Chapter 1: Political Problem, Political Solution

The tension faced by media lies between its more recent role as a profit-driven business enterprise and its more traditional role of maintaining an informed citizenry, an essential cornerstone for a democratic society. As new mediums of media transmission have emerged (newspapers, telegraph, telephone, radio, tv, satellite, cable, internet), there has been a consistent shift towards the privatization of media interests, to the point that as of 2003, 5 corporations controlled 85% of mainstream media in the U.S. Chapter 1 examines in more detail the policies that have accompanied each new medium, and how business interests have become more and more intertwined in those policies over time.

In conjunction with the increased dominance of business interests has been the shrinking role of the public and the increased role of commercial lobbying in shaping media policy. Media lobbies have grown significantly, with 284 in existence in 2000. One effect: representation on Capitol Hill is not possible without a lobby in the current environment. Another effect: corporate lobbies inherently work against the public interest. Presently, corporate interests essentially own media policy in Washington.

1. Newspapers

In the early years of the republic, government postal subsides significantly reduced the cost of sending newspapers through the mail, which encouraged their production and distribution (a postal subsidy for democracy?) There was even debate about not charging newspapers at all. During this period, a large number of newspapers and periodicals were in circulation, seen as a necessity by many for the creation of an informed citizenry. Profit-seeking business interests were not yet a part of the equation.

2. The telegraph

With the emergence of the telegraph, competition between two means of media distrubution emerged. The telegraph was essentially a private monopoly controlled by Western Union that had serious repercussions on the political economy, including media, of this country. Because money provided access to the new technology, naturally those companies with more money would tend to have more access to the new medium than those without. Marginalization of those without access was one consequence. Western Union is also tied to the emergence of the AP. Because Western Union had a monopoly over who could and couldn't use the telegraph, and by allowing the AP to do so, AP became the only wire news service in the country and it became the main voice for most major newspapers of the time. McChesney even argues that the concept of "objectivity" in journalism has its roots in this period.

These are some of the effects of the integration of business interests into the means of media distribution. An analogy-imagine that one company controlled tv, or radio.

3. Radio

Radio frequencies are limited and highly sought after public resource. How will the government decide who gets access? Initially, the government (the FRC and then the FCC, 1934) awarded licenses to those who were seen as best serving the 'public interest'. Soon, advertising was espoused as a legitimate way to pay for the costs of broadcasting. For-profit broadcasters soon dominated the airwaves. Objections to these developments emerged, and this is when lobbying by commercial broadcasters in Washington began. Revoling-door relationships between the FCC and commercial broadcasters also began. PR campaigns emerged to promote the views of commercial broadcasters. Once in the door, broadcasters then began to characterize government regulation as an infringement on First Amendment rights, thereby reducing the ability of the FCC to constrain their actions. In these ways, commercial broadcasters gained virtual free access and control of what was intended to be, and still technically is, a public resource. These was the beginning of the active shaping of media policy by commercial and business interests in their favor.

What happened early on with radio set a precedent for what would happen when new technologies (TV, cable, satellites, the Internet?) were developed. Commercial and business interests shaped the policies determing how they would be used, not the public.

Pattern: The government assumes the risk of creating new technologies (funded by tax-payer dollars of course). Once established, those technologies are then handed over to the private business sector, where profit can be made. This creates a role for the public wherein they fund products that they will eventually wind up buying, and in terms of media, fund the mediums through which they consume media.

Over time, a pro-business, neo-liberal perspective has come to dominate media policy, such that the market is seen as a more efficient regulator of media interets than the government. Naturally, such a perspective completely serves the interests of the profit-driven, corporatized media system which dominates today. Arguments are now such that public interest or government regulation is portrayed as a violation of First Amendment rights guaranteed the media oligopoly, a reversal of intent that would surely cause great alarm for those who intended for the media to serve the public interest.

Effects of the 1996 FCC telecommunications act:

• Essentially reduced ownership caps, allowing further monopolization and corporatization of media companies to flourish in the free-market environment. Government role further eroded.
• Limited information in mainstream media about details of act. Public knew very little about it.
• Increased concentration of ownership and capital; decreased regulation and overall quality of media produced by this system.