CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY

Who are Capitalists and what is Capitalism? At the turn of the 21st Century, the world that we live in has been through many significant events and changes. Industries that were relevant almost a century ago were no longer relevant, and newer, contemporary industries are gaining prominence. Entire regimes and governments have risen and fallen. Western countries that were in the forefront of human innovation advancement have been reduced to being financially unstable, whereas formerly known third-world countries of the East have advanced leaps and bounds and have become global economic powerhouses and game-changers. In any producing and consuming community, there is a need for an economic system. In order for an economy to function properly and run effectively, the community must realize that there is always a scarcity of resources and come up with creative ways to distribute and partition these resources sufficiently to the members of that particular community. Hence, over the years, economic experts and intellectuals have come up with different ideas of an economic system. One such economic system is capitalism. In capitalism, most of the industries and businesses in a country are privately owned by individuals rather than the government. According to Baran & Davis (2012), capitalists are the economic elites that rely on the profits they generated and then reinvested for their social power. Essentially, capitalists are people who use their own wealth or other peoples money to make more wealth. And such, we can agree that capitalism and consumerism goes hand in hand. The capitalist theory aims for and values progression, competition, technology, and economic rationalism. (Baran & Davis, 2012) No matter what their business, capitalists aim to make a profit. But this does not justify the notion of charging exorbitant prices or selling

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY inferior or bad goods and services. If they do, they will probably lose their customers and business to others with better goods or lower prices. This thus leads to competition and forces capitalists to sell the best goods at the lowest possible price. The profits made by the individual capitalists in free competition benefit the economy of an entire country. As capitalists make profits they can expand their business and create more jobs for the people in a nation. For capitalists, technology is good. This is because they thought that technological advancements facilitated control over the physical economic components, expanded human productivity and generated new forms of wealth. (Baran & Davis, 2012) It was capitalism and the everlasting human consumerism that brought us the many technological marvels that we now take for granted such as the computer, the Internet, the television, and even Apples bestselling iPhone. The drive to make more money and profits pushed modern human technology and innovations to the current state it is in. It is also important to note that capitalists believed that progression and technology would end all social problems and lead to the development of an ideal society. They also believed in the ability of the media to have powerful effects on people. However in early years of capitalism this was not the case. The capitalism-fueled Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century brought with it many problems that were going against the economic system. Without proper regulations, factory owners abused their power, and the working class suffered. Industrialization and the hunger for profits brought the exploitation of workers, sickening pollution and social unrest. As a result, there were many workers revolts and reformers who cried out against these conditions. One of the most famous and most outspoken critics of capitalism was the German revolutionary, Karl Marx, a proponent of communism and socialism. It was Marx who came up with the term capitalism

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY in his writing, Das Kapital, claiming that capitalism should die because of its cruel and greedy practices. (Baran & Davis, 2012) The critiques and dissatisfaction incited capitalist reforms and government laws and guidelines were made to ensure the good conduct of capitalism. Today, in many contemporary countries, the government plays an important role in the modern capitalist system or free enterprise system. Many nations now combine capitalism with government control of the economy and declare themselves to be democratically capitalist.

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY Capitalism in the News Media Today Any organisation that is in business or selling its goods and services for its self-profit can be called as a capitalist organisation. Hence, it is glaringly evident that that the mass media are ultimately profit driven organisations. Todays mass media increasingly depend on advertising as their primary source of income, especially the news media industry. This is opposed to the content driven news media and reporting before the late 20th and 21st Century. In those days, newspapers and other news media were able to make money solely for the stories and news that they report. Sadly, times have changed. The news media is no longer able to sustain its noble means of collecting capital and must resort to providing advertisement space or companies and corporations in their publishing to make significant profit. 99% of all advertisements out there are for goods and services. And by making money through advertisements, the news media are in fact acknowledging that they are a component of a bigger capitalist system and encourage consumerism. Besides that, we can also say that media amalgamations and conglomerates encourage capitalism. This is because when sectors of news media merge and come together under a bigger corporation or a part of an existing parent corporation, the pool of decision makers becomes concentrated and smaller. These corporations will always have a main head or owner or a small group of leaders that hold power and influence over what is being reported by the news media. Hence with fewer media owners and less competition, the prices of advertising will go up, which correlates to a bigger capital for the dominant news media. In a study conducted by Bagkidian (2004), the number of corporations that control a majority of media in the United States have dropped from 50 corporations in 1983 to just only five main

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY corporations in 2004. These five corporations or the Big 5 are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom CBS, News Corporation and the NBC. In some occurrences, capitalists with high-enough power can influence the freedom of the press and fabricate so-called public opinion. One such capitalist is the AustralianAmerican media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch is the owner and founder of News Corporation, which holds Fox channels and Fox News as its subsidiaries. Worldwide, he is notorious for his staunch rightist stand and conservative, anti-communist beliefs and is partial to the Republican Party. In a documentary directed by Robert Greenwald called Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, there are many accounts of former reporters and journalists from Fox News relating to the audience about how they received strict instructions from Murdoch to positively portray the United States Republican Party and create biased, oftentimes slanderous news about the rival Democratic Party, especially during the Bush administration. These individuals were even threatened of losing their jobs. (Greenwald, 2004) In 2008, Rupert Murdoch himself admitted to shaping the agenda and manipulating the news of his corporation. (Murdoch Fox News Admits Manipulating the News, 2011) It is also important to note that according to a survey conducted by a Public Policy Polling poll, the Fox News Channel is the most trusted network in the United States with 41% of Americans saying that it is the news channel that they still trust the most. (Kurtz, 2013) With such a large population of people being exposed to manipulated and false news, public opinion is obviously being fabricated and drilled into the minds of unsuspecting consumers to be perceived as the correct thinking and norm.

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY Capitalism also causes some news agencies to engage in self-censorship. The news agencies intentionally do not report stories that are damaging to financial interests of news organizations, stories that go against capitalism, democracy and warfare. (Ideas, culture and the media under capitalism) For example, news is oftentimes filled with footage and descriptions of weapons and aircraft. But there is little or no coverage on what happens to victims, whom they are aiming to ill with the weapons, & the real reasons behind the bombing as the producers of the bombs and weapons may be affiliated to the parent company of that particular news agency. This so-called conflict of interest will disrupt the traditional objectives of news reporting; fairness, unbiasedness, and the importance of knowing the truth. In the quest for making more money, capitalist news organisations increasingly feature tabloid news as they know that this brings in more audience members and more capital. One very good example of this is the Rupert Murdoch and the Page Three Girl situation. (Magnuson, 2003) Rupert Murdoch, the capitalist and owner of the News Corporation, realized that sex sells and introduced a new weekly segment that featured photographs of topless women in Londons The Sun, one of his newspapers. The Page Three Girl was aptly named after its placement in the newspaper pages and nearly doubled the sales of The Sun. (Braid, 2004)

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY How can Capitalism in the News Media be stopped? It is undeniable that capitalism has degraded the news media of today, together with modern democracy. How can we strive to put an end to this problem? The only evident answer would be the government as it possesses the right amount of power to curb the social freedom-killing ways of media capitalism. For starters, the government could start to regulate the whole media corporation environment. They should discourage media monopoly and encourage ownership diversity. This is because increased diversity of media ownership would lead to diversity in viewpoint and increased competition. (Magnuson, 2003) Besides that, the government could also establish anti-trust laws. Anti-trust laws which are also known as competition laws are laws that aim to make businesses compete justly and fairly. The laws were conceived based upon the belief that the economy, businesses and consumers are benefited from free trade. Monopolization and trade restraints are completely forbidden according to this law. This means that the monopolization and capitalization of the new media by certain powerful capitalist elites can be stopped and discouraged. (Antitrust Law) Another way to stop capitalism in the news media is through public education. (Magnuson, 2003) As we all know, knowledge is everything, and once a person is enlightened on his or her rights and realizes the current situation that the news media is in now, he or she would discover their moral social responsibility. In the case of media capitalism, awareness is essential. Capitalism in the media can be curbed when people become critically aware of what the capitalist news media are feeding and priming their cognitive consciousness for.

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY Works Cited

Antitrust Law. (n.d.). Retrieved from West's Encyclopedia of American Law Web site: http://iris.nyit.edu/~shartman/mba0101/trust.htm Bagkidian, B. H. (2004). The New Media Monopoly: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition With Seven New Chapters. Boston: Beacon. Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2012). Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future Sixth Edition. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning . Braid, M. (2004, September 14). Page Three girls - the naked truth. Retrieved from BBC News Online Web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3651850.stm Greenwald, R. (Director). (2004). Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism [Motion Picture]. Ideas, culture and the media under capitalism. (n.d.). Retrieved from Revolution Socialist Youth Movement Web site: http://www.socialistrevolution.org/ideas/the-system-thatkeeps-us-down/ideas-culture-and-the-media-under-capitalism/ Kurtz, H. (2013, February 6). Spin Cycle Howard Kurtz. Retrieved from The Daily Beast Web site: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/06/distrust-of-fox-newsgrowing.html

CAPITALISTS: CAPITALISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON NEWS MEDIA TODAY Magnuson, A. J. (2003, June 6). The Implications of Capitalism for Media : How Democracy Suffers. Retrieved from EDGE Web site: http://www.google.com.my/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=implications%20of%20capitalism%20 in%20the%20media&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3 A%2F%2Fwww.stanford.edu%2Fclass%2Fe297a%2FThe%2520Implications%2520o f%2520Capitalism%2520for%2520Media.doc&ei=bZwjU Media Reform Information Center. (n.d.). Retrieved from Corporation Org Web site: http://www.corporations.org/media/ Murdoch Fox News Admits Manipulating the News. (2011, July 13). Retrieved from Politicol News Web site: http://www.politicolnews.com/murdoch-fox-news-admitsmanipulating-the-news/