Sibi, Juli Ann Rosette M. BAMC – IV
Comm 141
An Analytical Paper: New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian New media monopoly
When a person has a hold over information, in his or her hands is an immense amount of power. For years, media has held this th is power in their the ir hands. They filter through the information, as such is their gatekeeping function, and disseminate information they believe, through an editorial process, is the most important news for the day. The process has been like this for years and the search for information and digging deeper for more has created a noble picture of the journalist. One can only look at images of Joseph Pulitzer and even Edward Murrow, and feel utmost respect for them. Both men, living in different times—one at the golden age of print [1], one at the beginnings of broadcast—have given journalists a picture of what it’s like to use the power bestowed upon them by the public into good hands. Murrow was often referred to as the “most distinguished figure in broadcast journalism” [2] for aside from covering World War II, he developed many techniques in delivering broadcast news, and his fervor in delivering important news such as government abuses and corporate greed made him more known. He influenced much of public opinion, and Murrow has ultimately helped in the discussion on policy making through his broadcasts. The days of Pulitzer and Murrow were often seen by many as the Golden Days of Journalism—when the profession was seen as a noble one, one of truth, integrity, and one that fulfilled its role as a public service. The “decline” of this golden age began as competition grew between media outlets, it became harder for them survive. The business side of the media outlet could not handle the terse territory that comes with challenging the “powers that be” which is how Murrow often referred his corporate sponsors. Media outlets were often seen as perfect investments as they helped control public opinion (hence political sponsors were also common through corporate profiles) and are also the perfect way to advertise new products, events and whatnot, making it a lucrative business as well. However, media outlets became a challenge to maintain when journalists themselves called out their sponsors—both political and corporate. Sponsors would back out in penultimate moments and would greatly affect the performance of a news outlet to the point that they began having numerous layoffs. But this was only the beginning. Media became a tougher environment to work in with the development of new technology. There grew “audience fragmentation” [3], in which people were divided into the growing sources of news information. Newspapers, TV outlets, radio programs, the Internet, film—there were so many outlets for information, that the audiences were divided to the point that it was hard to make money in any media outlet.
It was in this kind of environment that media conglomeration began, and Ben Bagdikian often called it as a “monopoly” of sorts in his book New Media Monopoly[4]. An example that Bagdikian repeated often is the AOL Time Warner Company, which is a merger of three companies— American Online, Time Magazine by Henry Luce, and Warner Media. These three companies have merged in different periods of time, but have merged for one reason—to reach out to more people that have divided due to fragmentation, and have control over their perspectives and views by presenting to them similar materials. Bagdikian goes all the way and connects all five different major media American companies—Time Warner, Walt Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Viacom, and Bertelsmann—and almost like a conspiracy, ties them all together in a way that they may be different companies, but they behave similarly and disseminate the same information. Bagdikian even goes on and theorizes that some of them have the same members in their board even if it is illegal. Bagdikian bases his theory of new media monopoly on the ties between five major media outlets that own more than a thousand media outlets all over the United States, and all over the world as well. This gives five media companies the power to control information and monopolize the way people think on a global scale. Challenges brought by new media monopoly
First, new media monopoly gives the false image of democracy. In the year 1983, fifty corporations controlled U.S. media. People had a choice, although fifty corporations are already too few corporations to offer healthy competition in a country as huge as the United States. The number immediately compacted in four years, from 50 corporations down to 29 corporations. In the year 2004, 29 corporations had turned into 5 huge media mega conglomerates mentioned earlier that have a global scale. [5] This means that five corporations control public opinion all over the world. Five corporations control advertising, book publishing, news wire agencies, television shows and many more that have international scope. Five corporations control what people see on television, what people read on the newspaper, and these five corporations have the power to shape the way people think, without people actually realizing that someone is trying to control the way they view the world. This gives people a false image of democracy and freedom because one might think that they have a choice to filter out the things they need to know and not know, but in the end, they are only reading things other people want them to know. And if media monopolies have this kind of power, it becomes very prone to political corruption and it ends up playing a huge role in the persistence of political dynasties and the existence of huge political families that even if they have a terrible track record in public administration, they are still voted into office. Vote-hungry politicians look to media monopolies for support. That is because these monopolies have a huge reach as they have solved their issues on audience fragmentation, and media empire owners such as Rupert Murdoch back these vote-hungry politicians so that they create policies that benefit their empires. This has created a small circle of benefits that don’t ever trickle down to the marginalized and the disenfranchised in the world. Corruption persists because of this monopoly, and
the media that is supposed to be the bastion of integrity that will fight such a monopoly has become part of a now systemic problem. Bagdikian says that: “American media companies indulge in mutual aid, and share investments in the same media products. They jointly conform to the periodic ratings that presume to show what kinds of programs have fractionally larger audiences, after which “the competitors” then imitate the winners and take slightly varying shares of the total profits. One of the results of this constricted competitions is that the thousands of media outlets carry highly duplicative content.” Basically what Bagdikian says is that even if these media empires aren’t really sitting in one room sharing information with one another, they almost copy one another when the other is successful. Say a superhero movie becomes a blockbuster hit for Media Empire A—Media Empires B and C will then try to copy such superhero formulas, therefore giving us the same book with a different cover. And if this is what’s happening in our media, then we are basically receiving the same information over and over again. The very idea is frightening, and the very idea is a threat to media self-regulation, and is a threat to press freedom in totality, and this threat exists all over the world, and not just in the United States of America. Threat to media self-regulation
First, let us return to the definition of media self-regulation. Media self-regulation is defined by Miklos Haraszti as “a joint endeavor by media professionals to set up voluntary editorial guidelines and abide by them in a learning process open to the public .”[6] The existence of a new media monopoly is a threat to one major aspect of media self-regulation, and that is the idea that the public can interact and is closer to the media. Bagdikian said that this monopoly and control over information creates an impasse. People have become resigned to the assumption that what the major media tells them is the norm and is unchangeable. This makes the people passive; this makes people feel that they are unable to change anything about the media. Instead of double-checking on the media, the public becomes resigned to just believe the media, or if they do not, they feel that it is impossible to change the media anyway, because of the deep-rooted and systemic problems it has. Threat to press freedom
New media monopoly creates a threat against press freedom because individual journalists are being constrained by their corporate owners or sponsors. A journalist may have the most noble of intentions, but in the wrong media company, noble intentions are often put to naught. Although there are many true-to-life examples about this, I would find it difficult to cite it without assuming too much, hence I will be using an example that I found in the television show called The Newsroom, which I feel is a fitting example of how new media monopoly threatens press freedom.
In the Newsroom[7] , there exists a fictional broadcast company called “Atlantis World Media”. It is said to have the Koch brothers as one of their corporate sponsors, and Rupert Murdoch is also said to have a stake in their company. Both the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch are also mentioned to have stakes in other media companies as well, which makes their environment the perfect reflection of Bagdikian’s new media monopoly. AWM has a news channel called “Atlantis Cable News” and it features one of AWM’s highest-rated shows called “News Night”. This is anchored by Will McAvoy, one of New York City’s famous prosecutors turned news anchor. However, Will, with his sparkling resume as a prosecutor, often dissects his sources on air, and does not bother that the stories he is reporting are outwardly criticizing sponsors that help the show exist in the first place. In one episode, Will exposed the political agenda the Koch brothers are involved in. After the exposé, Will was called up to the owner of AWM’s office, and was threatened with suspension, if he did not stop reporting about the Koch brothers. The idea of the Koch brothers does not bother Will too much; but seeing that there are more things he needs to report, and more things he feels the public should know, Will stops reporting about the Koch brothers. The public began demanding more about the Koch brothers, but Will, threatened by the loss of his job and the people he can help with his job in the future, refuses to report about it any further. People started calling out their news channel for it, but AWM doesn’t respond to this, although Will is personally challenged by the experience, because he believes that reporting about what the Koch brothers have been doing with future senate candidates. The call soon dies out, and AWM continues on protecting its sponsors. Here, we see how corporate owners control media outlets, and how because media outlets refuse to listen to the public because of their corporate owners, media self-regulation then fails to operate effectively. New media monopoly in the Philippines
New media monopoly has already made its way in the Philippines, outside the confines of the United States and other Westernized countries. One might say that media monopoly was most evident in the pre-Marcos era. Ferdinand Marcos was rumored to have said that monopoly in the media was the reason why he shut the media down in the first place.[8] Although it was wrong to answer monopoly with a dictatorship, there was some kind of truth to his statement. The Lopez’s were one of the biggest oligarchs of the pre-Marcos era—owning a newspaper, several utility companies, plus a vast economic empire based in hacienda agriculture. Marcos may have curtailed such oligarchy back in his day, but in today’s world, the Lopez’s are back in power and are one of the highest-earners in the media and entertainment business. ABS-CBN Corporation, owned by the Lopez Holdings Corporation, is one of the largest entertainment and media conglomerates in the Philippines. It owns and operates two national television networks, ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Sports + Action, two regional radio networks, Radio Patrol and M.O.R. for Life!, and 12 cable channels including ABS-CBN News Channel, Balls, Cinema One, DYAB Teleradyo, DXAB Teleradyo Davao, and DZMM Teleradyo, Knowledge Channel, Myx, O Shopping and more cable
channels. They have a talent development agency through Star Magic, have a print publishing company in the name of ABS-CBN Publishing, have music production and publishing through Star Music, have film television production and distribution through Star Cinema, and they even deal in telecommunication services like SkyCable. [9] One of the clearest ways one can see how media monopoly works in the Philippines is how Manilacentric our media is. During the Manila Hostage crisis, almost every ABS-CBN media outlet covered the hostage crisis. All everyone was hearing on August 23, 2010 was about the hostage crisis. The crisis coverage took up prime air time, when ABS-CBN’s teleseryes are often aired. Local news coverage all over the country was taken over by the coverage of the hostage crisis—little did they know about a successful New People’s Army (NPA) ambush in Catarman, Samar in which policemen were brutally murdered after they were investigating a shootout. [10] News about the Catarman shootout only came out a few days after the Hostage Crisis coverage, showing the Manila-centric coverage of ABS-CBN, and how ABS-CBN managed to monopolize local airwaves in favor for news happening in Metro Manila . It does not end there as well. Because ABS-CBN is often viewed as a main player in the entertainment industry, competitors would not want to lag behind with news—so rival stations covered the hostage crisis as well. There was a monopoly on the news with that one issue, when so many other events were occurring on the same day as well. Remedies of new media monopoly
Bagdikian often cites the new media alternative as a remedy to the monopoly. He cites that skills in new technology “have been used for creative, progressive works that are open and surprisingly successful.” A perfect example I believe, of this remedy taking effect in the Philippines is the rise of online campaigns that have effectively raised awareness about many social issues. One issue I’d like to focus on would be the #StopLumadKillings one. Till this day, there is little to no coverage of the attack on lumad Filipinos on mainstream media—meanwhile, alternative media such as Rappler is taking the lead on the fight to stop lumad killings. Rappler was one of the first media outlets to break the news online. In a timeline by Tonyo Cruz[11] , he reported that it was the online media that came out with the news that lumad leaders were killed in an encounter with government forces after they fought eviction from their own lands. After which, some mainstream media came and covered, but hardly gave it the coverage it deserved. Meanwhile, alternative media covered the issue as it develops. Mainstream media only picked up some of the issues that Rappler and many other bloggers such as Tonyo Cruz posted. Rappler is a relatively young medium based online. It has garnered much attention for it is one of the few online platforms that serve as more than just a mirror site for news—it is interactive and allows many of its readers to feel that their emotions and thoughts play a huge role in the formation and curation of the news.
Because Rappler and other online bloggers don’t rely too much on corporate sponsors and whatnot, they often have the power to deviate from what mainstream media covers. Bagdikian often refers to the online community as “youthful Internet journalists and anthologists that have bypassed the traditional standard media.” He believes that because the online community is not tied to the huge media companies, they are more independent and have more freedom to cover the stories they want to without being limited by their sponsors, their advertisers, and especially not to political sponsors. This makes them a break in the monopoly—a remedy, a cure that can definitely change the way media views the way they form the news, and the way people view the media. Sources:
[1] Joseph Pulitzer. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Pulitzer [2] Edward Murrow. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/edward-r-murrow-this-reporter/513/ [3] Audience fragmentation. [4] Bagdikian, B. New Media Monopoly. [5] Webster, J. Audience Fragmentation in the Age of Digital Media.http://webster.soc.northwestern.edu/pubs/Webster%20&%20Ksiazek%20Audience%20Fragmentation%20 _(in%20press%20JOC)l.pdf [6] Haraszti, M. Media self-regulation. http://www.osce.org/fom/31497?download =true [7] Mundy, A. HBO’s The Newsroom Takes Aim at Koch Brothers. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/07/24/hbos-newsroom-takes-aim-at-koch-brothers/ [8] Country Studies: Proclamation 1081 and Martial Law. http://countrystudies.us/philippines/28.htm [9] ABS-CBN Annual Report. http://www.pds.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Disclosure-No.-554-2015Annual-Report-for-Fiscal-Year-Ended-December-31-2014-SEC-FORM-17-A.pdf [10] Desecada, M. 8 police officers killed by rebels in Northern Samar ambush. The Philippine Star. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/604696/8-police-officers-killed-rebels-northern-samar-ambush [11] Cruz, T. #StopLumadKillings: What You Need To Know. http://tonyocruz.com/?p=4805
