Jakarta is Coming
Media Corporatism
In the early 1970’s this phrase started being posted around Santiago, Chile. It was meant to alert Chileans that something akin to the coup d’etat that took place a few years before in Indonesia was working its way to Chile.
On September 11, 1973 the government of the democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende was overthrown by a military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet. With the full cooperation of the CIA, what followed was an economic full nelson, led by Milton Friedman.
Chilean resources were de-nationalized and opened up for multinational corporations to bid on operating them. What followed led to huge profits for the multinationals (mostly western if not entirely American) and an economic and societal bloodbath in Chile that lasted for decades.
This took place under the auspices of a thing called CORPORATISM.
CORPORATISM
“Corporatism, or corporativism, may refer to a political or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common interests.”
In 1996, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton and the first comprehensive overhaul to the Telecommunications Act in over sixty years took place.
Within the Telecommunications Act of 1996 contains the contentious Title 3, which allows for media cross ownership. Basically, Title 3 is the de-regulation of media. Under the liberal guise of letting “anyone enter the communications business” all it ended up doing was expediting the consolidation of media companies across platforms.
As recently as 1983, more than 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of broadcast media disseminated in the United States.
As of today, the majority of all broadcast media, excluding terrestrial and satellite radio, is controlled by six companies: Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, CBS (Spun off from Viacom) and Comcast.
In 2003, the FCC, under Michael Powell, set about to re-evaluate media ownership rules. And in June of that year, the FCC voted 3–2 and ”approved new media ownership laws that removed many of the restrictions previously imposed to limit ownership of media within a local area. The changes were not, as is customarily done, made available to the public for a comment period.”
The laws that surround media ownership are, on the very best of days, arcane. And under Trump administration FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (and his stupid coffee cup) they’ve become less arcane and more flagrantly corporate. To the point where Sinclair Media made a bid to purchase Tribune Media. Despite being a Trump sycophant and shameless corporate shill, Pai was unable to get the FCC to sign off on a Sinclair and Tribune merger. Had Pai succeeded, Sinclair would’ve been able to reach a staggering 78% of all households in America that had at least one television (note: Sinclair Media is shamelessly conservative).
Important to note, some media ownership rules are as follows:
Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45%.
Restrictions on newspaper and TV station ownership in the same market don’t exist.
All TV channels, magazines, newspapers, cable, and internet services are now counted, weighted based on people’s average tendency to find news on that medium. At the same time, whether a channel actually contains news is no longer considered in counting the percentage of a medium owned by one owner.
Previous requirements for periodic review of license have been changed. Licenses are no longer reviewed for “public-interest” considerations.
CREATIVE CORPORATISM
Creative Corporatism takes the core of corporatism, an “association of the people of society into corporate groups . . . on the basis of common interests.”
Therefore, Creative Corporatism is the idea that media creative and news outlets are being manipulated and cajoled by the interests and agenda’s of the corporations. And corporations typically have one interest over all others, money.
More than any time in history, almost whatever media you consume, it’s safe to say that at least one large multi-national is involved in disseminating that media to you. Whether it’s the creation, or distribution, of the media. Sometimes, it’s even both, as is becoming more common with the likes of conglomerates like Comcast and AT&T.
Despite the boon of digital and streaming services, network television still serves as the benchmark of media. For reasons that are far too obvious (hint: Wall Street) they have all but abandoned any educational, creative or societal responsibility. The television network “news programs” (can we call them news anymore?) don’t even attempt to present “news” segments as objective. At their best (and when are they ever at their best), they’re benign.
The scripted shows networks continue to green light are, when they aren’t re-boots of tired shows of yesteryear, mostly reductive and mind numbing. For every The Good Place, there are too many shows like Splitting Up Together.
Unscripted programming, also known as “reality” television, . . . on the one hand a producer and programmers dream, cheap to produce. On the other hand, the downfall of society. I get the programming appeal, it’s cheap. But just how far does your head have to be up your own rectum to green light some of the “reality” scrum that these people green light?
But I get it, “At the end of the day, corporations exist to make money”.
Regardless of genre, potential profitability and banality appear to be more of a programming green light than actual creativity.
To be fair, historically speaking, Hollywood and television isn’t really known for providing MENSA level programming. And all the networks are owned by publicly traded companies so they’re beholden to the think tank of Wall Street, so profitability is the name of the game. I get it.
Which is not to say everything broadcast network television does is bad. That’s not the case. All four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) and their cable subsidiaries have produced some very strong and original scripted, and unscripted, programming. Just not consistently.
And since they are all ad based business models, you have to wonder who is actually driving the bus, the networks, showrunners or the advertisers.
As long as media and advertising have been in bed together, that’s been a conversation (and media and advertising have pretty much always been in bed together). And when you add in the complexity of quarterly earnings, well. . . .it gets more complicated.
But as far as original programming goes, fortunately, there are streaming services, like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. And yes, commercial free cable nets like HBO, Showtime, etc. Where broadcast networks may exercise programming banality, streaming services and commercial free cable nets provide an avenue for new and exciting programming.
However, unlike their broadcasting brethren (even the commercial free cable networks), Netflix and Amazon Prime are subscription based so they are not beholden to ratings and advertisers (Hulu offers both commercial and commercial free plans); and therefore have more freedom when it comes to their programming selections.
The advantage to subscription services not having the worry of ratings and the meddling of advertising is that the success of their their programming relies almost entirely on the quality of their programming.
Now, let’s examine that word “programming”. All networks have Programming Departments. There is News Programming, Scripted Programming and Unscripted Programming, etc.
While television news programming is currently more polarizing than any other time in history, and often about as substantive as reporting found in Highlights Magazine. And much of television scripted and unscripted programming is often subpar. Oddly, all network programming is programmed by seemingly smart people (or so were told).
But if they’re so smart, they certainly don’t think too highly of their viewers.
Programming. Think about it. What is one of the first things that’s shut down during a coup d’etat? The media.
As Naomi Klein points out in her book Shock Doctrine, “When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think. They don’t call it ‘programming’ for nothing.”
Or as Marshal McLuhan said, “Control the media, control the message.”
This idea of Creative Corporatism is ultimately the push for profit over anything that may benefit or enrich society.
Over the past two decades, this Creative Corporatism, through the profit of media consolidation, we’ve seen how media corporations have become weaponized. The weapons they wield is the power of influence that accompanies huge profits and the power of suggestion that accompanies such a wide reach.
Where just 20 years ago there were many voices, opinions and points of view spread across various media all but encouraging thought and dialog.
Today there are just a handful of voices across all media discouraging both thought and dialog.
And the stories these voices are telling us, or yelling at us, calling it “news” or “reality” or “scripted” programming are typically not informative, not real and rarely entertaining.
This should alarm us but I fear it’s doing something far more damaging, numbing us.
Make no mistake, this is being done for two reasons. One, to subjugate the masses and two, to fatten the wallets of the corporations and the elite.
Jakarta isn’t coming. It’s already here.