What ails the Fourth Estate?

What ails the Fourth Estate? (You have the freedom of press only if you own one) For the disillusioned few who believe that there is more to life than whitening teeth with Dentine, deodorizing armpits with deofresh or scrubbing toilets with Harpic, the book Global Media is a gift from heaven. The authors, Edward.S.Herman and Robert.W.McChesney, argue that the global media pecking order is based on commercialism and a decline in the importance of public broadcasting and public standards.The Fourth Estate (media) plays a central role in the functioning of democracy. They are the preeminent vehicles of communication through which the public participates in the political process. The threat to the public sphere could be from government control and censorship, amply documented by media scholars. However, more insidious and covert threats emanate from private systems of control. Media that is dependent on advertising revenue is called upon to serve the interests of corporate advertisers and not the general public. Thus the media is more concerned in providing a congenial media for advertising and marketing of goods and consequently more eager to serve narrow corporate interests than the public sphere. Case in point: Procter and Gamble once the biggest corporate advertiser in the world prohibited television programs which would present the corporate world as cold, ruthless, and lacking public purpose. This results , the authors argue, in a preference for entertainment over controversy, serious political debate, discussions and documentaries that dig deeply, inform and challenge conventional opinion. Media outputs are commodified and designed to serve market needs not public needs. The authors also point out that the global media is dominated by three or four large transnational entities with fewer than ten mostly US based media conglomerates towering over the global market.The case of media monopoly is strengthened by a look at the ownership, especially those which account for reaching bulk of the worlds population.Time Warner (US$25 billion) followed by Disney ($24 billion), Bertelsmann ($15 billion), Viacom ($13 billion) and News Corporation ($10 billion, with Rupert Murdoch controlling 30% of its stock.). Also on the list are big corporations like Polygram, Seagram, Sony and General Electric. They operate in oligopolistic markets with substantial entry barriers.[i] The media scene in India also points to similar development with big business houses owning media TV channels and newspapers such as Times Now, Times of India, Economic Times to name a few is owned by the largest news conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd/ Sahu Jain family having turnover in excess of USD 1 billion. The other big business family namely Mukesh/ Anil Ambani through its corporations invest in major news outlets/ newspapers such as Hindustan Times, Mint, IBN-18 which owns and operates CNN IBN/ IBN7, and Network 18. This signifies growing concentration of ownership in an oligopolistic market that could lead to loss of media heterogeneity and plurality.[ii] The interlocking of corporate funding in media organizations has made the media a mouth piece to reflect corporate interests and that is why the media rarely criticize or expose corporate crimes. In US or even Europe articles exposing the frauds and crimes of the banks and financial organizations are rarely published in mainstream media. Such articles find their way in the Internet which offers a window of opportunity to alternative views. In the short term the corporate media appears firmly entrenched but there is a nascent global struggle for democratic communication. The growth of the alternative media such as Global Research, Corp Watch, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), La Monde Diplomatique, and The Real News Network offer countervailing force to corporate media. While the internet with

access to diverse viewpoints has challenged mainstream corporate media, its freedom is under threat from such acts as ACTA and SOPA which media watchers fear would impose censorship and stifle the freedom of the Net. Thousands of young protesters throughout Europe and US have protested against these measures and stalled the implementation of these acts. The free market utopia sponsored by corporate media has brought social and economic upheavals both in Europe and US. Movements such as Occupy Wall Street have targeted corporate media for serving the interests of 1 percent and ignoring the other 99 percent. The battle for democratized media has begun. C.R. Sridhar

[i] Figures in 1998 edition of the book The Global Media [ii] Corporatisation of the Media-Paranjoy Guha Thakurta/Subi Chaturvedi-EPW C R Sridhar