Media Control

Media Control
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2011-01-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 160980015X

Noam Chomsky’s backpocket classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky, "propaganda is to democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state," and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States. From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson’s Creel Commission "succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population," to Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war. Chomsky further touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann’s theory of "spectator democracy," in which the public is seen as a "bewildered herd" that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on "controlling the public mind," and not on informing it. Media Control is an invaluable primer on the secret workings of disinformation in democratic societies.

Media Control

Media Control
Author: Robert E. Gutsche, Jr.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2015-10-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1628922966

Media Control: News as an Institution of Power and Social Control challenges traditional (and even some radical) perceptions of how the news works. While it's clear that journalists don't operate objectively ? reporters don't just cover news, but they make it ? Media Control goes a step further by arguing that the cultural institution of news approaches and presents everyday information from particular and dominant cultural positions that benefit the power elite. From analysing how the press operate as police agents by conducting surveillance and instituting social order through its coverage of crime and police action to bolstering private business and neoliberal principles by covering the news through notions of boosterism, Media Control presents the news through a cultural lens. Robert E. Gutsche, Jr. introduces or advances readers' applications of critical race theory and cultural studies scholarship to explore cultural meanings within news coverage of police action, the criminal justice system, and embedding into the news democratic values that are later used by the power elite to oppress and repress portions of the citizenry. Media Control helps the reader explicate how the power elite use the press and the veil of the Fourth Estate to further white ideologies and American Imperialism.

Media Capture

Media Capture
Author: Anya Schiffrin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231548028

Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt. This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.

Screened Out

Screened Out
Author: Carla B. Johnston
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780765604880

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Stealing Our Futures -- 2 Killing Our Culture -- 3 Scaring Us to Death -- 4 Why Is This Happening? Who Is the Gatekeeper? -- 5 What Can Be Done? -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author

Viewer Discretion Advised

Viewer Discretion Advised
Author: Jeffrey Michael McCall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2007
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780742555204

Explores the influence of mass media in the United States; discussing media awareness, the first amendment, objectionable content, news, politics, its effects on children, what people can do to change it, and more.

Always On: Advertising, Marketing, and Media in an Era of Consumer Control

Always On: Advertising, Marketing, and Media in an Era of Consumer Control
Author: Christopher Vollmer
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0071508295

The Wall Street Journal Bestseller The Future is Now--Get Ready to Reap the Profits. We stand at the beginning of a consumer-centric age--an era with potentially enormous returns for leaders in marketing, advertising and media--if they get their approach right. The new media environment is “always on,” digitally accessible to audiences from anywhere at any time, and responsive to their control. As consumers get used to this, the world of marketing is shifting to one of constant experimentation, fine-grained insight through new metrics, and continual innovation of the visible advertising message, as well as the changing business infrastructure beneath it. The thought leaders at Booz & Company and strategy+business magazine have collaborated to create an up-to-the-minute exploration of this turbulent yet promising new digital era and its implications for corporate executives and marketing and advertising professionals. Giving you profiles of the best in the business and deep explorations of the most effective innovations and strategies in the marketing world, Always On introduces you to the companies that are reshaping the ways we will reach customers in the future. Their secrets are in this book, including how to: Match your messages to the right media Learn the leading strategies of consumer-centric pioneers Discover the lessons of laggard marketers Explore viral marketing Track advertising spending shifts Capture emerging opportunities in a world of constant change Master the new marketing metrics Engage your customers on their terms Figuring out the best mix of strategies for any brand requires experimentation, networking, innovation, analytics, and risk taking-qualities that have never been adequately nurtured in a marketer's traditional career path. Always On puts you at the front of the race for successful innovation, with the latest successful approaches and techniques--essential competitive knowledge in a marketing and advertising world that never quits.

Manufacturing Consent

Manufacturing Consent
Author: Edward S. Herman
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2011-07-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0307801624

A "compelling indictment of the news media's role in covering up errors and deceptions" (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction. In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order. Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

Fighting for Air

Fighting for Air
Author: Eric Klinenberg
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2007-01-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1429923601

A groundbreaking investigative work by a critically acclaimed sociologist on the corporate takeover of local news and what it means for all Americans For the residents of Minot, North Dakota, Clear Channel Communications is synonymous with disaster. Early in the morning of January 18, 2002, a train derailment sent a cloud of poisonous gas drifting toward the small town. Minot's fire and rescue departments attempted to reach Clear Channel, which owned and operated all six local commercial radio stations, to warn residents of the approaching threat. But in the age of canned programming and virtual DJs, there was no one in the conglomerate's studio to take the call. The people of Minot were taken unawares. The result: one death and more than a thousand injuries. Opening with the story of the Minot tragedy, Eric Klinenberg's Fighting for Air takes us into the world of preprogrammed radio shows, empty television news stations, and copycat newspapers to show how corporate ownership and control of local media has remade American political and cultural life. Klinenberg argues that the demise of truly local media stems from the federal government's malign neglect, as the agencies charged with ensuring diversity and open competition have ceded control to the very conglomerates that consistently undermine these values and goals. Such "big media" may not be here to stay, however. Eric Klineberg's Fighting for Air delivers a call to action, revealing a rising generation of new media activists and citizen journalists—a coalition of liberals and conservatives—who are demanding and even creating the local coverage they need and deserve.

Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy

Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy
Author: Robert W. McChesney
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 1995-01-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0195357531

This work shows in detail the emergence and consolidation of U.S. commercial broadcasting economically, politically, and ideologically. This process was met by organized opposition and a general level of public antipathy that has been almost entirely overlooked by previous scholarship. McChesney highlights the activities and arguments of this early broadcast reform movement of the 1930s. The reformers argued that commercial broadcasting was inimical to the communication requirements of a democratic society and that the only solution was to have a dominant role for nonprofit and noncommercial broadcasting. Although the movement failed, McChesney argues that it provides important lessons not only for communication historians and policymakers, but for those concerned with media and how they are used.