political economy of news dr. moses shumow [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Key questions
• What do we mean by the “political economy” of news production?
• Why is this approach important when we think about different approaches to media literacy?
• Within the context of MDLAB, how can we update older models—developed before the Internet—for the digital age?
• Access• Awareness• Assessment• Appreciation• Action
5 A’s of Media Literacy
John Dewey
Democratic theories of the press
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
“Only in the light of the public sphere did that which existed become revealed, did everything become visible to all. In the discussion among citizens issues were made topical and took on shape.”
Democratic theories of the press
Democratic theories of the press
“The existence of some kind of degree of public interest in the operation of the mass media has clearly been widely accepted, and it has much to do with the rise of democracy and of a ‘public sphere,’ in which opinions are formed and expressed by citizens on the basis of common knowledge and of widely held values.”
– Dennis Mcquail, Media Performance
…original term used for studying production and trade, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of income and wealth.
Political Economy
Media OwnershipConcentration of ownership– Fewer corporations own the media
Conglomeration – Media as part of larger business corporations.
Integration– Horizontal integration: buying out other companies• Cross-promotion, synergy, efficiency…
– Vertical integration: controlling raw materials• Monopoly, autonomy, safety net…
Consequences of Concentration
• Homogenization of Media Products• Concentration of power• Limited media access• Blurring line between news/business• Increased bottom-line pressure• Business-conscious media personnel• Business interests vs. public interests
Flooding in Minot, North Dakota, USA & Clear Channel Radio
The Media Monopoly
“Five global-dimension firms, operating with many of the characteristics of a cartel, own most of the newspapers, magazines, book publishers, motion picture studios, and radio and television stations in the United States. Each medium they…covers the entire country…[T]he programs broadcast in the six empty stations in Minot, ND, were simultaneously being broadcast in New York City” (Bagdikian, 2003, p. 3).
Propaganda Model of the media• Explain performance of US media in terms of basic
institutional structures and relationship• Among other function, the media serve, and
propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them
• Structural factors: – Ownership & control– Dependence on funding sources (advertising)– Relationship between media and those who make the
news• Model describes forces that shape what the media
do; does not imply that propaganda is always effective
Examples of the Propaganda Model
• Syria conflict and “experts” brought on to talk about attack– 89 experts on Sunday program, only 1 anti-war
voice– Many experts sit on the boards of weapons
manufacturers• Iraq War: CNN and the Generals
General Jack Keane (Ret.) • Nine appearances on FOX, late summer 2014• Special adviser to Academi, the contractor
formerly known as Blackwater; board member to tank and aircraft manufacturer General Dynamics; a “venture partner” to SCP Partners, an investment firm that partners with defense contractors.
• In 2013, General Dynamics paid him $258,006.
“…the media have become a significant antidemocratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. The wealthier and more powerful media giants have become, the poorer the prospects for participatory democracy…[T]his concentration accentuates the core tendencies of a profit-driven, advertising supported media system: hypercommercialism and denigration of journalism and public service. It is a poison pill for democracy.”
- Robert McChesney, 2000, p. 3
“(In 1968) Roger Ailes boasted to a reporter that television would one day replace the political party as the most powerful force in American politics.”
“On the one hand, Ailes is certainly hoping to produce the best television, which would give the unpredictable Perry the advantage. ‘People will want Perry in just because of the ‘oops’ factor,’ one GOP media adviser said, referring to Perry’s infamous brain freeze from 2012. Others stressed Kasich’s close relationship with Ailes, an Ohio native. Before getting back into politics, Kasich hosted a weekly Fox show. ‘Roger likes Kasich,’ a Fox insider told me. ‘Plus Roger knows it'll look awful if the sitting governor isn't on that stage.’”
Arab Media and the Arab Spring
Arab Media and the Arab Spring“Today, Arab media is divided. Media outlets have become like parties; politics dominates the business and on both sides of the landscape and people can't really depend on one channel to get their full news digest…The problem isn't who is telling lies and who is accurate. Media organisations are giving the part of the story that serves the agenda of their financier, so it's clear that only part of the truth is exposed while the other part is buried…The elite are once again dealing with Arab news channels the way they used to do with Arab state media.”
- Ali Hashem, The Guardian, April 3, 2012
Al-Jazeera and Bahrain uprising
“Over the past three months the [Bahraini] authorities have embarked upon a devastating campaign of repression, intimidation and torture that…Yet the coverage on Al Jazeera has been largely limited to brief mentions and a backstage examination of why the world’s media has been so slow to cover the events there.”
- Aryn Baker, Time, May 24, 2011
• Rotana Records (Largest Arab record label, 100+ artists)
• Rotana TV (12 channels)• Rotana Radio (9 stations, plays mostly music from
Rotana artists)• Advertising agencies• Movie productions (40% of local market)• Arab Ventures (LBC Sat)• International ventures: Fox
Who owns Rotana?
News Corp (Fox) owns 18.97% of Rotana…Kingdom Holdings (Walid Bin Talal) owns 7% of News Corp
Middle East Broadcasting CenterOwner: Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim (Saudi royal family)13+ TV channels: MBC1, 2, 3, 4, max, action, persia, wanasah, drama, masr, masr+2, Bollywood, al-Arabiya,2 Radio stations: MBC FM, PanoramaOther: + Production companies, video on demand, MBC.net…
MBC was started with direct investments from King Fahd
Orbit Showtime Network (prior: Orbit + Showtime)Owner: Mawarid Holding (Khalid bin Abdullah + Fahd bin Abdullah -both Saudi royals) - 154 television channels with movies, series, sports, documentaries, news, children's entertainment, and talk shows- OSN controls access to numerous Arab and Western media via Sat. - Mawarid Holding: banking, perfumes, cosmetics, telecommunications, satellite television, restaurants, and radio network sector.
Arab Radio and Television entertainment network
Owner: Waleed bin Talal + business partner Saleh Kamel (Saudi)
Numerous stations, Sat services, programs, studios, etc.
OSN and ART have several joint ventures
Mobile and ISPs
Emerging oligopolies of Arab Internet media.
Saudi (Saudi Oger, Saudi Telecom) and U.A.E. companies (+ owners from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan) dominate Arab mobile phones and ISPs.
Kuwait, Bahrain, and France (Orange Telecom/France Telecom) also have a significant stake.
“Political economy should be the organizing principle for analyzing the digital revolution…The profit motive, commercialism, public relations, marketing, advertising—all defining features of contemporary corporate capitalism—are foundational to any assessment of how the Internet has developed and is likely to develop. Any attempt to make sense of democracy divorced from capitalism is dubious.”
End of Net Neutrality?
That’s traffic. But what about content? What do we really read on Facebook?*
*And why?
"If in five years I’m just watching NFL-endorsed ESPN clips through a syndication deal with a messaging app, and Vice is just an age-skewed Viacom with better audience data, and I’m looking up the same trivia on Genius instead of Wikipedia, and ‘publications’ are just content agencies that solve temporary optimization issues for much larger platforms, what will have been point of the last 20 years of creating things for the web?"
“As more content is published directly onto Facebook, users will gradually lose a sense of who’s producing what. The most consequential journalism becomes just another unit of content in a single stream of music videos, movie trailers, updates from friends and relatives, advertisements, and viral tidbits from sites adept at gaming fast-changing algorithms and behaviors. Readerships that seem large now will turn out to be as ephemeral as Snapchats.”
- Josh Dzieza, The Verge
What do we really read on Facebook?
1. Quiz2. Thing that is basically false, by a site owned by IBT Media that hosts stories with headlines like “10 Latinas Who’ve Definitely Had Plastic Surgery,” which, unlike most stories on the site, does not carry a byline3. Quiz4. Quiz5. Quiz6. Quiz7. A death hoax from a site that is comprised ENTIRELY of fake stories and “satire” intended to be shared by people who don’t realize that it’s satire.8. Quiz9. EliteDaily :(10. Quiz
Facebook as the new gatekeeper
MIT Technology Review, July 9, 2015
• In the 2nd Quarter of 2014, Facebook drove 20% of traffic to new sites (How? No one, and they aren’t telling).
• Google and Facebook together take 52 percent of all digital advertising.
• In the first quarter of 2015, NYT earned $14 million a month in ad revenue—15 years ago, the Times was averaging more than $100 million a month in ad revenue.
• Publishers are giving up their own channels to become suppliers of content—there is no New York Times, there are just New York Times articles
Facebook as the new gatekeeper
Putting it all in context• The political economy approach to news
production is not an attempt to uncover a conspiracy—these are the outcomes of a particular model of news production
• Understanding the forces shaping news production are key to the AWARENESS & ASSESSMENT skills that are a core function of media literacy education
• Healthy skepticism is a more powerful tool than detached cynicism
Selected BibliographyJürgen Habermas, The Structure Transformation of the public sphere. https://books.google.com.lb/books?id=e799caakIWoCJohn Dewey, Education & Democracy. https://books.google.com.lb/books?isbn=0486433994Denis Mcquail, Mass Communication and the Public Interest. https://books.google.com.lb/books?isbn=1446232689David Capuroso & David Levine, Theories of Political Economy. https://books.google.com.lb/books?isbn=0521425786Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly. https://books.google.com.lb/books?isbn=0807061794Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. https://books.google.com.lb/books?isbn=0307801624Michael Calderone, “TV News Shows Largely Ignored Anti-War Voices In Run-Up To Syria Strikes: Study.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/media-syria-anti-war_n_6160026.htmlDavid Barstow, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewanted=allRobert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1620970708Gabriel Sherman, “The Fox News GOP Debate Could Draw the Biggest Audience in Cable News History — and Roger Ailes Is Making All the Rules.” http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/roger-ailes-primary.htmlAli Hashem, “The Arab spring has shaken Arab TV's credibility.” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/03/arab-spring-arab-tv-credibility
Selected Bibliography (cont.)Aryn Baker, Bahrain’s Voiceless: How al-Jazeera’s Coverage of the Arab Spring Is Uneven. http://world.time.com/2011/05/24/bahrains-voiceless-how-al-jazeeras-coverage-of-the-arab-spring-is-uneven/Robert McChesney, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is turning the Internet Against Democracy. https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1595588914Carolyn Moss, “John Oliver Hilariously Explains The Dire Importance Of Net Neutrality In A Way That Makes Sense”http://www.businessinsider.com/john-oliver-explains-net-neutrality-2014-6#ixzz3iWntYtD1Hank Green, “Theft, Lies, and Facebook Video: Facebook says it’s now streaming more video than YouTube. To be able to make that claim, all they had to do was cheat, lie, and steal.” https://medium.com/@hankgreen/theft-lies-and-facebook-video-656b0ffed369John Herrman, “The Next Internet is TV.” http://www.theawl.com/2015/02/the-next-internet-is-tvJosh, Dzieza, “Website, Profiled: Why are the most important people in media reading The Awl?” http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/9/8908279/the-awl-profile-choire-sicha-john-herrman-matt-buchananJohn Herrman, “Cash and Anxiety on the Weird New Internet.” http://www.theawl.com/2014/10/cash-and-anxiety-on-the-weird-new-internetMichael Wolf, “Facebook Instant Articles Just Don’t Add Up for Publishers.”http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539066/facebook-instant-articles-just-dont-add-up-for-publishers/Global Research, The Saudi Cables: Buying Silence. How the Saudi Foreign Ministry controls Arab Media. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-saudi-cables-buying-silence-how-the-saudi-foreign-ministry-controls-arab-media/5457581