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May
19, 2003
John
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Blair's Awkward Lies
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Play It Again, O-Sam-a
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17 / 18, 2003
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Guthrie
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May
19, 2003
Of Monopolies and Hypocrisy
Corporate
Media and the Free Market
by MATT VIDAL
The role of the US media in disseminating official
ideology has increased, over the last few decades, in proportion
with media corporatization and concentration. Since the bombing
of the Twin Towers by Saudi nationals, and the Bush regime's
subsequent assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq, the corporate media
have systematically failed as stewards of the means of communication.
Thus, completely absent were stories
on whether Iraq was a real threat to US national security outside
of official discourse. Nearly all of the experts on international
relations and global geopolitics in academia objected to Administration
claims of an imminent threat, but the corporate media largely
chose to get 'expert' opinion only from the White House, Pentagon,
and neoconservative think tanks. Few and far between were stories
on civilian deaths and suffering; US use of internationally condemned
weapons such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons; forged,
shoddy and overwhelmingly unconvincing evidence in support of
Bush's arguments for war; et cetera.
Instead, we are force fed Pentagon PR
copy. It's hard to tell whether the red-white-and-blue TV graphics-including
US military hardware specs that seemed to come straight out of
a video game-also came from the Pentagon or were actually created
independently by the networks.
(Recall Dan Rather's open-ended, unscreened
interview with Hussein. Even if it were possible to get a similar
one with Bush, who really believes that Rather would throw hardballs
and question Bush's veracity, as he did with Hussein? Would Rather,
or any network anchor, seriously interrogate Bush on the unproven
links between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda, or the WMDs yet
to be found?)
This came as no surprise to leftists,
who've been criticizing media concentration for years, arguing
that this is what you get when defense contractors like GE own
media conglomerates such as NBC. The US media-from radio and
TV to books and film-are now dominated by less than ten mega-corporations.[1]
Yet, the Federal Communications Commission is currently recommending
a series of changes in ownership rules that will further media
concentration.
Two proposals, in particular, comically
display the true intent of the current round of 'deregulation.'
The FCC says it must modernize the ownership rules in accordance
with changing markets and technology, by increasing the national
television ownership cap from 35 to 45% of the national audience.
Yet, they also propose to retain the 'UHF discount,' which counts
two viewers of a UHF station as one. This rule, enacted when
viewers had to use special antennas to receive UHF stations,
is the true anachronism. Thus, while cable and satellite TV have
made this rule obsolete, it is maintained in conjunction with
a new rule that will serve only one purpose: to increase media
concentration.
These proposals have generated criticisms
from a number of quarters. As reported in the May 13 New York
Times, there is even dissent from Democrats-that's right,
dissent from Democrats!-within the FCC, and from within the media:
"Local affiliates and small broadcasting stations . . .
say it would homogenize entertainment, discourage local news
coverage in favor of national broadcasts and reduce the commercial
leverage of the local stations to offer independent programming."
These and other criticisms of this current
round of media deregulation are on target. However, there is
another great hypocrisy here. The theory behind deregulation
is to increase so-called market efficiency. But by leading to
increased concentration in the market, such 'deregulation' increases
market imperfections (i.e., oligopolies), thus increasing 'distortions'
in the market and decreasing efficiency, not to mention diversity.
Yes, that's right. An agency in the Bush
Administration is deliberately crafting anti-free market ownership
rules. And this type of action (which often takes place through
changing regulations by largely unaccountable agencies, rather
than through legislation) is the rule in the Bush Administration,
not the exception. And this type of action (which essentially
re-writes rules to favor wealthy owners at the expense of workers)
has been regularly occurring since the neoliberals gained control
when Reagan entered office on a platform of entrepreneurialism,
free markets, and small government. Regarding the latter, the
total federal outlay doubled from $590 billion in the year Reagan
took office to $1 trillion in his final year.
Yet, the American mythology of free markets
and hard work is still firmly believed by most, even many in
the majority of workers whose real (inflation-adjusted) wages
have stagnated for the last three decades. In this mythology
'big government' is the enemy, and any sort of 'regulation' of
private industry distorts the magical workings of the market.
However, this mythology is based loosely
on economic theory. Yet, in that economic theory, what the 'free
market' refers to is not necessarily markets free of government
intervention. Rather, the magic (i.e., allocative efficiency)
of the market comes when markets are perfectly competitive and
consumers have perfect information about all their choices. In
this scenario, which exists only in theory, the consumers will
be sovereign and markets will respond to their preferences (hence,
the 'invisible hand').
But as any Econ 101 textbook says, the
opposite of a perfectly competitive market is a monopoly or oligopoly.
When such exists, the concentrated power of the oligopolists
distorts the market in the same way that some forms of government
intervention might. Thus, if a set of 'deregulatory' policies
actually increases oligopoly, as the current FCC proposals promise
to do, then they are anti-free market policies. The Bush Administration,
of course, knows this.
But there are two other lessons here.
First, it turns out that government intervention may actually
increase the efficient function of markets by, say, reducing
oligopoly and fostering competition. This is exactly what the
current set of FCC regulations, about to be scrapped, do.
Second, who are the forces behind these
anti-free market initiatives? Of course, they are the Bush Administration
and the mega-corporations behind the lobby. The American mythology
of hard work and free markets is so convincing that many people
simply don't realize a basic, undeniable fact: capitalists may
like competition for other people, but they all want a monopoly
in their own market.
The relentless drive of capitalists and
their political lackeys to cut government services and deregulate
the economy is largely an attempt to shift concentrated power
away from the government (where it is in principle accountable
to the people) and into the private hands of multinational corporations.
As this currently takes place in media ownership, it is all the
more ominous given the role of such media concentration in filtering
and narrowing the public information and discourse. [2]
Notes
[1]. McChesney, Robert W. 1997. Corporate
Media and the Threat to Democracy. See also Ben H. Bagdikian.
1992. The Media Monopoly, Fourth Edition.
[2]. On the role of concentrated wealth and power in filtering
the news, see Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing
Consent.
Matt Vidal is
pursuing his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
He can be reached at: mvidal@ssc.wisc.edu
Today's
Features
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
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