Jay Baker

I mentioned in a comment earlier the importance of media literacy and in a way, that is how this post came into being.

Media play a huge role in the lives of Americans and we have very little understanding of how things actually work. Most Americans haven’t the faintest clue on (or a definition of) topics like: media conglomeration, memes, media viruses, infotainment, propaganda or coercion etc. I will try to address some of these issues in my next few postings as to better illuminate the topic and to promote my solution: a required media literacy class beginning perhaps as early as junior/middle school.

Media Conglomeration

Not many realize that the vast majority of media outlets are owned by a very few companies. (In this case I am referring to what could be called “traditional media” i.e. radio, television, print etc. and not to the internet as there are many independent Web sites). Not to pick on any one company, but let’s focus on Time Warner (formerly AOL Time Warner) for now. Take a look at their assets. They hold a massive stake in the media business. They don’t do too badly either pulling in a revenue of $43.7 billion in 2005 alone.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that the media outlets owned by Time Warner will have better backing. That’s good because let’s say Time magazine doesn’t do so hot one year, they have big brother to come in and help.

The point where it becomes a problem is that Time Warner is not actually a person (or even controlled by one person for that matter). Time Warner is a company. And what do companies do? They try to make money. Not that there is anything wrong with making money, but what are media outlets supposed to do? They are supposed to pass along the truth (by the simplest definition, this of course does not account for “watchdog” duties or public responsibility etc.). But surely, a conflict of interest would never come in to play … Well, that’s not really the case.

Let’s say John Smith, a reporter for CNN, comes across an internal memo from Time Warner that says, let’s say … they have mandated discrimination policies (not that they do, this is all hypothetical of course). Because CNN is owned by Time Warner, John Smith could potentially lose his job, or be reprimanded for bringing up this story to his editors. Not to say that this would happen or that CNN has done anything like this.

Perhaps an even greater repercussion of Media Conglomeration is market driven journalism. Because media outlets are now owned by huge companies which exist for the purpose of turning a profit, the media outlets must then also have the goal of turning a profit. And in the media world this means ratings (or readership etc.). And what’s the best way to increase ratings? Sensationalism.

Sensationalism in media is the over reporting of a particular topic (like crime) or over-the-top reporting. A great example would be a story about Brittany Spear’s divorce on the top stories of cnn.com during election night. Or better yet, the over reporting of crime. While crime levels have dropped significantly recently (see this report), reporting of crime is way up. The reasoning is that people are more interested in watching the news if it is frightening. That’s why you hear phrases like “Is your family safe? Stay tuned to find out …” etc.

Media conglomeration has done some good things for journalism. However, most people do not see the negatives like those listed above. Media conglomerates, being bureaucracies, will have problems, inherent in the system, that lead to sensationalism, infotainment etc. According to Weber and his views on bureaucracy, these issues are largely unavoidable and even the most ideal bureaucracy will exhibit the problems typical of this social arrangement.