Mass Media as Tools of Social Control - Essay Example

Introduction The dominant elites in every country in the world have always sought to manipulate public opinion and exercise social control by using the media as a tool. This has been accepted as a part of the system in place be it democratic or totalitarian. It is not surprising that many commentators take this for granted when they talk about “slanting” the programs to suit a particular group or faction. However, the point of concern is the fact that Mass Media and their ownership have been so concentrated in the hands of tiny elite that the vast majority of the people have been subjected to disinformation and deliberate propaganda techniques. This paper is about the menace posed by the inter-linkage of politics and media and the power of wealth in dictating the national agenda. As Al Gore succinctly puts it, “As long as individual citizens are not able to use logic and reason as the instruments with which they can dissect and meticulously examine ideas, opinions, policies and laws, corrupt forces will shape those policies and laws instead. It is the public’s lack of participation that empowers its abusers” (Gore 77). As Gore puts it, it is the thirty second commercial that goes a long way in shaping the attitudes of the electorate towards the presidential candidates. And these commercials are paid for by the elite that have a vested interest in propagating their point of view. As John Mcquaid puts it, “The media are constantly on the lookout for the odd moment that might capture some revealing truth about a candidate--and, ideally, create a feeding frenzy that consumes the campaign. In 2000, Al Gores exaggerated sighing during a debate, his TV makeup, and even the colour of his clothing became media obsessions. In 2004, it was John Kerrys supposed cultural elitism: the windsurfing, the request for Swiss on his Philly cheese steak. The problem is, such issues are almost always essentially trivial, having little to do with substantive issues or how a candidate might actually behave once in office”. Thus, what we have is a trivialization of public discourse by a media that is increasingly caught in “feeding frenzies” that have little to do with the larger issues that face the nation. I start off by describing the structure of media ownership and its relation to control in a globalised world. The iron grip of the global corporations over the media outlets operating as transnational entities has given rise to oligarchic tendencies and blatant misuse of the media apparatus. The subsequent sections detail the impassioned plea of the former Vice President of the US, Al Gore and the solutions that he explores. Then I track the advent of the online media and the hope and promise they hold out in terms of breaking free of the shackles of the elite controlled media. Hegemony and Mass Media The focus of this paper is on how the mass media are used as tools of social control by the dominant sections of the society. Throughout the paper, I argue that whatever forms the propaganda takes, social, religious or otherwise; it is just another means of ensuring that the elites have control over the dissemination of news and information. The way in which cultural and social hegemony operates may be different in different contexts, but, overall the theme of subjugation and control remain the same. Mediacracy The emergence of a global Mediacracy today poses a special threat to the scientific-rationalist outlook that has had such a powerful effect on civilization since the Enlightenment. This development is accelerated by two factors: First, the emergence of the information age: new technologies have made it possible to leapfrog national frontiers and to transmit by means of satellites and computers information worldwide. Second, these technologies are owned and controlled by huge media conglomerates - the new global Mediacracy is not based on monopolistic ownership but on oligopolistic control. These conglomerates produce and sell programs worldwide. They usually appeal to the lowest common denominator and blot out dissenting points of view. In the process the secular humanist point of view is invariably neglected, even rejected. The concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands within the media industry has an insidious effect upon secular humanism. The global Mediacracy is an integral part of the transnational corporations that now virtually dominate the world. Mass Media and Control in recent times Over the past generation, it has become increasingly clear to those on the left that the U.S. mass media, far from performing an autonomous and adversarial role in U.S. society, actively frame issues and promote news stories that serve the needs and concerns of the elite. Moreover, the importance of the leading corporate mass media in contemporary politics radically transcends the role of the mass media in earlier times. Hence, the Left has begun to pay considerable attention to how the media are structured and controlled and how they operate. Nevertheless, the ideology of the "free press" has proven to be a difficult adversary for left critics; as the medias operations are central to the modern polity, their legitimacy is shielded by layers and layers of ideological obfuscation. Recently, left analysis of the media has been enriched by the publication of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, 1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. This book promises to be a seminal work in critical media analysis and to open a door through which future media analysis will follow. In Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky provide a systematic "propaganda model" to account for the behaviour of the corporate news media in the United States. They preface their discussion of the propaganda model by noting their fundamental belief that the mass media "serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity." Although propaganda is not the sole function of the media, it is "a very important aspect of their overall service" (p. xi), especially "in a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest" (p.1). Publishing compromised We have seen in recent years the application of market theory to the dissemination of culture. Spurred by the Thatcher/Reagan changes in politics, the owners of publishing houses rationalize their policies by invoking the market. It is not up to elites to impose their values on readers, they claim; it is up to the public to choose what it wants--and if what it wants is bad, so be it. Houses with histories as distinguished as Knopf have not hesitated to take on books so perverse and violent, like American Psycho, that they have been turned away by other conglomerates. The question is which books will make the most money, not which ones will fulfil the publishers traditional cultural mission. The development of the market ideology has been accompanied by legislation that has increasingly changed the nature of book publishing. In both the United States and Britain, funding for libraries has been drastically cut. There was a time in both countries when library purchases were large enough to cover much of the costs of serious fiction and non-fiction. The editorial process has also been skewed by the fact that at large companies, decisions about what to publish are made not by editors but by so-called publishing committees, in which the financial and marketing people play a pivotal role. If a book does not look as if it will sell a certain number--and that number increases with every year--these people argue that the company cannot "afford" to take it on, especially when it is a new novel or a work of serious non-fiction. What the Spanish newspaper El Pais perceptively called "market censorship" is increasingly in force in a decision-making process that is based on whether there is a pre-existing audience for any book. The obvious success and the well-known author are die books now sought; new authors and new, critical viewpoints are increasingly finding it difficult to be published in the major houses. Al Gore’s stand and solution At times, Gore’s The Assault on Reason conveys Postman’s arguments to the malaise of contemporary American democracy. He asserts the necessity of a citizens being well-informed and self ruling, achieving liberty through logic, not force, all within the “public forum or a public sphere or a marketplace of ideas” where this act of being informed takes place (Gore 12). By acting rationally in society with an effective and critical free press; citizens should be able to make good decisions. Our free press should be “democracy’s immune system against...gross errors of fact and understanding” (Gore 26), but we know that its oligarchic ownership structure prevents the meaningful competition essential to effectiveness. Also, Gore undermines his own thesis in his first chapter by explaining how fear can subvert rational processes. As well, in a “free” economic market the consumer is assumed to be acting rationally. We know this to be false. Advertising is but one element that subverts rationality. In a political context, we are similarly unable to rationally elect politicians who reflect our goals, even if our electoral systems themselves were not so compromised. Humans simply are not solely rational creatures. While we can behave with a sometimes very strong degree of rationality, we are never fully divorced from the effect that emotional manipulation has on our thought processes. Both capitalism and democracy, then, function in a kind of denial whereby one of their core tenets is the unimpeded rationality of its participants. Celebrating individualism, then, in both of these domains is disingenuous. Yet we maintain the charade. In part, Gore begins to address this structural flaw: “If political and economic freedoms have been siblings in the history of liberty, it is the incestuous coupling of wealth and power that poses the deadliest threat to democracy” (Gore 72-3). This coupling can explain our oligarchic media, but it neglects to address how fear and emotional appeals subvert rational discourse and decision making. Gore’s analysis is even weaker when he explores a solution: As long as individual citizens are not able to use logic and reason as the instruments with which they can dissect and meticulously examine ideas, opinions, policies and laws, corrupt forces will shape those policies and laws instead. It is the public’s lack of participation that empowers its abusers (Gore 77). Since we cannot act with sufficient logic and reason, we cannot ever be expected to become free of this abuse. Championing, therefore, rational democracy and capitalism is invalid. The solutions are far from clear and efficient. A first step would be to construct an education system and public discourse that recognizes how we are rational and emotional creatures instead of one that pretends we are rational, and then emotionally manipulates us. Our current executive regimes in North America have also displayed a tendency towards tyranny that further exacerbates the in-authenticity in our political, economic and social systems. We see it with the extra-legislative negotiations of the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership and the British Columbia-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement that creates a de facto economic union of those two provinces. We can call it executive overdrive, but Gore describes it in the context of the “unitary executive,” (Gore 226). The unitary executive presidency is not bound by legislative or judicial oversight if it acts in the capacity of commander-in-chief or in foreign affairs. This theory is nothing more than a polite way of eradicating the separation of powers that James Madison was so fond of. It also appears beyond the White House to the Canadian prime ministers office and the offices of various premiers. Yet Gore does have some valid insight into how to combat inauthentic discourse. Politics requires active participation rather than passive consumption, otherwise we would have “American Democracy: The Movie [or Democracy(tm), where the] true purpose is the presentation of a semblance of participatory democracy in order to produce a counterfeit version of the consent of the governed” (Gore 77). He also recognizes that what the strategic environmental threats have in common with strategic or global military conflicts is the necessity of an all-out global mobilization as the only means of ensuring that the outcome brings a positive future for human civilization. In order to conquer our fear and walk boldly forward on the path that lies before us, we have to insist on a higher level of honesty in America’s political dialogue (Gore 203). A global mobilization requires cooperation, which is distinctly contrary to the individualistic preoccupation of our economic and political systems. Advent of Online Media The advent of the internet has been likened to the introduction of the printing press. As Gutenberg was able to print the bible in a way in which the esoteric meaning hitherto the privilege of the elites, was disseminated to the ordinary man, so the rise of the internet has empowered the individual to seek choices from the variety of news sources that are at hand and educate oneself without recourse to visuals fed by the mass media. Thus, the solution to eliminate or contain the bias introduced by the mass media or the mainstream media is to ensure that we as citizens seek out the alternative sources like the blogs and other sources of information and get the facts and sift them from the fictions portrayed by the media. Another way in which the crisis of confidence in the media can be overcome is through balanced and un-biased reporting by the mass media. In an age where corporate interests often collude with the coverage of the news, it is difficult to separate the conjunction of the news with that of views. Thus, what one sees on the television or reads in the newspaper is just another instance of the collusion of the media with that of the elite. What passes off for news and reporting is just another aspect of the elite dictating the news agenda. As Gore puts it, “If political and economic freedoms have been siblings in the history of liberty, it is the incestuous coupling of wealth and power that poses the deadliest threat to democracy” (Gore 72-3). As long as reason is not the method for making the choices and fear and emotions take over the dominant mindset, it is inevitable that the electorate would keep on electing the same set of elite over and over again. The solution proposed is for citizen journalists and the advent of citizen media that focuses on the real issues at hand and does not “trivialize meaning”. Thus, one needs an honest and accurate reporting of the situation on the ground without recourse to fear and emotion as the vehicle for action. The solution also envisages an overhaul of the education system that treats children as rational and emotional individuals instead of just rational and then tries to emotionally manipulate them. Further, politics requires active participation from the public and indifference would only lead to strengthening the hands of the ruling elite. Active participation can be brought about by harnessing the power of the alternative media in mobilizing people globally and locally. This would involve participation by the “silent majority” instead of the minority hijacking the agenda. Conclusion We have seen how the tiny minority exercise control over the popular imagination by carefully disseminating information and news related to propagating their interests and promoting their agendas. By the selective use of social control techniques they seek to exercise control over the masses. We have also seen how the advent of online media is challenging the nature of media manipulation and the choice of the medium in itself is becoming the instrument of resistance to the prevailing mores. The recent presidential campaign of Barack Obama has shown how the power of the internet can be harnessed for achieving the levels of mobilization that are needed to bring about the necessary levels of public participation in the national discourse. The Obama campaign has relied heavily on the YouTube videos to spread their message as well as raise the funding required for their campaign. Toynbee had warned us long ago that as far as the creative minority is dormant, civilizations continue to flounder. Thus, it is this voice that needs to be heard and counted upon to make the difference. The internet as a leveller can be harnessed and made use of to bring about the kind of rationality and reason to a polity that is otherwise dictated by fear and emotions. In conclusion, there is reason for hope amid the overarching control of the mass media with the use of internet as a medium. It is the fervent hope of this author that alternatives to the prevailing discourse are found by the silent majority and free and unbiased reporting and entertainment programs that don’t seek to dumb down the people are aired. In the prevailing gloom of rancour and despair, I do see some hope in the way in which some stirrings of public awakening are happening around the world. Sources Gore, Albert. The Assault on Reason. New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. Elliott-Buckley, Stephen. "Democracy(tm): Challenging the Hyper-Individualism of Packaged Democracy" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the ISAs 49th ANNUAL CONVENTION, BRIDGING MULTIPLE DIVIDES, Hilton San Francisco, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA, Mar 26, 2008 . 2008-10-08 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p254380_index.html Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Viking, 1985. Mcquaid, John. "New media battles old to define Internet-era politics. (Politics and the New Media). ." Nieman Reports.  62.2 (Summer 2008): 42(3). Academic OneFile. Gale. 11Oct.2008  . Kurtz, Paul. Secular humanists vs. the global Mediacracy. Free Inquiry, Vol.18, 1998. McChesney, Robert W. The Political Economy of the Mass Media: An Interview with Edward S. Herm, Monthly Review, Vol. 40, January 1989. Schiffrin, Andre. The Corporatization of Publishing: Books Are Becoming like Everything Else the Mass Media Turn Out. The Nation, Vol. 262. June, 1996. Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent. New York: Allen Lane, 1995. Read More