Paul Todaro

10/15/17

Media Criticism

Media: An Industry to Protect us, or an Industry to be Protected From?

The media of today have turned into manipulative, strictly for-profit, societally detrimental

entities in which the interests of the owners of the media are the focus rather than the well-being of the

citizens who consume the media. We, as citizens, are molded into and treated as consuming bodies

from the day we are born until the day we die. Our interests and well-being are back-burner issues at

best when compared to capital gains and profits. This creates a problematic climate in the media

because on the surface, the media seem harmless, and sometimes even helpful, but the reality is that if

whatever we were watching, listening to, or reading weren’t profitable for the owners’ and their

owner’s, then it would not be produced or circulated. When just watching a TV show or listening to the

radio it is hard to connect the dots. It is difficult to see that while stations like National Geographic are

seemingly pro-environment and would likely be in support of things like renewable energy and saving

our forests and protected parks from corporate exploitation, are owned by NewsCorp which is owned by

Rupert “Corporate Exploitation” Murdoch, the father of Fox “News”. The influence and ideology is

camouflaged and, in most cases, hidden from our sight. If everybody really knew how the media

system’s gears turned, something would eventually change and regulations would be set in place due to

the likely frustration of the widely-exploited. Instead, the threat is hidden and has many faces in-order-

to not be recognized; we stay complacent and happy and do not ask questions or reach for change. The

gears keep turning, the money keeps flowing, and we keep losing.

In his documentary, Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney points out several flaws of

the media of today (even though it has gotten worse since the documentary as this was made years
ago). He understands and criticizes the widespread control of the few that have it in-regards-to mass-

media of today. Through advances with the internet and improvement of demographic targeting in the

media and advertisement industries, things have gotten even worse since the creation of his

documentary. McChesney states, “We have a conflict between the owner’s interests’ and making

money, and the public’s need for vibrant journalism”. He continues, “Unless we change the system,

unless we take back that power out of the hands of the Viacoms and the General Electrics it won’t

change, because they’re doing what makes perfect sense for them. Regrettably, that has dreadful

consequences for the rest of us” (McChesney, 1999, Rich Media Poor Democracy). These statements are

powerful, true, and problematic. He points out a crucial point; that the interests of those who have the

most power and widespread influence are the ones that are portrayed and marketed throughout the

planet. Even in impoverished countries where most people cannot afford to own a TV or have little-to-

no access to the internet are affected by the ideologies of the owners of the media. Through capitalistic

globalization, the corporations owning our media are buying up property and making deals with poor

governments in-order-to set up shop and “profit by being able to travel the world hiring cheap labor and

selling their products” (McChesney, Rich Media Poor Democracy). No matter who you are or where you

live, whether you are of a tribe or community in a jungle somewhere or work in a skyscraper in the big

apple, media ownership affects you profoundly.

Karl Marx, though often criticized and labeled as a communist or socialist, was more-right than

he gets credit for all the way back in the 1800’s. He, in many ways, foresaw how capitalism would

ultimately serve the wealthiest and most powerful while figuratively stuffing the public in a locker and

manipulating the public discourse and political powers into serving them. Marx was powerful in his

dialogue and writings and much smarter and more forward-thinking than he has been portrayed as

being. In A Contribution to the critique of Political Economy, Marx stated that “The mode of production

of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life process in general. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that

determines their consciousness” ((Marx, 1859, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

(Campbell, Jensen, Gomery, Fabos, Frechette, 2014, Media in Society, p. 167)). This, to me, means that

the social identity of a person governs that person’s consciousness or view of the world around them.

Rupert Murdoch’s being incredibly rich and powerful limits his social awareness and consciousness of

those that he affects, and ultimately in a way controls, in such a way that all he knows is his own and his

peers’ situations. He lacks social empathy due to being so far out of touch with the reality of the many

and in touch with his own narrow vision of the planet and its operations. I am not defending Murdoch

by any means as I think he would look great with a bullet through his throat on a live broadcast on his

baby, Fox “News”, but that’s neither here nor there. Similarly, the consciousness of the average citizen

may rely on quality journalism and critical analysis of the world and who controls what, but if the media

that are supposed to be critical of the powers that be are solely owned and funded by those same

entities, the critical analysis becomes far less critical and much more distracting of the subject. People

are not inherently dumb or submissive, but through the eyes of corporate owners all we are is

submissive and dumb. We are to be controlled, rallied into mediocrity and encouraged to reach high

enough, but not too high as that would cause real change. Change is dangerous and complacency is

encouraged. If this were not the case, then CEO’s of the six corporations that own all the media on the

planet would be household names and wouldn’t be intimidated by informing the public, of letting us

know what Is really going on and who our media consuming habits benefit and how the very entities

designed to protect us from the most powerful beings on the planet are now owned by the powerful

and are pieces on the capitalistic chess-board. They take advantage of their power and use it to gain

more power while suppressing the common-people in-order-to maintain their hierarchical status and

keep the gears turning.

 Due to legislation such as the Telecommunications act of 1996, we, as citizens, are even more

susceptible to corporate camouflage and are more subjected to their influence than ever before. Now,

there are few laws that govern ownership of media and laws against the formation and maintenance of

oligopolies and/or media conglomerates. It is harder than ever to know where information is coming

from, how credible it may be, and who it is actually benefitting. All media are not bad though, as some

mediums such as NPR and PBS are government supported and funded mainly by their listeners. This

limits the amount of corporate influence they have, making them much more credible to the average

citizen than their corporate counterparts. This is because they are not-for-profit organizations, they

simply “make sure revenues from government funds, donors, and grants equal costs spent to produce

their programming. In such nonprofit media, education, quality storytelling (especially stories that

commercial media don’t think are profitable), and public information are most often the goals, not

maximizing profits” (Campbell, 2014, p. 177). NPR does not have commercials during their broadcasts

and uses critical journalism to effectively illustrate their findings. This is the function that media are

supposed to serve the public, but due to the consolidation of media giants and importance of profit

maximization, this is often overlooked in the eyes of media owners. Things get even more convoluted

and tricky to analyze when taking another step back to analyze the commercialization and marketability

of every industry on the planet. Advertisement has become the silent enemy of the public and the most

effective ally of the wealthy.

Advertising has become as effective and instrumental a tool for corporations as the wheel was

for the first men. Advertising, especially on a large scale, is a way for companies to reach out and

promote their newest products or innovations to their prospective clients. For large corporations

advertising has become the highest expense of funding due to the competitive nature of business today.

In-order-to deliver a message and promote any product effectively, advertisers must know their target

market and advertise the product effectively by creating a need factor for the product. The reality of it is
that as humans, we don’t actually need much more than food, water, and shelter. Everything outside of

these three basic needs is material and is a want more than it is a need. But, in-order-for the advertisers

to be effective, they must convince us that we are not our best-us without the goods they are selling.

Advertising has become trickier to analyze in the recent past due to its many faces. Now, instead of just

seeing ads on TV, hearing them on the radio, or reading them in a magazine, movie makers and show-

producers widely use product placement and often portray the notion that once the product is

consumed or used, the person consuming it becomes better in one way or another than prior to

drinking the can of Coke or watching James Bond conduct a high-speed chase in his new Aston Martin.

Subtlety is key. If we felt like we were being manipulated into wanting something from watching a

movie, we may analyze the movie in a different way, making subtlety the advertiser’s greatest ally. This

is shown in the documentary Behind the Screens: Hollywood Goes Hyper-Commercial. The Media

Education Foundation (MEF) initially states that “advertising is a form of propaganda. We must never

forget this and propaganda makes one point repeatedly” (McChesney, Behind The Screens). Often-times

the production costs of a movie are so extravagant that the company making the film is encouraged to

seek funding from outside sources. A lot of the time these sources are that of companies paying huge

sums of money in-order-to have their product portrayed, usually in a positive way but sometimes in

scenes that are so shocking and/or negative that they stay with us for a long time. The advertisers rely

on brand recognition and branding as a technique of marketing. In Good Will Hunting, Ben Affleck and

Matt Damon are portrayed as Boston boys consuming Dunkin’ Donuts’ throughout the film. Their

reliance on the product and their identity as Bostonians relates to a wide market and makes people,

especially young men from Boston, crave a Dunkin’s coffee. In some cases, be it film or a TV show,

advertisers will hint at the future. In that context, some companies advertise their products, again very

subtly, to force the notion that they are immersed in timelessness. They are staples of the world that

will forever-be. Even in movies containing and portraying a good-moral compass, advertisers will pay
huge sums to have their brand or product shown. This is seen in Happy Gilmore, a movie that is

premised on a young man doing whatever he can to buy his grandmother’s house for her before the

bank takes it. This is a comedy and obviously has its raunchy moments, but the premise and meaning are

wholesome and of good virtue. Throughout the movie, Happy is repeatedly portrayed as eating at

Subway, and whenever he is eating a Subway sandwich, his situation improves. This forces the notion,

subconsciously, that subway makes everybody’s situation better.

Advertising doesn’t stop at helping the good-guy in movies; it continues to find ways to

stealthily portray their products in a positive light with a sense of urgency. Product placement is

probably the most prevalent form of stealth advertising and is so in-your-face that it almost seems

natural and that that is just the way things are. The news would not be delivered had the anchor not

been drinking a Starbucks coffee, or whatever it may be. “Upshaw and his colleagues found that 90

percent of newscasts contained at least one instance of stealth advertising, including product placement

within stories on the anchors’ desks, and sponsored segments” (Gitlin, 2007, Stealth Advertising:

marketing creeps into the evening news). In some cases, stories labeled as news were in fact not news

at all but just a means of advertising a product or material thing. This is known as the stealth advert and

“is when a commercial message promoting a product is “cloaked in some other garment than a normal

commercial”” (Gitlin, 2007, Stealth advertising). Even the use of our news stations and movies and other

forms of media normally used for education and entertainment have been exploited to their full

potential to the point where advertisers are now seeking new ways to infiltrate the subconscious minds

of the public in order to market their goods.

In 2011, GFK MRI and Nielsen (research companies) together bought 25% of the Media Behavior

Institute. It was the first time that the two companies worked together and joined funds for the same

common goal, which in-itself-is extremely problematic and scary for the public. Together they launched

a program that equipped “2,000 consumers with smartphones containing a special app that records
media use every half-hour.”. With this information, “USA TouchPoints will be able to target purchasers

of specific product categories and brands because the sample is drawn from respondents to MRI’s

annual consumer survey” (Lafayette, 2011, Nielsen, MRI each buy 25% of Media Behavior Institute). This

is extremely problematic, especially if proven effective, which it undoubtedly was. This program

recorded where the participants were, who they were with, and even how they were feeling. This is the

creepy part. They were able to track emotions somehow and use that information to analyze which

stimuli triggered what kind of emotion, and how one could better exploit any given scenario for

marketing purposes. This, I can only imagine, would produce skewed results. Maybe it didn’t, they’re

better at this stuff than I am, but who is to say that the person’s heart rate didn’t increase because the

person was crossing a busy street and almost hit by a car or the relaxed and more mellow emotions

were due to drugs rather than whatever they were eating. It just seems to be collecting data that would

be nearly impossible to accurately analyze, but who knows, I may be wrong. The advertising world is a

tricky arena to enter and understand and the more we know the better off we are as common people to

realize that a Coca-Cola may make a person happy for a very limited time, but doing things like paying

bills on time and doing homework or doing your best at work will ultimately lead to a happier life. The

ways that we conduct ourselves cannot be reduced to the rate at which we consume things in-order-to

live a productive life, but our consuming habits are greatly beneficial to those who would rather have us

suppressed and stagnant in society rather than bettering and gaining control of our lives. There is huge

money to be made from people screwing up and the mass consumption of goods and the portrayal of

necessity for material objects is as much a distraction from real-life issues as it is a hugely profitable

industry. The less we pay attention to our personal situations and the obstacles ahead of us in-order-to

achieve whatever it is we want, the more we play their game whether we realize it or not. The less

content we are as a society with the things we have, the more money those who sell us goods make and

more disparity and inequality will continue to grow.

 The MEF did a study and showed its findings in the film Advertising and the End of the World. In

this study they found that since the 1940’s, our societies material wealth has skyrocketed while societies

level of happiness has stayed the same. This shows that even though advertisers would have us believe

that without their products we cannot achieve happiness, the contrary is true. The more material wealth

we accumulate may make things easier or more fun, but the overall level of happiness does not come

from a material object. Advertisers portray their products as the “passport between desire and reality”

(Jhally, Advertising and the End of the World). Advertisers show their products causing things to happen

that are literally impossible, but show the product as being the reason that good things are happening.

Sut Jhally explains that “Society is dominated by a belief in magic” (Jhally, Advertising and the End of the

World). As soon as he said this in the film, I immediately thought back to my childhood. In particular, I

was thinking of the old commercials for Capri-Sun (they might still make them, I don’t know). One

specific ad showed a bunch of kids on a bright-sunny day on the beach watching these guys surf through

the waves. One of the kids started drinking a Capri-Sun and all-of-a-sudden, he turned into this big

silver-being with a human-like body. He then jumped in the water and started tearing it up in the waves

and I remember thinking that that was the coolest commercial in the world and that at the very moment

I wanted a Capri-Sun. In all reality, Capri-Sun is terrible for you and if consumed enough may make you

much less likely to do anything active like the way the commercial showed it. But, still I had to have it

and begged my parents to get it. Eventually they gave in and I drank the little sugar-pouches and believe

it or not, I never became a giant badass silver-surfing thing. I got more-thirsty because they are almost

completely sugar. My point is that it is extremely easy to market to children, no matter the product. In

1996, people “were exposed to an average of 3,600 commercials a day” (Jhally, Advertising and the end

of the World). Back then, I’m sure the numbers are more out of hand now, ads were made like block-

buster films and if strung together for the average length of a movie, the production cost would far-

exceed that of the production cost of an actual Hollywood film. This severely impacts our culture and
the way that we perceive things. If the best producers and writers that media have to offer are flocking

to advertising jobs, the influence is far greater than before. Advertising jobs pay more than TV or Movie

production because if you were to watch a movie, you’re an invested consumer until the movie ends. If

you are subject to millions of ads a year and are like me you probably can’t live without your morning

coffee from Dunks. This is the repercussion of mass advertising. And, not to mention, the terrible effect

this has on smaller, locally owned businesses. They are Featherweights in a title match against the world

champion Heavyweights and stand little-to-no chance of winning the bout. They are drowned out and

unheard, less people shop or eat at their establishments because they saw that Wal-Mart has the same

thing but made in China for a third of the price. This is a systematic issue with so many points like when

you shop at Wal-Mart or Target, you are literally taking money out of your community’s circulation and

sending it to that companies Headquarters in a different state or country. That’s a discussion for a

different time though. In the film, they show a list of social values such as love, family and friendship and

material values as economic stability and success. Both lists are necessary for a healthy lifestyle, but the

list of social values are more important and meaningful for everyone in the world. Advertisers and

marketers would like to have us think otherwise though as they push the importance of material things

in-order-to be a better and happier self.

Advertising links material things with desirable social situations even though that thing cannot

lead to or give an individual what they are portraying. “Falsity of advertising is not in the appeals it

provides, but the answers it provides” (Jhally, Advertising and the end of the world). When I heard this, I

immediately thought of Ice-Breakers commercials. They often show a man and a woman, usually

strangers, looking at each other promiscuously (or the man looking at the woman with seemingly sexual

intent). Next thing you know, the man (usually) pops in an Ice-Breaker breath mint and then an intense

intimate make-out session ensues. This creates the notion that in-order-to be wanted by the opposite

sex, you must eat Ice-Breakers before an intimate encounter to ensue. Jhally also states that market
brings out the worst in us; greed or selfishness, but suppresses the best in us; compassion, community,

and selflessness (not sure if that was a quote or just notes that I took). All these influences start when

we are very young-, literally from the moment we are born-, and continues until we are dead and no

longer able to consume things. Even when we die some companies aim to make large sums of money

from what is left of us through funeral expenses.

In today’s marketing world, children have come to the forefront of advertising. Marketers

believe that from the moment a child is born they are a consumer-in-training. According to Sharon

Beder, advertising “exploits individual insecurities, creates false needs and offers counterfeit solutions.

It fosters dissatisfaction that leads to consumption.” (Beder, 1998, Marketing to Children). Nowadays

the media would have the public, especially children and young adults, believe that without the

consumption of material goods they’ll never be good enough. Good enough for what exactly? Who

cares, you’re just not good enough and in-order-to be good enough you must pony up and buy some

new stuff. The marketing world has begun to target kids with advertisements for things like fast-food,

sports equipment, all the way to vehicles and credit cards. This is a form of branding and is done in

hopes that when the child grows old enough, they will buy a Chevy or they’ll get a Capital One credit

card or whatever the product may be. The aim is to create life-long customers that will never stop

consuming. In Australia, the problem is not nearly as bad. In the bottom corner of the world, “children

and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 17 spent $3.3 billion every year.” (Beder, 1998, Marketing to

Children). In contrast, here in the U.S., 57 million school age children spend about $100 billion annually.

This difference is massive and speaks volumes to our consumerism here in our country.

In the music industry, things are no better for our country’s youth. The main-stream music of

today is, for the most part, awful lyrically and conveys detrimental messages to children causing them to

act and behave in ways they find to be acceptable because some hood-rat on the radio makes it sound

cool. Music today is so over-sexualized and lacking in good content that that is all that children know to
be normal. Music today does not speak on social issues, it does not create awareness on societal topics

or present a realistic scope of the world. I myself listen to mostly rap, but not the nonsense found on the

radio or MTV, I cannot stand it. I listen to mostly underground artists that convey messages about race

and class inequality, about corporate ownership and how damaging it is to real, good music. Of-course

my take on good music is subjective, but by good I mean that it contains a moral compass and lacks

corporate influence. For example, my favorite artist is Tech N9ne (Aaron D. Yates), who of course has

songs about sex, drugs, violence, and so-on, but also songs about the topics I previously stated and is the

world’s number one independent artist in the world. Not just the world’s number one independent

rapper or musician, but artist in general. His label, Strange Music, has been built entirely from himself

and his partner Travis O’Guin. Since his earliest releases dating back to the late 80’s, his music has

always been against the industry and he constantly states, in his music and live shows, FTI (Fuck The

Industry) and has become incredibly successful from his modest beginnings. My only point in all of this is

that although it seems that the music of today is all bad, it is not. It is just buried beneath a giant messy

pile of shit-artists pushing their corporate owner’s agendas. Varda Epstein states, “The fact that teens

believe their peers are more sexually advanced than they actually are, leads teens to challenge

themselves to increase their sexual activity to play “catch-up.”.” (Epstein, 2014, The Impact of song lyrics

on our children: What you need to know). Based off of the popular music and celebrities’ actions in the

lime-light, it is of little surprise that sex and porn are the 4th and 5th most searched words on the internet

for those up to age 18 according to Andrea Whatcott of Deseret News. The most shocking finding, I

thought, of Whatcott’s study was that for ages seven and under, porn was the 4th most searched word

on the internet. I don’t even think I knew how to get online or knew what porn was when I was seven.

The media affects us all in every form and is not limited to music or television. According to the

National Institute on Media and Family, the cerebral cortex of our brains develops at a slower rate when

the time spent in front of a screen of any kind is two hours per-day or more. Nowadays, kids spend more
of their free time inside using some form of media rather than playing outside and experiencing the

world as children did not-so-long-ago. According to the documentary Affluenza by Bullfrog films,

“Children in our society are a cash crop waiting to be harvested” (Bullfrog films, Affluenza (I forgot who

it was that said this in the film and cannot find the part that it is said)).

No matter who you are, the media has affected you. Nobody is immune, nobody is out of reach.

Whether you live on your couch and constantly consume media or live in an impoverished community

with no access to TV, radio, print, or the internet, the media-giants of the world have affected you and

everyone you know. The effects of corporate media and their capitalistic tendencies can be from actual

consumption, or from the extraction of resources from poorer countries and/or the removal of waste in

an unregulated, environmentally-detrimental fashion, or the use of cheap labor in countries with little-

to-no regulations regarding workers’ rights. The media, especially in a democracy, are supposed to be

the public’s line of defense from the powers that be, but now are all owned by those same entities they

were made to protect us from. We cannot sit idly by and let corporations of any kind do and take

whatever they want; action is necessary and has never been more warranted in this regard than it is in

times like these.

 Bibliography

Beder, S. (1998). Marketing to Children. Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/children.html

Brizzard, C. (1970, January 01). Notes for McChesney's "The Problem of the Media"... Retrieved

October 18, 2017, from http://problemofmedia.blogspot.com/2007/04/chapter-4-age-of-hyper-

commercialism.html

Castillo, M. (2016, February 17). How your device lets brands tap into your emotions. Retrieved

October 18, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/17/how-your-device-lets-brands-tap-

into-your-emotions.html

Epstein, V. (2014, May 11). THE IMPACT OF SONG LYRICS ON OUR CHILDREN: WHAT

YOU NEED TO KNOW. Retrieved from https://www.kars4kids.org/blog/the-impact-of-song-

lyrics-on-our-children-what-you-need-to-know/

Gitlin, J. M. (2007, July 12). Stealth advertising: marketing creeps into the evening news. Retrieved

October 18, 2017, from https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/stealth-advertising-

marketing-creeps-into-the-evening-news/

(n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://permalink.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspx?at=615c41eae538425e8503ced6501cc28a&a=c5

1dc391e9144f1b86310993a7f6d918

(n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://permalink.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspx?at=29e02c749cea40cca3d001a6657aad45&a=c5

1dc391e9144f1b86310993a7f6d918
Lutz, A. (2012, June 14). These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America. Retrieved

October 18, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-

media-in-america-2012-6

(1999). Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://permalink.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspx?at=cd05a82f499d4b84b3ffac9e22ee0cbd&a=c5

1dc391e9144f1b86310993a7f6d918

McElwee, S. (2014, January 30). Marx Was Right: Five Surprising Ways Karl Marx Predicted 2014.

Retrieved October 18, 2017, from http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/marx-was-right-

five-surprising-ways-karl-marx-predicted-2014-20140130

Nielsen, MRI Each Buy 25% of Media Behavior Institute. (2011, August 16). Retrieved October 18,

2017, from http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/news-articles/nielsen-mri-each-buy-25-

media-behavior-institute/112346

Press, F. (n.d.). Who Owns the Media? Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

https://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart

(n.d.). Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://permalink.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspx?at=0021981ca4ae400e9153d21f7b4f764f&a=c5

1dc391e9144f1b86310993a7f6d918

Waldman, K. (2013, August 07). Fake Mirrors May Soon Ensnare Shoppers in Webs of Lies.

Retrieved October 18, 2017, from

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/07/incendiary_reflection_mirrors_make_you_loo

k_happier_than_you_are_so_you.html
Whatcott, A. (2011, August 10). Kids exposed to sexual content more through TV than Internet.

Retrieved October 18, 2017, from https://www.deseretnews.com/article/700169779/Kids-

exposed-to-sexual-content-more-through-TV-than-Internet.html