Cook 1

Brandon Cook
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
10 April 2016
Media Madness: The Consolidation and Deregulation of the Media Industry
In the late 1920s, George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company,
hired a man by the name of Edward Bernays, a public relations expert, to aid him in breaking
through to women as a potential market for cigarettes. At that time, it was taboo for women to
smoke, and if they did, they could only smoke in certain places. At the same time, women had
been fighting to emancipate themselves from under the thumb of men, with success such as
winning the right to vote in 1920. It was in this context that Bernays engineered a way to alter
public opinion so that it was acceptable for women to smoke. At the 1929 Easter Day Parade in
New York, Bernays hired a group of debutantes to march in the parade while smoking cigarettes.
He also hired photographers to make sure that the images of the young women smoking were
captured. Bernays then told reporters at the parade that they were suffragettes, lighting torches
of freedom as an act of rebellion and protest against sex taboos. In subsequent years the rates of
women smokers increased substantially (OKeefe).
This anecdote illustrates how seemingly innocuous actions can have a profound impact
upon our society. The operation was simple to organize and execute, yet our society is still
feeling the effects of such actions to this day. In 1923, only about five percent of American
women smoked. In 1929 it increased to 12 percent, and by 1939 it had risen to 18 percent. In
1965 the smoking rate for women reached its peak of 33.3 percent (OKeefe). Nowadays Today,

Cook 2
our daily lives are utterly inundated by various forms of media. Bernays successfully dissolved a
taboo that was embedded in our society with relatively limited resources. Just imagine the scope
of influence the media has in our society today, where people, especially the younger
generations, are constantly plugged in to some form of media or another. Furthermore just a
handful of corporations own over 90 percent of the media we consume. Have you ever noticed
on the radio, that within the same genre of music if you switch channels, they will be playing the
exact same playlist of songs? According to an article from Business Insider, 80 percent of radio
stations playlists are identical (Lutz). This is a problem, not just because one might get tired of
hearing the same songs over and over, but because there is an inherent conflict of interests when
it comes to commercial entities providing the public with media to consume. The purpose of this
paper is to illustrate that point.
According to Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their book Manufacturing Consent,
the U.S media follows what they describe as a pPropaganda model. The propaganda model
attempts to analyze and explain the workings of the U.S. media in relation to institutional
structures and powerful interests. According to Herman and Chomsky:
It is our view that, among their other functions, the media serve, and propagandize on
behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance themthese interests
have important agendas and principles they want to advance, and they are well positioned
to shape and constrain media policy (Herman and Chomsky).
The propaganda model consists of five5 news filters:, these filters being: (1) the concentration
of ownership of the media and the profit- oriented goals of media conglomerates; (2) advertising
as the main means of generating profit; (3) the medias reliance on information given by the
government, business, and experts funded by these powerful institutions; (4) the generation of

Formatted: Font: Italic

Cook 3
flak, which is strong criticism or negative responses to something the media has produced; (5)
the war on terror (anticommunism in the original model) as a control mechanism. In this essay I
am going use the first three filters to illustrate why I believe that the deregulation of the media is
dangerous.
There is a reason that the corporate media is called the corporate media. Just as Herman
and Chomsky stated in their propaganda model, the corporate media is a business, and as such,
its bottom line will always come down to generating profit. Pressure from stockholders,
bankers, and directors to focus on profit is a powerful influence, one that inherently creates a
conflict of interests between the public and the corporate media. This results in the public
receiving not content that they may truly want or need, but being provided content to select from
that is most profitable for the company (McChesney). Also, the fact that ownership laws have
been loosened incredibly over the years has resulted in only six6 media corporations that control
over 90% of what media we consume. The effect of this concentration of ownership is that local
content is stripped from the media to be replaced with generic commercial programming,
especially regarding radio. According to Robert McChesney in his Theses on media
deregulation:
the political commentary on US commercial radio is almost entirely on the far political
right. Commentators unsympathetic to the role of corporations in US political and
economic life and sympathetic to the concerns of poor people and the working class, not
to mention traditional liberals, are locked out by owners and advertisers (McChesney).
Media corporations are businesses; their ultimate goal is to make money. Generally all
big businesses in the U.S. lobby for deregulation, because it is profitable. The corporate media is
in a profound place of power when it comes to influencing this argument. The function of the

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"

Cook 4
FCC, as one former chair informed William Kennard as he assumed the chair in 1997, is to
referee fights between the wealthy and the super wealthy (qtd in Robert McChesneys Theses
on media deregulation). We have already discussed how profit is the bottom line for
corporations, and how media has been concentrated into just a few giant conglomerates, being
the profit-oriented businesses that they are, of course they use their platform to influence public
opinion on the matter. And influence public opinion they have. Over the last several decades the
political landscape has been gradually moving further and further to the right. Noam Chomsky
illustrates this point excellently when speaking of Bernie Sanders. He makes the point that
Sanders isnt even really a socialist, he is a new-dealer, and to be a new-dealer in this day and
age is to be way out in left field and labeled as extreme, communist, un-American-murican, etc.
He uses the example of Eisenhower who said that anyone that questions the Nnew Ddeal
doesnt belong in the political system; if someone were to say that today, according to
Chomsky, They would be regarded as a raving leftist (qtd in Al Jazeera English). The narrative
has been pushed by these media titans that democracy and capitalism are inseparable, that you
cant have democracy without uninhibited capitalism, and that any interference in the free market
by the government is anti-American and undemocratic.
Continuing on to the second filter; advertising as the main means for generating profit.
The start of advertising in newspapers dealt a significant blow to the working-class press. Prior
to advertising becoming the norm, newspapers had to cover the cost of operation with the price
of the paper itself. After the rise of advertising, those papers that relied on the price of the paper
rather than advertising, could not compete with those that did participate in advertising. The
reason for this is that those using advertising to generate income could sell the paper at less than
production cost, giving them a significant advantage over those that relied on sales alone.

Cook 5
This also creates an inherent conflict of interests between the public and media
corporations. The advertisers wish for their ads to be consumed as much as possible,. tThus
resulting in the media producing content that drives ratings up: sensationalist stories, fearmongering, entertainment news, etc. (Herman and Chomsky). Many on the right claim that the
free market is the best way to get consumers what they want, because the media have to provide
content that the people want, otherwise they wont consume the provided content (Gattuso). This
argument is flawed though as I just illustrated; ultimately the advertisers dictate what media is
produced. Therefore the people end up with a selection of choices of what they can consume,
within the range of content that is most profitable. Also, audience is a major factor when it
comes to generating revenue from advertising. If the media outlet serves the poor or working
class rather than an affluent audience, then advertisers are less likely to invest much into those
media outlets (leading to their decline or extinction), as it is a poor return on their money
(Herman and Chomsky). This principle is at work in other forms of the media too. Take
television, for instance., Hhave you ever noticed that shows are brought to you by so-andso!? The advertisers pay for the content that is being aired. Not only do advertisers pay for
content that is aired, but they also hold significant power over media in what other programs are
aired on their network. If the network airs something that makes an advertiser (client
corporation) angry or casts them in a negative light, they are likely to lose that corporations
sponsorship. Take public-television station WNET for example, who lost its corporate funding
from Gulf + Western for running a documentary critical of multinational corporate activity in
Third World countries. As an example for my previous claim that corporations label anyone who
stand in their way as undemocratic or anti-American, here is a statement from the chief executive
of Gulf + Western in response to that documentary. The CEO complained that it was virulently

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"

Cook 6
anti-business if not anti-American and that it was not the behavior of a friend of the
corporation (qtd in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media)..
Another filter in the propaganda model, is that of news sourcing. Once again, I am not
speaking of a conspiracy against the people, but merely the natural evolution of commercial
mass media. News outlets need a steady stream of news in order to meet their daily demands
and schedules. Out of necessity news organizations must station news reporters and cameras at
places where news is likely to happen, or where there is a constant, reliable flow of raw
information for news stories. It is fiscally unfeasible to have reporters stationed in all places at all
times just because there might be news. These places include, but are not limited to: The White
House, the State Department, and the Pentagon. These are all national level examples of news
sources. On a more local level, police stations and town halls fill this role. Government sources
arent the only sources that reporters regularly make use of. Business corporations and other
trade groups are also common sources of stories for the news outlets. There are many problems
that arise from this method of sourcing but Im only going to cover one.
The government and large corporations are generally viewed as credible sources. Imagine
Apple, or Google, or perhaps a White House press conference. News media wouldnt constantly
be using sources such as these if they didnt project an air of credibility. What could possibly go
wrong with relying on powerful organizations that have a vested interest in persuading or
misleading the public as your main sources of objective news for the public? In this situation, a
commercial news organization is at the mercy of whomever subsidizes their business. If they
make their source angry, the source can simply withhold, or threaten to withhold access to those
news sources. That would be very expensive for the news, because they would then have to
spend money and other resources to go out and search for more news. It is very difficult to call

Cook 7
authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers. (qtd in
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media)
This practice of the media routinely obtaining information from these sources allows the
organizations providing the information to manage, or manipulate the media. They can shape the
conversation nationwide simply by deciding what the conversation is. They feed whatever
information to the media that they wish presented, and can continue a particular story, line, or
sentiment as long as necessary. Most people view the large established news organizations the
same way they do Apple, Google, or a White House press conference. Due to their establishment
and status they are assumed to be credible. Much the way my parents always believed the teacher
over me in school when would get in trouble for something, even if I was telling the truth. I
didnt blame them, I was the kid and the teachers were adults; it was assumed, due to the
persons status as a teacher and mine of a child, that they were right and that I was wrong. It is
well known that humans are cognitive misers and we like to break things down into easy
categories, groups, and stereotypes, which is what leads to prejudice. These organizations tend to
fall into the category that people view as credible, which is where the danger lies. Since the
information being consumed is coming from a group categorized as credible, it often bypasses
any critical thought of the informations accuracy or truth. Everything that is aired on mass
media gets a national spotlight. This spotlight can make small issues into large ones, and large
issues into small ones. It can ignite outrage or kindle empathy, it can propagate fear and hate or
foster goodwill. When you listen to peoples small talk, what do you hear? They are generally
discussing something consumed through the mass media. What people care about is often
decided by the mainstream mass media. According to Herman and Chomsky in their
collaboration, Manufacturing Consent:

Cook 8
This strategy can be traced back at least as far as the Committee on Public Information,

Formatted: Indent: Left: 0.5"

established to coordinate propaganda during World War I, which discovered in 1917-18

that one of the best means of controlling news was flooding news channels with facts,
or what amounted to official information.
When the terrorist attack in France happened everyone changed their Facebook profile

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"

picture to French colors. Around the same time there were other terrorist attacks happening in
other nations that left many dead as well (Hobart). Most people didnt even know about any
other attacks. Why? Because it wasnt covered in the mainstream media. This is but one example
of how the media shapes public opinion.
It is not, contrary to popular belief, the government and regulation versus the free market

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5", Space After: 8 pt,

Line spacing: Double

and deregulation, but government regulation serving public interests versus regulation serving
private interests. Deregulation is better thought of, in most instances and certainly in the case of
media, as a misleading term for unabashed and unacknowledged regulation on behalf of
powerful self-interested private parties (qtd in Robert McChesneys Theses on media
deregulation). Indeed, to have anything close to a competitive market requires explicit
government regulation. Copyright and patent laws, regulations governing ownership rights and
sanctity of profit, and laws governing contracts and monopolies are all necessary to ensure a
competitive market. (McChesney). Deregulation of the media industry has led to a string of
mergers over the years that have resulted in 90 percent of all media in the United States being
controlled by six corporations (Who Owns the Media).
As we have seen, there are significant problems that arise from a commercial media
system in which ownership is concentrated. Local content and journalism is replaced with
generic commercial content. Content that is provided is that which is most profitable to the

Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt

Cook 9
corporation, not that which is in the public interest. News is influenced by the way in which the
media sources its information, they cannot afford to anger, or cause their sources to lose money,
because then they lose money. There are many other issues to consider when discussing
deregulation in the media. Most of the conversation centers around economic thoughts, but there
are many other factors to take into account. Media has something referred to as externalities;
this means that there are costs associated with markets that neither the buyer or seller assumes,
but for which society pays (McChesney). The usual example is pollution. The media industry
has externalities too. For instance, if the market results in an environment of poor journalism, the

Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt

people will be ill-informed, leading to shoddy political government in which society ultimately
pays the price. According to Robert McChesney:
In another example, routinely carpet-bombing children with advertising and
commercialism, or programming featuring sex and violence may generate profits for

Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Indent: Left: 0.5", Line spacing: Double
Formatted: Font: 12 pt

media firms, but it will produce self-evident negative externalities for those children and

Formatted: Font: 12 pt

everyone in society down the road.

Formatted: Font: 12 pt
Formatted: Font: 12 pt

Due to these reasons and many more not covered in this essay, I believe that there should be a
push for increased regulation instead of deregulation. I also think that the giant media
monopolies need to be broken up, and then limited in size and scope. A large public sector media
system could possibly supplement the commercial media to try and ensure more balanced news
coverage. Lastly, I believe that a law needs to be created that requires any media policy change
to be presented in to the public in a broad and transparent way, to ensure the public is well
informed. While some may view media in the realm of business and private industry, I believe
the media are social goods; they affect our societys culture, political governance, and attitudes,

Formatted: Line spacing: Double

Formatted: Space After: 8 pt, Line spacing: Double

Cook 10
and should be treated by the government (and society in general) as such. For the sake of
ourselves and our freedom, we must reclaim our media!

Formatted: Font: 12 pt

Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5", Space After: 8 pt,

Line spacing: Double
Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"

Cook 11
Works Cited
Al Jazeera English. UpFront Noam Chomsky on Clinton vs Sanders. Online video clip.
YouTube. YouTube, 30 January 2016. Web. 1 April 2016.
Gattuso, James. The Myth of Media Concentration: Why the FCCs Media Ownership Rules
Are Unnecessary Heritage. The Heritage Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 March 2016.
Herman, Edward, and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the
Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. Print.
Hobart, Pamela. Selective Outrage Is Natural After The Paris Attacks, But Remember That
Horrible Things Happen Elsewhere, Too Bustle. 14 November 2015. Web. 1 April 2016.
Lutz, Ashley. These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America Business Insider.
Business Insider, 14 June 2012. Web. 10 April 2016.
McChesney, Robert. Theses on media deregulation. Media, Culture & Society Vol. 25 (2003):
125-133. Web. 11 March 2016.
O'Keefe, Anne Marie, and Richard W. Pollay. "Deadly Targeting of Women in Promoting
Cigarettes." Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 51.1-2 (1996). Web.
10 Apr 2016.
Who Owns the Media? Freepress. Free Press. n.d. Web. 11 March 2016.