a phenomenon that is unavoidable. However, we need the systems in place to guard the values and ideals that man has developed over many years. To make the purpose of the press and other media as only providers of entertainment and statistical enumeration of data is a subservient role that we give to the media. Media has a much more important role to play in the world today as a remedial force and as a forum for engaging in healthy debates on cardinal issues of our times. However, a media, which is the possession of a handful people, cannot be expected to fulfill its role as the vigilant watchdog of culture. ======================= Works cited Crystal David, 2003, English as a Global Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Deeks John, 1994, Business and the Culture of the Enterprise Society. Quorum Books, Westport. Milton John, 1674, Areopagitica, Collier &Son, New York. Foa Marcello. ejo.ch/analysis/warreporting/IrakStampaUsa_en.html – Herd Harold 1952, The March of Journalism: The Story of the British Press from 1622 to the Present Day, George Allen & Unwin. London. William Raymond, 1995, The Sociology of Culture ,University of Chicago Press ================== Read More