How Large Cooperations Affect what we hear

It comes as little surprise to most Americans that any large cooperation is going to seek out strategies that sell their good or service. However, as chapter six began to evaluate, a gaping conflict of interest begins to arise when large corporations in the mainstream news media chose to maximize profits before serving their intended purposes to the American people. As the book described, the original framers of the constitution universally agreed that the media served an essential role in politics. To them, and even to us today, it is widely known that the main responsibilities of the mainstream media was to act as a watchdog for the people, clarifying electoral choices, and providing information to the public regarding different policies and their effectiveness. However, what I wanted to learn was how much emphasis news corporations put on these guiding principles today and what other factors now go into sharing news with the public.

As previously mentioned, the mainstream news industry is made up of a series corporations, the most prominent being large conglomerates such as Disney, CBS, and Time Warner. These news networks are so powerful, in fact, that together the make up a 1.8 trillion dollar industry that is continuing to grow. The value of these companies is particularly concerning because of their responsibilities to the public. Because they are privately owned, the business professionals at the top of the industry have own main goal in mind, to make money. At first it did not dawn on me how this was important, as I had the frame of mind that all news industries had to do was broadcast/ publish the real news, and people would naturally watch. However, through further investigation, it is quite apparent that that is not the case.

In a Pew Research Center for People and the Press, they found that the number of people who follow the news closely dropped by 7% from the 1980’s to the 1990’s and then increased back to its original percentages during the early 2000’s and into today. The reason behind this strange dip during the 1990’s is now hypothesized to be because of the relative peacefulness and economic and social prosperity that enveloped the nation during this period. As a result, there is a clear correlation between a dip in news followers and a spike in prosperity throughout the nation. This ultimately serves as a major problem as news programs and other outlets decide what they should release to the public.

This research begins to tell us a lot about the forces that drive the large news conglomerates to push certain stories over others. For example, the book describes one situation in which news companies in the early 2000’s, following the 9/11 attacks, decided to ignore an incident in which US officials were accused of “cooking the books” in order to justify the Iraq war. Instead, news companies during this time focussed all of its attention on an accidental shooting involving former Vice-President Dick Cheney. The bottom line that has been proven by all of these incidents is that controversy and scandal sell. As a result, news companies consistently choose stories that will evoke the most emotions and avoid stories that may be less controversial, but much more important to the well being of an informed citizenry. This is quite clearly a problem our nation must address, as it is clear that the information provided to the U.S. public can be easily manipulated by large business owners and their pursuit for profits; something vastly different than the founding fathers had ever intended.

Sources:

“Entertainment and media industry market size.” Statista. Accessed October 24, 2017. https://www.statista.com/statistics/237749/value-of-the-global-entertainment-and-media-market/.
Brainard , Curtis. “What Kind of News Do People Really Want?” Columbia Journalism Review, archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/what_kind_of_news_do_people_re.php.

5 Responses to "How Large Cooperations Affect what we hear"

Katherine Fell says:

October 27, 2017 at 4:38 pm

I definitely agree with your sentiments about the problems between what the media should be drawing our attention to versus what stories they actually air. I feel as though this is especially true during election season. The 2016 Presidential Election was a field day for the media, given the diverse and divisive selection of candidates. However, the coverage of these candidates was covered like they were in a horse face, as we discussed in class. It was all about who had more delegates and who would take which states, and and less about specific policy stances and their plans of action for implementing these policies once they took office. The news media, particularly the liberal media, were not reluctant to criticize Donald Trump and his many flaws as a presidential candidate. But sometimes these criticisms were hollow and wasted precious airtime when they could have been discussing his problematic policy stances like the border wall, for example. One instance that sticks out to me was when Rachel Maddow spent almost the entire length of her program teasing that she had Trump’s tax returns, but by the time she got to reading them, we learned that they did not reveal much abut Trump as a candidate. The broadcast was a waste of time when they could have been having more meaningful conversations about Trump’s candidacy. This happened because Trump’s tax returns were an issue throughout the campaign, and so the sensationalism of having them was what consumed Maddow’s show, instead of more substantive information about the election.
Declan Horrigan says:

October 29, 2017 at 5:47 pm

I think you make some really good points in your post and I agree with on the fact that the corporations that run the news media have one goal, and it is to make money. They make money by having more people watch their broadcasts so it makes sense that they will only air what they think people will find interesting. I found your point about the drop in the percentage of viewers of the news from the 1980’s to the 1990’s intriguing because it illustrates the point that you make very well. That was a time of peacefulness and prosperity and those types of situations do not make for good stories because there is not a whole lot you can say about that. Like you mentioned, controversy is what people find interesting and that is why news media focuses a lot on controversial material. Controversial material gets people talking about the show and the stories on it and it gets people to look forward to the next time the news is on so they can hear developments of the controversial stories. These two things are key; if people are talking about the stories and looking forward to the news it will increase the viewership because others who normally might not watch the news might be inspired to do so. All of these things lead to your conclusion that the news media is dangerous because they don’t always reveal the full stories or even all of the stories the public should know about because they might not be what is ideal for them to make money.
Austin Liptrot says:

October 29, 2017 at 8:55 pm

Terrin, you bring up some good points about the privatization of the industry, and the drop in viewers during the 1990’s. While I do believe that this sensationalism you bring up can be a potential danger, I don’t believe that this has breached the tenant of our popular sovereignty that the people have access to high quality information. News stations can sensationalize some of the stories we receive, but because of the wide number of news outlets we have access to, all stories, and the numerous sides to them. These stations can highlight the stories the people hear but they don’t expressly communicate the biases of the corporations. They do not inhibit our access to other stations and information, they just provide shortcuts that some people choose to use. It’s important that people look to other source. Especially with the wide amount of internet and print services that exist outside of television it truly lies on the people if they wish to become accurately informed on these issues and develop their own ideas.
Reid Chenault says:

October 29, 2017 at 10:47 pm

This topic causes much debate when speaking about the news media and how “controversy and scandal sell.” I think this statement is one hundred percent true, and because that is true the citizens do not receive the needed information from these news sources. As stated above, the framers intended for the news to be a major part of politics by presenting the people with new details in legislation and other political events. Nowadays the news seems as if they strictly report on social issues, except the obvious political sources. This hurts the public because they are no longer educated on political issues, which tends to ruin democracy. A key rule to popular sovereignty is to have an educated public so that what they want is actually best for the country too. The strict focus on social issues takes away from being a strong democracy. All of this starts with these large corporations because they are the ones less worried about educating the public and, instead, only interested in making money. When these sources focus on the important political information, I believe the democracy will become much stronger.
Adam Samee says:

October 30, 2017 at 10:47 am

You make good points with good sources and research, but the large corporations funding these news networks is a large problem in our democracy. If the citizens do not receive real informative news, then we fail to have a politically informed population. If fake and irrelevant news is portrayed, we do not succeed in having popular sovereignty. Every company has a goal to make money and no person is going to pay more to fund a new station that gives real news that educates. Many people would find this informative political source to be boring and irrelevant to them. In reality, it would be making them more informed and better Americans. The greater the political awareness, the stronger our democracy.

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