The Ethical Issues Brought about by the Astronomical Growth of the Media Sector Essay

Ever since the end of the Second World War, the role of the media in society has increasingly become pervasive, leading various thinkers to question how far that influence goes. Whether in rich or poor societies, democracies or dictatorships, the media has become a very powerful tool for diverse interest groups pushing partisan agendas.

With the astronomical growth that science and technology has triggered during that period, the wide availability of various communication systems has made the transmission of information vastly easier and the controllers of these processes extremely powerful.

A number of sectors have come under the control of elites around the world through the media, a rather worrying but common occurrence as Matheson says, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force”¹.

Human nature being what it is, the moment a segment of society dominates a key resource, it will not only seek to enrich itself through this resource, but also try to use the same resource as an instrument of power over the rest of society. The media has seen some of the most incredible instances of this type of behaviour and the following examples will illustrate this point.

From the moment the Nazis through Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels brought Germany under complete social control, politicians have always preferred to use the media as a tool to exercise and increase their control of the masses.

Goebbels took to heart the postulates advanced by Hall² decades later and narrowed the discourse in German media to a narrow pro-Nazi view. “We cannot be satisfied with just telling the people what we want and enlightening them as to how we are doing it… we must replace this enlightenment with an active government propaganda that aims at winning people over”, he once said³.

“It is not enough to reconcile people more or less to our regime, to move them towards a position of neutrality towards us, we would rather work on people until they are addicted to us”‎⁴. Goebbels methods grew in popularity later in the 20^th century; with leaders manipulating the media for all sorts of schemes ranging from simply winning public sympathy to whipping up support for wars.

This approach came to a head in the case of US Senator Joseph McCarthy who made sensational claims on American TV about the infiltration of the US government by communists at a time when Cold War tensions were at their height.

This earned him instant attention from the whole nation in a period when the television was growing in popularity. Even though it soon became clear that the politician had no evidence to substantiate his claims, the incident served to highlight how powerful the media was as a channel of putting a message across.

We conclude, “The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin (McCarthy) have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies… and whose fault is that? Not really his; he didn’t create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it and rather successfully”⁵.

American politicians subsequently developed refined methods of pushing their agenda through the media, achieving the same goals that Senator McCarthy pursued but with subtler, less detectable efforts.

McCarthyism ⁶ never really died. It simply became more sophisticated as time passed and media platforms became more powerful. Today, all a politician needs is to have control over the most popular platforms and their schemes will have an easy ride.

A clear example of this is evident in Russia where current Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin exercises tight control over newspapers, radios and television stations.

According to a recent BBC report by Sandford, Mr Putin has decimated all political and social opposition through his control of the media, “Even in free and fair elections, perhaps Putin can win… but only due to the fact that the Russian media is totally controlled… there is no way for public (rival) politicians to appear”⁷. All the major media outlets openly practice self-censorship lest they face the wrath of the real power behind the Kremlin.

A common accusation against the media has been that it promotes the glorification of sexual gratification as an end in itself. The accusations target all types of media platforms with radio, TV and the internet being key conduits⁸.

Efforts to censor information consumed by people across the whole world have not kept up with the sexualisation of everything from politics to business while exposing even minors to very harmful material, with Ruddock wondering how far it will all go⁹.

This is evident in the subtle or sometimes blatant (mis)use of skimpily clad women to promote all sorts of things: “sex appeal can increase the effectiveness of an ad or commercial because it attracts the customer’s attention”¹⁰. The use of subtle references to sexuality in promotions is sure to produce instant reaction, whether negative or positive.

Marketers the world now routinely utilize sex appeal and this has created a thriving multi-billion advertising and modelling sector that serves the purposes of companies in need of the most catchy adverts Businesses the world over have realised the effect of advertising on their revenues.

This is evident in the huge budgets spent annually on marketing and the strong campaigns that keep consumers under a barrage of information lasting for hours when channelled through the media. Unless a radio station or TV outlet is undergoing a slump or deliberately avoiding promotions, there will be on average, hundreds of adverts every day, sometimes even more.

This gives businesses a powerful hand over the media in two ways. Firstly, the platforms preferred by most businesses soon become the most profitable outlets, increasingly becoming sensitive to company whims. Secondly, the programs or segments that attract most adverts from companies soon become templates imitated by the rest of the media so that the advertising financial domino ended up spreading the revenue around¹¹.

In the end, for a media platform to be profitable, it has to conform to the demands of businesses and this turns it into a tool or worse, a puppet.

The media has also been a useful tool for governments that are preparing countries for war and other controversial state policies. This came out clearly, after the September 11, 2001 attacks on America when the entire media supported the George W Bush administration as it initiated the ‘War on Terror’.

Not only did the president’s claims go unquestioned by journalists across the most democratic country on earth, but his fabrications were actively cheered, leading to the disastrous invasion of Iraq that has not only worsened the security situation in the Middle East and elsewhere but also increased radicalisation across the whole world, precipitating more terror rather than reducing it¹².

At the same time, the US is also stuck in Afghanistan, conducting a war against a largely invisible enemy in a territory that has never yielded to invaders throughout history. As the Bush administration’s second term ended, the largely docile media soon got confused over which agenda to pursue, as the voice of ordinary Americans became impossible muzzle.

Today US media alternates between active support for the two wars and strong opposition to military escalation in the battlefronts, while conveniently ignoring their role in pushing the country into the difficult situation in the first place.

Another key example is evident in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 when authorities used media outlets, RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines) and Radio Rwanda, to coordinate killings against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus who were sheltering the targeted community. In this case, the media propagated hate speech with a view to incite and mobilize militias while directing them into carrying out killings.

It is plausible that “The only people who had effective control of RTLM were the ones who were in the Studios in Kigali, directing, monitoring and sanctioning the actions of the soldier-broadcasters, who wore military uniforms and carried out the orders of the only authority that had the means of commanding obedience in the midst of the massacres: the army”¹³.

The murderous campaign was so efficiently conducted, the aggressors managed to kill an average of 8,000 people every day, bringing the death toll from the whole genocide to 800,000 people in a space of only 100 days.

To this day the country has not fully healed from the wounds of the tragedy and consequently has one of the most tightly controlled media in the East Africa region due to lingering ethnic suspicions and a glacially slow global justice system.

The other area in which the media has proven powerful is health. Private health providers have realised that in their respected sector, it is possible to use the media just like any other business segment to maximise profits. This has caused a rise in the promotion of all types of health solutions even when they are unnecessary or harmful.

The result is that the level of immunity to drugs among ordinary people is rising due to the regular consumption of unnecessary medicines because of health fears fuelled by pharmaceutical companies via the media.

A very “frightening consequence of indiscriminate use of antibiotics is the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria… that have “learned” to outsmart the drugs and have reproduced a generation of stronger, more resistant bugs… there are some serious infectious diseases that are no longer responding to antibiotics”¹⁴.

At the same time, big pharmaceutical firms that sell expensive drugs use the media to fight smaller competitors who produce the same drugs but at a much lower cost. This has sparked one of the strangest intra-sector battles with consumers largely watching from the sidelines.

However, the most subtle and pervasive area in which the media exercises its influence is in the manufacturing of consent. In societies where the media is well developed, socialisation is segmented and perfected with mindsets and attitudes designed for the various demographics from toddlers all the way up to senior citizens, “For the first time… children can reach past the suffocating boundaries of social convention, past their elders’ rigid notions of what is good for them”¹⁵.

It involves the biggest media outlets at global level publishing identical items that silently nudge consumers to think in particular directions. This is particularly worrying when displayed by the mega news agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press that procure news for most of the leading media platforms in all continents.

By adapting a common approach to certain issues of public importance, they can easily sway global opinion in one direction or the other in a matter of hours.

This also extends to trivial areas such as the fashion industry that often pushes clothing and cosmetics especially to women based on the profit plans of designers as McKee points out¹⁶. What other females prefer heavily informs the consumer culture adapted by female consumer.

The aggregation of these preferences creates new “fashions” that are then championed by prominent females such as celebrities. This makes it possible for several companies to reap huge profits. Lury¹⁷ explains this point in a stark manner in her book about consumer culture.

Two prominent and exceptionally powerful individuals who are living proof of some examples given above are News Corporation majority shareholder Rupert Murdoch and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who is also a majority shareholder in many Italian media houses.

The Rupert Murdoch empire spans all sorts of media outlets including internet, TV, radio, newspaper and digital transmission with products targeting every demographic. Mr Murdoch personally runs his corporation as president and CEO, taking a hands-on approach to promoting his business interests whether his moves look professional or not.

News Corporation currently owns more 200 leading media outlets and had revenues of $ 32.778 billion by 2010. Some of Murdoch’s influential holdings include 20th Century Fox; Fox News Channel; BSkyB; The Sun; News of the World and HarperCollins.

Silvio Berlusconi on the other hand has evolved into the most powerful businessperson and politician in Italy, retaining significant popularity due to his almost total ownership of the country’s media outlets. Ever since Mr Berlusconi decided to move into politics in 1994, his influence has risen meteorically, and his flagship company, Mediaset has grown its revenues exceptionally well.

As of 2010 Mediaset had a revenue base €4.292 billion that was generated by almost 20 different media outlets within and outside Italy. This dominance has ensured that Mr Berlusconi always gets partial treatment whenever there is any public controversy surrounding him.

As a result, numerous scandals and court cases that have dogged him over the years have not dented his political standing in the least and his influence continues to increase. These examples illustrate the power of the media in society.

Ginsborg¹⁸ explains, “England thinks in certain crises is largely controlled by a very few men, not by virtue of the direct expression of any opinion of their own, but by controlling the distribution of emphasis in the telling of facts: so stressing one group of them and keeping another group in the background as to make a given conclusion inevitable”¹⁹.

In conclusion, the media controls our ideas by deciding on what we should receive as consumers, narrowing or widening our vistas at will. The extent of this control over our ideas and realities is dependent on the amount of freedom in our societies- freedom of expressions and freedom of thought.

The grounding of the freedom of expression is on democracy and media independence while intelligence and open-mindedness grounds the freedom of thought. The less intelligent and free a society is, the tighter the control the media will have over its ideas and reality.

Indeed, the media has evolved into a very formidable agent of shaping the ideas of the society in general. Technological advances and cross platform media ownership increases the grip media owners have over the listeners and viewers. Whoever controls the media controls the society.

Bibliography

Biju-Duval, J. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. IDRC, London, 2007.

Buckingham, D. The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics. Routledge, London, 2000.

Clark, A. The Power of Advertising, 2007. Web.

Curtis, A. The Power of Nightmares. 2004.

Dictionary, McCarthyism – Definition and more, 2007. Web.

Fitzgerald, B. McCarthyism: The Red Scare. Minneapolis, Compass Point Books, 2007.

Ginsborg, P. Silvio Berlusconi : Television, Power and Patrimony. London, Verso, 2005.

Hall, S. Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. Sage, London, 1997.

Levit,M. Sex in Advertising, Does it Sell?, 2005. Web.

Lury, C. Consumer Culture. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996.

Matheson, D. Media Discourses: Analysing Media Texts. Open University Press, Maidenhead, England, 2005.

McKee, A. The public sphere: an introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.

Pilger, J. The hidden power of the media. 1996.

Ruddock, A. Understanding Audiences, Sage, London, 2000.

D. Sandford, BBC News – Russia’s Kremlin Race: Dmitry Medvedev v Vladimir Putin, 2011. Web.

Sheppard, J. Consequences of Excessive Antibiotic Use, 2001. Web.

Welch, D. Nazi Propaganda: The Power and the Limitations. Kent, Taylor & Francis, 1983.

Footnotes

1. D. Matheson, ‘The Stories They Tell Us: Studying Television as Narrative’, Media Discourses: Analysing Media Texts , Open University Press, Maidenhead, England, 2005, pp. 5.
2. S. Hall, ‘The Work of Representation’, Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices, Sage, London, 1997, pp. 49.
3. D. Welch, Nazi propaganda: The Power and the Limitations, Taylor & Francis, Kent, pp. 37.
4. ibid.
5. B. Fitzgerald, McCarthyism: The Red Scare, Compass Point Books, Minneapolis, 2007, pp. 72.
6. Dictionary, McCarthyism – Definition and more, 2007.
7. D. Sandford, BBC News – Russia’s Kremlin Race: Dmitry Medvedev v Vladimir Putin, 2011.
8. J. Pilger, (Director). (1996). The hidden power of the media [Motion Picture].
9. A. Ruddock, ‘Questions of Theory and Method’, Understanding Audiences, Sage, London, 2000, pp. 25.
10. M. Levit, Sex in Advertising, Does it Sell?, 2005.
11. A. Clark, The Power of Advertising, 2007.
12. A. Curtis, (Director). (2004 ). The Power of Nightmares [Motion Picture].
13. J. Biju-Duval, ‘Hate Media’ – Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide : Opportunities Missed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’, The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, IDRC, London, 2007, pp.355.
14. J. Sheppard, Consequences of Excessive Antibiotic Use, 2001.
15. D. Buckingham, ‘News, Education and Citizenship’, The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics, Routledge, London, 2000, pp. 222.
16. A. McKee, ‘The public sphere : introduction’, The public sphere : an introduction Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 1-18.
17. C. Lury, ‘The Domestic Revolution’, Consumer Culture, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 132.
18. P. Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi : Television, Power and Patrimony, Verso, London, 2005, pp. 7.
19. ibid.