The readings this week: A depressing look at the reality of our world

This week’s readings painted the picture of the sad state of media ownership, the subtle corruption of politics, and the apathy and ignorance of us, “the people”. It was altogether, quite depressing. The chapter from media monopoly, the article by Neil Hickey, and the article from The Nation basically overlap; telling us how inbred and intertwined the ownership of various types of media is and how rampant and dodgy are the conflicts of interest that arise.

I really don’t want to hear this – I know it’s true, but the implications of this are too grave. I don’t want to believe it with my heart. I appreciate mediachannel.org’s sensitivity to my preferred naiveté. Even though they are showing us a chart the traces nearly all media back to six companies, they relieve the anxiety this might create by putting each company on a beach ball. Even better, the title of the diagram, “ultra concentrated media” draws on the memorable brand recognition of laundry detergent, thereby codling the viewer of the diagram in the familiar insanity of post modernism; the same technique used to turn the compost of television content thereby continually fattening the coffers of media owners. The material is direly serious and yet cannot be treated too heavily without causing panic.

Really, who can accept this as truth without losing all faith in our current political/governmental process? In his book Ben Bagdikian talks about how the CEO of a major media company can request an audience with the president most any time. This clearly shows how the power dynamic that is touted as the basis of our democracy, “the people”, has become a sham when “the people” are merely pawns to be controlled. The real power lies in the controllers of the information who, as Bagdikian points out, are acting as should be expected in protecting their own interests. I question whether or not this influence over information that media conglomerates have amassed can ever be challenged, and by question I mean I doubt it.