Information about Corporate Media

"Corporate media" is a term used by some political progressives which refers to a system of media production, distribution, ownership, and funding which is dominated by corporations, and is governed by the capitalist imperatives of maximizing profits for the investors, stockholders, and advertisers.

It is sometimes used as a term of derision to indicate a media system which does not serve the public interest in place of the "mainstream media" or "MSM," which tends to be used by both the left and the right as a derisive term.

Background

Media critics such as Robert McChesney ^[1], Ben Bagdikian ^[2], Ralph Nader, Jim Hightower^[3], and Amy Goodman suggest that such a media system, especially when allowed to dominate the mainstream media, inevitably will be manipulated by these same corporations to suit their own interests. These critics point out that the main national networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, as well as most if not all of the smaller cable channels, are owned, funded, and controlled by an interconnected network of large corporate conglomerates and international banking interests, which they say manipulate and filter out news that does not fit their corporate agenda.

They also argue that the programming on these outlets clearly reflects the conservative views of its owners, most notably Fox News Channel, headed by Rupert Murdoch through his parent company News Corp., as well as Roger Ailes, the CEO of FOX News itself.

Propaganda Model

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman have established a propaganda model which purports to explain this bias. The common misinterpretation of this model is that all bias is conscious and centralized. The process however is hypothesized to be decentralized and operates as a confluence of factors that includes the overt pressure from owners and advertisers, but also by the gradual internalization of the biases and values of the corporate owners, leading to self-censorship.

Other factors include the tendency of journalists to avoid doing original research, instead obtaining news from the same few wire services, such as Reuters and Associated Press, which themselves tend to cover the same news under the same perspective. Due to the desire to reduce operation costs, the mainstream media favor news pieces that are pre-made by these news agencies instead of conducting their own reporting.

Impact of Public Relations on News and Public Affairs Programming

This same economic pressure makes media susceptible to manipulation by government and other corporate sources through the widespread use of press releases, often created by industry-funded public relations firms. The point of view of the military, police, CIA, and political offices are often reported as facts. Quite often, the press releases are published verbatim without any fact checking.

Factcheck.org, created by the Annenberg school of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, found hundreds of misrepresentations in political ads that were never corrected by the mainstream media. Studies also show that those who rely on the media for their information have a poor understanding of the issues and are unable to discern misrepresentations in political advertising.

As documented by authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, it is becoming increasingly common for video news releases (VNR) to be created by government and corporations, mimicking TV news story-format to be used straight into broadcasting in a newscast. Other factors include the cost of litigation. Large corporations tend to sue over any news that are against their interests, causing great expense for the news editors. Even if the litigation is lost, the cost of time and pressure will certainly bias a reporter towards avoiding such possibility.

See also

The term can be contrasted with "liberal media," a term used by many U.S. conservatives which implies that the network media has a liberal bias.

Another contrasting term is "Citizen Media," which purports to be a grassroots, all-inclusive, public access, participatory media system intended to serve the public interest "naturally" by allowing anyone to be a producer or content provider.

• Media democracy

References

• Taylor, Alan: We, the Media: Pedagogic Intrusions into US Mainstream Film and News Broadcasting Rhetorics, Ownerships, Genre and Media Laws, Peter Lang, 2005, ISBN 3-631-51852-8, http://wethemedia.edublogs.org

External links

• Independent World Television
• FAIR: Corporate Ownership
• The Nation: Corporate Media & Consolidation
• Fairness Doctrine Vetoed by both Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush