The limitations of the mass media in liberal democracies are not always easy to perceive unless one has access to alternative sources of information. Fortunately, there are some excellent books and magazines that expose the incredible biases, cover-ups and misleading perspectives in the mass media. The magazines Extra!, Free Press, Lies of our Times and Reportage give eye-opening accounts of the ways in which the English-language mass media give flattering perspectives of business and government, limit coverage of issues affecting women and minorities, cover up elite corruption, promote government policy agendas, and so forth. The book Unreliable Sources gives examples of the conservative, establishment and corporate bias of US mass media on issues such as politicians, foreign affairs, environment, racism, terrorism and human rights.[2] Intriguingly, conservatives also believe that the media are biased, but against them.[3]
The analysis that underlies these exposés is simple and effective: corporations and governments have a large influence on the mass media, and the mass media are big businesses themselves. These factors appear to explain most of the problems. The power of the western mass media is especially damaging to the interests of Third World peoples, being an integral part of contemporary cultural imperialism.[4]
Yes, the media are biased. What can be done about it? Jeff Cohen, of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), has a strategy. He says
be sceptical of media stories;
write letters to media companies, make complaints, join talk-back radio;
don’t advocate censorship, but instead advocate presentation of both sides on any issue;
use public access TV;
hold meetings and pickets;
use alternative media.[5]
This is a good grassroots approach. But the goal is “fairness and accuracy,” namely the balancing of news. There seems to be no larger programme to replace undemocratic media structures.
A sophisticated treatment of these issues is given by John Keane in his book The Media and Democracy.[6] He provides an elegant critique of “market liberalism,” the approach by which governments reduce their intervention in communication markets. He notes that unregulated communication markets actually restrict communication freedom by creating monopolies, setting up barriers to entry and turning knowledge into a commodity. He also points out several trends in liberal democracies that seem to be of no concern to supporters of a free market in communication: the use of government emergency powers, secret operations by the military and police, lying by politicians, advertising by governments, and increasing collaboration between elites in government, business and trade unions. The increasingly global reach of communication corporations is also a significant problem.
The traditional alternative to commercial media is “public service media,” namely government-financed media (such as the ABC in Australia, BBC in Britain and CBC in Canada) combined with government regulation of commercial media. Keane favours revived public service media, with guaranteed autonomy of government-funded media, government regulation of commercial media, and support for non-state, non-market media, a category that includes small presses and magazines, community radio stations and open-access television stations.
Keane’s model sounds very good in theory. He gives an imposing list of things that should be done, but he doesn’t say who is going to make it happen — the government, presumably. More deeply, Keane doesn’t say how the state itself will be controlled. He wants a new constitutional settlement with enlightened and progressive government media, suitable government controls on commercial media, and promotion of the “non-state, non-market media.” But why should “the state” do all this? Why won’t it keep doing what it is already doing, as he describes so well?
Limits to participation
In principle, the mass media could be quite democratic, if only they were run differently. Editorial independence could be guaranteed, minimising the influence of government, owners or other special interest groups. A range of viewpoints could be presented. The power of advertisers could be reduced or eliminated. Opportunities for citizen input into content could be opened up. These are worthy goals. But there are inherent limits to making mass media truly democratic.
Consider, for example, an alternative newspaper with a substantial circulation and reputation. The editors may be highly responsive to readers, but even so some editorial decisions must be made. Choices must be made about what stories to run, which advertisements to accept (if any), which events to publicise, which submissions to accept, what policies to make about language, and so forth. There are innumerable “policy” decisions to be made. Even spelling can be controversial. Should the paper be open to the debate about spelling reform? What about letters to the editor? Should everything be published, or should some selection be made on the basis of topic or quality?
If there are only a few active contributors, then everyone can be involved who wants to be, and all submissions published. But this is extremely unlikely when the circulation becomes large and the publication is seen to be important. Then lots of people see an opportunity to raise their own favourite issues.
These problems are far from hypothetical. They are quite apparent to anyone dealing with alternative magazines with circulations in the tens of thousands, or even just thousands. Not everyone who wants to can have an article published in Mother Jones, New Statesman and Society or The Progressive. Such magazines are “high quality” because they are able to select from many potential offerings. But being able to select also means that the editors have a great deal of power. Being able to define and select “quality” also means being able to make decisions about content.
Of course, from the point of view of the owners and editors of such magazines, they are hard pressed just to survive. Make some wrong decisions and readership may drop off or financial benefactors may be less generous. (Most “alternative” magazines depend heavily on contributions to supplement subscription fees.) Practising “democracy” within such a magazine, if this means publishing letters from all and sundry or letting readers vote on policy matters, would be a prescription for financial disaster.
These comments are a bit unfair to the alternative media. By definition, even the largest of them is still a small player in the media game. Furthermore, a diversity of perspectives is available through the different alternative media. There are more small magazines available than anyone can read. My point is not to criticise the alternative media, but to point out that participatory democracy is virtually impossible in a medium where a small number of owners and editors produce a product for a much larger audience.
The futility of seeking media democracy becomes even more apparent when the scale is increased: audiences of hundreds of thousands or millions. This is the domain of major newspapers, television stations and wire services. It requires only a little analysis to find that the larger the audience, the more powerful are the key decision-makers in the media organisations and the less effective are any mechanisms for participation. The very scale of the media limits opportunities for participation and increases the power of key figures. The way in which this power is used depends on the relation of the media to the most powerful groups in society. In liberal democracies, governments and corporations, and media corporations in particular, exercise the greatest power over the media. The large scale of the mass media is what makes it possible for this power to be exercised so effectively.
2
Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon,
3
George Comstock,
4
See especially the now classic treatment by Ben Bagdikian,