Reality Of The Sponsors in The North American Media

Billboard, radio, Television, newspaper, advertisement, World Wide Web, Book ,CD, video Cassette, SMS, computer game, mobile computer; we are besieged by these medias.

The world today is dominated by the media power. Different images, analysis, news and realities are produced according to the Media's attitudes, attachments and ideologies and all these can belong to the sponsors who are from different racial, ethnical, religious, political, economical and identical backgrounds; People who support media financially, ideologically and politically. So the produced reality cannot be the real reality because it is nourishing from sponsors` ideological viewpoints

What Baudrillard mentioned as "hyper reality" is referring to the artificiality of real that blur the boundaries between the "real" and the "simulation, entertainment, and current affairs" (cited by Barker, 2001: 212).

America, as a multicultural society, with varied racial and ethnical groups is matter of concern in this article with focusing on Blacks and how media as producer of message or transmitters of ' sign vehicle'(cited by Rojek, 2003; 94) in this Melton Pot is exercising the power of ethno racial construction.

Race has been a controversial problem since exploration of America. It is woven to warp and woof of American society and penetrating to all social institutions and media is not the exception.

Media with the potentiality of disseminating facts, information and opinions has a special place in American society. According to media policy 101 statistics, the average American spends over 4 hours a day watching TV, 78% of adults listen to radio, 88% of Americans believe internet has important role in their daily routine and average American child view 40000 commercials per year. About 12 million viewers watch nightly ABC, NBC and CBS news (Jacobs, 2ooo; 24).

And how ethnic and racial groups like Black Americans in this significant place are represented?

In America, it was not until late 1960 and early 1970 that we find any black families in television drama (Barker, 2000; 267) .The first television programme to feature Black Americans was Amos `n' Andy (Barker, 2000; 268). Hall believed that, this programme was a comedy that became a symbol of degradation of black people by the use of humor based on stereotypes. Media representations of people of color increased during 1980_90.

Stuart Hall believes that binary forms of representation exist between ' them' as white and ' us' as black. White has always been represented as good and black as bad, respectively civilized/ primitive and attractive/ ugly. Takaki also in ' The tempest in the wilderness' showed this kind of binary position in case of British and Irish (Takaki, 1993; 28). Although these two are from same origin but British are considered as civilized and nurtured but Irish as natural and savage.

This misrepresentation and ignorance also happens to Arabs in Hollywood movies. Norman Solomon indicated that Arabs in Hollywood are always representing as dirty, untrustworthy, violent and lecherous (Solomon, 2004; 4).

Ideologies support media

Althussers was a Marxist philosopher who defined a concept of Ideology. He believed ideology is one of the three levels of social formation. This concept means system of representation such as images, myths, ideas or concepts (Barker, 2000; 77). Ideology constitutes subjects and subjects are fragmented and have pluralistic subject positions. Ideology is understood to be material phenomenon rooted in daily conditions. In his definition, there are four ideological state apparatuses:

1.family

2.education system ( transmit ruling class ideology)

3.church

4.mass media

To me, ideology can be one of the important factors of media formation.

In America since 1975, two thirds of independent newspaper and one third of TV owners have disappeared. Merely, 4% of radio station and less than 2% of T.V stations are owned by people of the color.

Reason of misrepresentation of Black Americans goes back to the hidden ideologies. Existence of racial media is dependent to existence of racial ideology.

According to the above statistics, I think American media is becoming more and more dominant on the masses and they not only decide what to watch but also how to think about and believe the "produced reality". Also I can say that almost media power is controlled by white Americans not the people of the color. This shows how much they are marginalized from the mainstream space of society and how ethno racial power exist in media as well.

Gramsci, ideology and hegemony

Gramsci, an Italian writer, politician and political theorist, in late 19th and early 20th century, defined hegemony as "situation where historical bloc of ruling class factions exercises social authority and leadership over the subordinate classes" ( cited by Barker, 2000; 80) .

He believed representation of formal education system as a meritocracy and people of color as by nature inferior and less capable than white people is formed by ideology. The hegemonic bloc as he said is not single socioeconomic category perhaps ideology plays a crucial role in alliances of the groups. In Gramscian word, hegemony has to be constantly remade and renowned.

To have these two theories as a model, I think Black American has experience of subordination toward whites during the history and this historical bloc has been existed since exploration of America. History of slavery and tortures against Black Americans was a cycle of remaking and re owning hegemony for white Americans.

During 1960_70 America experienced race crisis that caused so many professionals and journalists to arrange series of conferences to consider racial issues. In that time media was deficient in neutrality of race problems. Carolyn Martindale in his pamphlet "The white press and Black America" declared that media had failed three matters:

1.To cover Black as normal part of American society instead reinforcing and promoting stereo types.

2.Portraying problems that black Americans face.

3.Explain causes and underlying condition of black Americans.

According to Martindale (1986) and Campbell (1995), African Americans in news cast are represented as criminals connected to gun and violence (cited by Barker, 2000; 269)

Up to here, by reviewing Althussers and Gramsci theories I tired to say representation of blacks in American media is implicating existence of ideology and hegemony's concepts. Clearly media such as newspaper, TV, web sites and other forms (mentioned in introduction) are dominated more by white power in America and blacks a portion of America's population are subordinated by the white exceptionalism and hegemony of whites for directing and sponsoring the media.

Also the white media produce the reality which can be hyper reality that implicated values and ideologies of whites. Media has this capability for two reasons:

1.Media is managed by corporation's capitals so profit play important role in producing reality. In my idea media is a capitalistic phenomenon which is alive just by money.

2.Media creates the reality and what is offering to the audiences is "hallucinatory resemble" version ( Barker, 2000; 212)

According to Nietzsche, pure knowledge is impermissible and nothing more than expediency of certain race and species (cited by Barker, 2000; 199). That's why in media today we have different narrations for one single happening. Every media interprets world with its own eyes. This goes back to the media characteristic. I believe media is not and can not be a neutral phenomenon. Basically is profit _oriented, no matter economic, cultural or political.

Media as a tool for forming public opinion is more concerning by politicians and governmental agendas. Governments can stabilize their hegemony over controlling Medias and persuading masses by ideologies. Censorship and articulation of specific news, representing minorities as problems, otherization and racial/ethnic discriminations are policies of media sponsors. I think media has this capability everywhere, it is not specified to particular part of the world but the difference is in amount and degree of interfere.

References:
?Barker, Chris(2000) cultural studies; theory and practice, London, sage
?Rojek ,Chris ( 2003) Stuart Hall, London, Blackwell publishing Ltd
?Jacobs, Ronald D (2000) Media, race and the crisis of the civil Society from Watt to Rodney king, UK, Cambridge University
?Takaki, Ronald (1939) a different mirror, Congress Caraloging in- publication data, USA.
?Solomon, Norman ( 2004) The war and racism _ media denial in over drive, Journal of Media beat, USA

Internet references:
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://freepress.net
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://etd.lib.fsu.edu

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American Mainstream Media - Player Or Tool?

Many different types of communication tools, such as the TV, cinema, radio, newspapers and magazines, web sites and the music industry, can be classified as media. An important issue relating American media is the concept of "concentration of media ownership". This concept implies that the ownership of most of America's media lay in the hands of a few media conglomerates, who both earn huge sums of money through advertising and sale of copyrighted material, and, at the same time, are considered as important global players, regarding the fact that they influence people's views about their surrounding world to a large extent.

But on the other hand, some argue that instead of being powerful players, the American media are in fact tools in the hands of the government. In this paper, each theory will be investigated to see which one better describes the role of media in both the American society and also the world.

It is claimed that there is no stronger power in the world than the American public opinion, and this public opinion is itself shaped by the media, so media can be regarded as taking the place of the powerful kings and popes of the past centuries (National Vanguard Books, 2004). There are many different ways through which media carefully shapes people's opinions. It provides its audience with an image of the world, and then tells them what and how to think about that image. By stereotyping, the media also tell people how to think and judge about others (this others can refer to different races, women...). The media also plays its role by concentrating on certain stories and issues, while omitting others.

Among other communication media, the television is the most influential, regarding the fact that people spend a lot of time watching TV, probably much more than they spend on other media, such as the cinema or newspapers. According to a survey by Mediamark Research, 98% of Americans have a television, while only 79% are newspaper readers. Three examples of how public opinion is shaped by American media are:

- middle east news, and how the Arab-Israeli conflict is portrayed

- the 9/11 events and the wars that followed

- racial issues

The government has always declared the media to be a power that doesn't always act in the right way. The conservatives have always complained that the US media have been unpatriotic and not supportive of government's foreign policy, or simply too liberal.

The Media Research Center has carried out a study on the role of media on the war on terror, from such a conservative viewpoint. The report gives examples of why the American media have not reported the war and relating issues in the correct way:

- Peter Jennings of ABC, in a live program 2 days after the 9/11 attacks stated: "the US might no longer be a free country" and he also claimed that civil liberties have been suspended in the country.

- The "US Patriot Act" was reflected in a way by the media that made it look like some form of unconstitutional "snooping into the lives of ordinary Americans".

- In the case of moving of Al-Qaede prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, media reported that they had been tortured, and should have access to civilian courts.

- When the New York Times revealed that the NSA (National Security Agency) was monitoring phone calls, it made it look like a threat to civil liberties. (Rich Noyes, 2006)

There are other studies that have used the war on terror to conclude that the media in America have been independent players, and not controlled by the government.

Jim Kuypers is a political communication researcher who claims that the mainstream media intentionally reflected the speeches of President Bush in a biased manner. Kuyper claims that "if someone were relying only on the mainstream media for information, they would have no idea what the president actually said. It was as if the press were reporting on a different speech." He concludes the US media to be an "anti-democratic institution". (Kuypers, 2006)

Other writers have claimed that the media have concentrated too much on the government's failures and weaknesses during the war. (Lustick, 2006)

Opposing this "media as power" theory which portrays the US media as an independent power, calls it the "Fourth Estate", and claims that journalists are more influential than any government official in setting the public (and sometimes foreign) agenda, are the "media as tool" advocates.

Two important points helps understand why the media are referred to as a tool:

- the media is dependant on the government for the information that it can obtain, and that it can call credible

- the media can criticize the government only within certain parameters that are acceptable to the government and its notion of national security

These facts are said to turn the media into a public relations arm of the US government. (Edward, 1993)

Again, the war on terror would be an interesting context in which the role of media can be studied, this time with the "media as tool" viewpoint.

The concept of "embedded journalism" appeared during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and proved to be a good way to keep reporters content and controlled at the same time. The media put pressure on the government to allow them better access to battlegrounds; they were not pleased with the way they were shut down from information in case of Afghanistan, and also the way they were censored in the Gulf War. And pentagon made the best out of all this, as Lt. Col. Rick Long of the U.S. Marine Corps put it: "Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment." (Kahn, 2004)

In this project, reporters signed contracts with the military which limited what they were allowed to report. Reporters were embedded in selected military units, and so shared their everyday lives with soldiers, and relied on them to get them to the place they wanted, and they usually didn't have access to any other source other than the military.

A Penn State study reveals that this project did affect the number and the type of stories that were published by major newspapers, and the result was that more articles about the U.S. soldiers' personal lives and fewer ones about the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians were printed in the 754 news articles that were analyzed in this study. (Linder, 2006)

It can be concluded that the media can enjoy a certain degree of independence, provided that they don't cross certain red lines, and remain faithful to certain notions that are important to the US government. American media is not just a "power" or a "tool", but a powerful tool that can be used in a very affective way by the government, if only they can come up with clever ideas and projects, like the "embedded journalism" project. In the "Information Age" (Hess and Kalb, 2003), tactics like hiding the whole story or direct censoring will certainly be ineffective. The US government surely will evaluate its "embedding strategy" and might come up with new and innovative ideas in order to reflect issues and events in its own way, and stay in control of this powerful soft tool.

Bibliography:

1. Edward, Herman, The media's role in U.S. foreign policy (Power of the Media in the Global System), Journal of International Affairs, June 1993

2. Hess, Stephen and Kalb, Martin, The Media and the War on Terrorism, Brookings Institution Press, 2003

3. Kahn, Jeffery, Postmortem: Iraq war media coverage dazzled but it also obscured, NewsCenter, 18 March 2004

4. Kuypers, Jim, Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. , October 28, 2006

5. Lustick, Ian S., Trapped in the War on Terror. University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006

6. Linder, Andrew, Study on Embedded Journalism, The Pennsylvania State University, 2006

7. Noyes, Rich, MRC research director, The Media vs. The War on Terror: How ABC, CBS, and NBC Attack America's Terror-Fighting Tactics as Dangerous, Abusive and Illegal, September 11, 2006

8. Research staff of National Vanguard Books, Who Rules America? The Alien Grip Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken, November 2004

Elham Kadkhodaee

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