Culture Inc

Culture Inc
Herbert I. Schiller
Basic continuity in the US long predates WW II, but has come into its own since is the phenomenal growth of private business corporations with increased role in economic, political and culture, national and international affairs along side the reduction in power of unions, farmers and urban consciousness. The drive to privatize has adversely tipped the balance against democracy to a precarious level.
The enormously expanded IT sector makes it possible to be owned by corporations (Before Clinton Media owned by 85 corporations, since by 5).
Corporate speech given first amendment protection, and is the loudest. Libraries and public education system were free before coming under corporate sphere through financial dependence and increasing privatization.
Creative work, drama, museums, street fairs, parades come under its auspices. Most transactions are in privately owned malls.
Economy expanding or contracting is transnational. Social analysts do not give adequate importance to media.
National state is supposed not to be viable. But what replaces it? Not international organization. No alternative to free market and consumerism, we are told. IT and culture enveloped by TNCs. Needs of billions of people have not out weighed the American model. Social struggle will intensify. It is a corporate dominated society.
Social imperatives channel individual expression. It is an inseparable part of life and cannot be completely controlled but subject to social boundaries created by power formations. Private corporate power is the prime contractor.
New technology provides instruments organizing and channeling expression, instantaneity defines it-instant greed, prestige and instant future. (John Berger. How to wrest control from corporations (2). Reagan invoked the memory. Abraham Lincoln brigade (3) -Americans who fought Franco- to give support to his CIA mercenaries all over the world. Vincente Navarro. “ in Spain today…there are streets, fountains, squares, gardens named after them…, in the US not one street, not one square…”
There has paradoxically a lot of thought provoking literature/history been produced on non-corporate USA. That has brought to light aspirations, struggles and achievements of Americans. But little appeared on mainstream media or in the speeches of leaders. There is a corporate mass media history machine, which colors and rewrites history. TV, owned by corporations rewrites history for millions. Writers are incessantly censured.
Control is invisible via education, penalties and reward system, rules and internalization of values.
Dissenters have been dropped, empathy and identification with the wretched has been destroyed. High level of unemployed (4) 7% accepted (4% federal law target) and no longer a political issue.
Market economy led to attrition of organized labor and the sense of social justice and solidarity. Electoral politics is meaningless (Iraq little discussed in 2008 campaign).
Wall Street Journal ‘ on corporate sponsored consciousness massage’ Training programs/seminars to inculcate sharing a common simple goal, to promote productivity by converting workers apathy into corporate allegiance (5). Stanford school of business creativity in business” Meditation, chanting and Tarot cards…(6)”.
Overall effect is diversion of attention from corporate society . Virtues of the market permeates the discourse.
Chap 1:
Weakening of democratic order-US industrial power building since before the civil war, and matched Europe post WW I. In 1945, it seemingly all at once became a superpower and mainstay of the capitalist world. Only the US escaped the catastrophic loss of WW II and became global controller of the world economy. But the average American was not affected, domestic and overseas affairs decoupled.
Elevation of business authority beyond the national arena was a central feature of post WW Ii USA.
Reagan addressed IMF/WB meeting of the board of governors in 1981, “The Bretton Woods and the GATT …facilitated individual enterprise…91), in other words free market unfettered by social accountability.
Corporate capital is the main player in domestic resource allocation. Post WW II it got to make such decisions at the global level. That constituted a radical change. Corporations became excessively arrogant in domestic sphere too. Corporations managed to garner domestic support for US expansionism.
Capital rich corporations established world wide operations and legitimized grip on international production, trade and finance.
A global infra-structure of American owned production, marketing, finance and distribution was set up in relatively short time.
Inner working of the system were beyond the competence and reach of governments and became the major source of decision on resource allocation, investment and finance and industrial policy affecting the whole world.
Means and Methods of consolidating power:
Till the implosion of the USSR, ant-communist rhetoric to weaken labor, subversion, proxy wars against progressive governments, and since the implosion Islamic fundamentalist bogey.
Suborning Leaders:
-development of huge farms and elimination of the majority of independent farmers.
-WB, IMF, NAFTA and other agencies outside the parameters of international bodies like the UNO.
-international banking.
-depoliticization of the public space, sub urbanization
-20 years of relative prosperity and good times.
Anti-progressive campaigns long antedate the advent of the USSR. People have been branded anarchists, aliens. 1874 Harper’s Weekly, “The cartoon on our front pages…will serve to warn our working men…against the dangers…misguiding leaders …precipitate…communism is a foreign product…hardly to be made to flourish on American soil (3).
The Soviet revolution gave a ready made and ever present vehicle to be to be resorted to during any stress to established social order (4).
In the 1920s workers demand for job security led to Palmer raids against aliens and alleged ‘subversives’ arresting thousands.
During the depression un-American activities committee under its chairman martin dies was a forerunner of Joseph McCarthy witch hunts. (6).
Post WW II anti-communism became a permanent feature. Various legislations created a pariah status for dissidents (7). McCarthyism was supposedly against external threats, was actually against the possibility that former colonial states might break away from the capitalist system, and God forbid adopt a socialist economy. Proponents of peaceful co-existence, labor and consumer interest groups became the targets.
Major beneficiaries of ant-communist/soviet campaigns were US corporations protected by US bases and diverted attention from expansion and creation of a huge protected market for US products. Vast amounts of military equipment underwritten by the congress sold to the Pentagon, including the new IT (8).
The new technology spawned ‘futurist’ writing which endowed it with social utility, ignoring the fact that most new technology was to be used for coercion, social control, destruction and death.
A popular culture saturated with political propaganda (anti-communist then, Islamo-terrorist later) was spewed. Right wing took over with Reagan (9), and launched subversion against the Caribbean and Latin American Nationalists. Bush 1 had his Gulf 1. Clinton supervised over NAFTA, WTO, consolidation of media ownership and financial deregulation resulting in the 2008 melt down (for which Bush II was blamed). Bush II took advantage of 9/11 to attack Afghanistan where the patrons of the 9/11 high-jackers had their dens and Iraq where the estranged minion of the US was licking his Gulf I wounds. Political center died (Leslie Gelb, NY times correspondent writing a year before Reagan 8). (Obama elected in 2008, is a pragmatist par excellence, and lest the power brokers do to him, what they did to Clinton, he quickly collected Clinton time servers in his team. After his landslide victory in 1996, he was growing too big for his britches, and had to be put in place).
Anti-communist sentiment had permitted state sponsored terrorism with untold loss of life in Korea, Greece, Iran, Dominican republic, Lebanon, Cuba, Angola, Indonesia, Vietnam, Granada, El Salvador and Congo.
Big business, the only alternative:
Most minimal reforms presented as threats. Market model construction wanted to privatize all services including postal service and the weather bureau. Big government deemed harmful, described pejoratively by bog media, owned by big business to weaken the accountability and power of representative government to regulate.
Big business is a tangible reality. Coercive military and security bureaucracies are not the prime target. Social units, social security, health, education, environment and occupational safety are.
Threat of big government has served well in disarming criticism of concentrated private economic power.
National security state worse since 9/11, caused enormous debility and weakness of traditions of freedom of expression, and spawned industry heavily dependent on arms (11). No regulation led to recurrent crisis (the so called sub-prime and credit crunch, though inevitable in a capitalist economy, would have had a less severe impact).
Academic and scientific communities have been taken over as well (12). Those outside the system find it difficult to obtain a channel of expression. (Democracy Now and FASTV have low audience). Especially egregious corporate acts are attributed to a few bad apples, if could not be ignored, to extricate the system from responsibility. Independent sectors have been weakened. (College students number went up from 1 million in 1940 to 8 million in 1990s, attendance at cultural events has also gone up, but corporate influence on both is pervasive). Independent agricultural farms had nearly disappeared by 1980s (from 30% of the population in 1900 to 2% in 1985, inn 1945, 6 million. NY Times 200,000 farms produced 60% of the nation’s food.(14).GM seeds make the situation even worse (15). Elimination of small farms influence democratic structure-millions left the farms.
Late 19th and early 20th centuries agriculture produced serious opposition to corporate finance.
Labor movement has had to fight hard. Capital resisted unionization in heavy industry till the forties. Labor movement is an integral part of democracy in fighting against child labor, discrimination and for shorter hours, education and participation in management of workplace.
Union membership in 1945 was 35.5% of the workforce, though lower in other industrialized countries. It went down to 18.8% in 1984 (16). High tech and IT totally excluded (up somewhat in public sector).
Post WW II global march of the US business required a pliant workforce. Anti-communism helped that and obtained labor support for global expansion policy.
In 1947 the British could not hold on to Greece against communists led partisans who had fought to free a great part of the country from Nazis. Truman doctrine, arm and finance troops to defeat resistance. US bases are still in Greece (more US bases and soldiers in Germany than in any other country besides the US itself (17).
Leaders of auto, steel, transport and maritime and other unions purged communist officers(1947 Taft-Hartley law) and members, and union officials required to sign that they were not communists. If they did not, they lost protection against employers. If they did, they could be prosecuted for perjury on evidence of informers.
By early 1950s, members opposed to US expansion and for labor interest against capital were purged too.(18). Majority of union leaders endorsed Vietnam war.
Issues of social importance, basics vs. luxury goods, environment, nuclear energy, public sector given were short shrift.

When markets shrank, organized labor had been so weakened, they could not resist industries relocating for more profit (matured in outsourcing to China syndrome). Labor had no allies, as the unorganized majority of working people saw no reason to support ‘greedy, narrow minded’ unions. Labor solidarity vanished. Crossing picket lines, no longer deemed unethical (19). Labor voice all but disappeared in national dialogue.
Immigration and Sub-urbanization:
Immigration was sharply up (21). Immigrants added liberal and social reformist input to political dialogue, as they had escaped repressive regimes, though later ones were escaping progressive ones in East Europe and Cuban, Vietnamese, Chinese (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Africans from civil war). Philipinos and Indians came for economic opportunities and Arabs from repressive regimes. Iran sent shah supporters, reactionaries came from Hong Kong., Palestinians escaped a fascist regime., Kurds from repression, Turks economic immigrants. Central Americans, legal and illegal scared of deportation and do not participate.
Massive Post WW II move to suburbs:
Post war period till 1970s, did create a cloud of euphoria, though the majority did not participate in prosperity.
Material payoff post WW II USA:
Increased corporate influence, decreased labor power, increasingly conservative immigrant influx led to corporate enclosure of public expression. Main objective of US corporations is to maximize profit in any given circumstances, so need to be in charge of all levers of power to allocate resources.
One instructive and illustrative pointer is the rising individual and declining corporate tax burden.((Individual 1952, 47.2%, 1983 same, corporate 1952 32.1%, 1983 6.6%). Payroll tax quadrupled, causing greater burden on the low paid. (23). This is ‘invisible’ income redistribution and a testimonial to corporate success in transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, made possible without outrage due to corporate ownership of the media.
Chap 2 Corporations/Culture Production:
Most corporations have own message making divisions. But they exist in their own right. UNESCO,” Generally speaking, a culture industry is held to exist when cultural good …on a large scale and in accordance with a strategy based on economic considerations, rather concerns for cultural considerations (1). (publishing press, film, radio, TV, advertisement, sports and information industry data base, software, IT etc). In the second tier are Museums, art galleries, amusement parks-more than 600 theme/amusement parks in the US.
All economic activity produces symbolic and material good-car. Economic life and symbolic content of a community together represent totality of culture.
Though of feudal origin, capitalism has withdrawn specific categories of symbols and has organized them like other industries.
Speech, dance, drama, music, visual arts, painting, sculpture have been made salable commodity for those who can afford it. Cultural creation employs paid labor, private appropriation of products and sale for profit. Seabrook,” price paid by working people for the successes of capitalism…break down of human associations…indifference…violence…loneliness…loss of purpose (2). “the objective character of the film is its existence as a commodity…93). The cultural goods…cultural industry…they remain the specific cultural form of a particular set of institutional arrangements” Non-market controlled creative work has seen a marked decline.
Industrialization of culture has enhanced profits immeasurably, though that aspect is understated. The industry embodies the values of market system (Americans used to think till a few years ago that they had the best health care system in the world. They have only recently woken up to the fact that 46 million do not have health insurance and 92 million inadequate insurance, making hospital bills the largest cause of personal bankruptcy, before sub-prime. News of war protests, and reason of its being one of the main reasons of the budget problems are not covered. Religious news is covered as it helps republicans who are more blatantly supportive of the market system. People are brain washed).
New Technology:
Revolutionary IT, making instantaneous communication possible, remains firmly anchored in market relations. The great increase in penetrability creates a market favorable atmosphere that smothers the senses and fills public ad private space. The interest in labels starts early in childhood (6). Sales message, appears in more ways than just advertising. Support services credit cards, banking, retailing and transport follow the expansion of manufacturing services. Employers in the field outnumber the ones in production. They are better schooled and trained. The social glue is provided by news, sports and films…super bowls, celebrity shows, hit movies, new food fashion, dieting.
Newspapers increasingly bought by cop rations (11). Start up and running costs so prohibitive, new newspapers have disappeared. USA Today survived as a part of Gannett chain, cost 208 millions and lost ½ billion in a few years. TV stations cost hundreds of millions.
Monopolies-Rupert Murdock biggest name, orders national leaders, Blair consulted him before taking every major decision, controls waves in the USA.
Publishing industry is also falling to a few owners-Gulf and Western already owners of Paramount studios, Simon and Schuster acquired Prentice Hall, the largest text book publishers in the US. The New House chain, owner of Random house, and many other publishing houses bought the New Yorker. Publishers tell the authors what to do (13). Book store chains Barnes and Noble, Walden, Dalton commercialize the business more. Their choice and promotion determines which book will become best sellers, limit the likelihood of publication of socially critical anti-establishment material.
The industry does not give adequate coverage to mergers. Soaps and happy talk shows trivialize life’s problems.
Media owners took advantage of pre-profit social accountability be damned years of Reagan, (Bush I, Clinton and worst of all bush II). Hollywood’s biggest studios are now subsidiaries of conglomerates which own sport teams, TV, theatre, cable etc. the president of the Writers guild of America, “we are not negotiating with Paramount, but with coca cola” (16).
SC ruling against ownership by film companies of cinema houses freely flouted. (18). Commerce are clean winners over art in movies (19), eliminating art theatre which showed low profit art movies. (19). FCC loosening regulations over ownership of TV and Cable and newspapers simultaneously.(21), also gobbling up software (22), radio, electronic, real estate (23).
The awesome concentration of private cultural power means that only the richest group can own media and transmit the thinking of the tiniest, though dominant propertied class. In news, views and entertainment (24).
This giantism and concentrated control seems perfectly reasonable to America, and a little less so to European and Indians. Public Has been programmed, astonishingly in the US as it was the cradle of anti-monopoly movement in 19th century to first ½ of the 20th. Theodore and FD Roosevelt attacked great wealth(23). Press barons boast of enormous assets (26-27) they promote the myth that control by a few leads to independence and integrity (29). Murdoch was forced to sell New York Post though supported by NY senators, on the grounds that it will adversely affect jobs in NY.
Countervailing Pressure:
Numerous small producers manage to carry on but do not diminish the dominance of major players. The sector supplies a constant stream of talent to big players (30). The objective is achieved by keeping cultural production process firmly anchored in market relations.. Small players more interdependent than independent. Whatever individual inclination of independent and corporate players, the decision must be according to commercial profitability. Pare Lorenz saluted for his work by the academy of Motion pictures, arts and sciences in 1981, made his last film Nuremberg trials in 1946. A documentary attempted in 1948 about the atomic test in Bikini atoll had to be abandoned. Lorenz, “We could not raise two dollars and a half”(31).
The symbolic outputs of cultural industry are essentially elements of corporate expressions. Organic process of corporate voice is generalized across the entire range of cultural expression.
Chap 3 Corporations and Law:
Once corporations discovered that communications and culture were not only profitable, but politically expedient, it was only a matter of a very short time before corporate expression severely limited by law till 1970, broadened its encroachment.
In 1942 US Supreme court decided unanimously that commercial speech not entitled to first amendment protection (2).
Now it is given some constitutional protection. The change of status is extraordinarily remarkable (3). Governing metaphor of free speech in capitalist society is support of constitutional protection of free speech (4).
From the very outset courts have protected private property (6). Pre-civil war private property was small scale and agri-based. Post civil war period saw industrialization and great concentration of wealth and capital. Judicial system responded to the change.
1886 SC gave a unanimous decision that that corporations were persons. And under the equal protection clause of the amendment (7). They took advantage of the “due process”. Corporations could not be socially accountable except under very limited conditions. Howard Zinn, “14th amendments was meant to protect Negro rights…of cases brought before the SC between 1890 to 1910, 19 dealt with Negroes, 288 with corporations.
That lasted till the depression when the New Deal mandated government action and interfered with the hitherto corporate prerogative property.
WW II corporations temporarily weakened by the new deal were revitalized, luxuriated on super profits of the war and destruction of overseas competition and gave birth to consumer society with further benefit to themselves. Credit, tax relief on mortgages, nearly full employment , vast market in war ravaged Europe, all further empowered corporations.
TV came in late 1940s, cable and satellite soon afterwards,, computers in 1960s, all these became bases of new industries and facilitated growth of old ones, especially banking, insurance and real estate. IT provided indispensable infrastructure. Social opposition movements were also able to reach hitherto unreachable audiences. Social movements collided with corporate enterprises. The latter had to accommodate to it. IT industry started to gain the upper hand in late 20th century and became vital to global MNCs. Free flow of information became the prime objective of US diplomacy.. Data base collection soft ware became prime intellectual property and projected as such by WTO. Corporations use their power to influence public opinion. Editor Exxon’s Exxon, USA ,”if you can inject enough facts into the mind of people…you can blunt criticism in advance”(12).
From 1960s to 1980s, courts accommodated and promoted property rights. Information as property and its use to protect property are the defining characteristics of capitalism in late 20th century on, “ It has become class wide (13). Taken together court decisions overturned 1942 SC decision that commercial speech not entitled to court protection.. Groups seeking drug price information (14), abortion clinics (15), and civil rights benefited too, but corporations took major advantage. Initial proposal was “ social advantage to all which blunted its later commercial use. “Belloti” 1980 decision allowed corporations to contribute to referendum. 1982 decision curbed state power to regulate corporate speech making it equivalent to editorial speech and reinforced the concept of that corporations are legal persons under the 14th amendment. The emphasis was on receiver’s right to get information, rather than the source of speech (23).
Consequences of Belloti:
Pre war corporations did not need speech privileges. Job control, ownership of industry and access to government were enough. Now they, in addition, require thought control. Needs define issues, frame them to meet the objective of definers, access and control over information flow. Belloti enabled hegemony over information flow. Corporate speaker became the loudest voice in town (27). Larger corporations assets dwarf those of many countries (28). FCC has gone along with enhancement of corporate speech since Reagan. Corporate editorializes spend billions (30-31). News stories (inspired) by blend into programs (32). To believe that billions in advertising contributes to intelligent and well informed decision demands fatuous credulity. It enables giant corporations to shape national economic activity and consciousness.
Corporations in media field claim first amendment rights as its exempts them from accountability and obligations. Cable TV industry also demands first amendment protection. (Check if it has). Cable TV is concentrated and utilizes radio waves which is a public resource. Cable companies have been challenging municipal rights, on first amendment grounds, to make them pay franchise and set aside channels for public use (36). According to one legal analyst “the screen must become the modern town house” (37).
In the eighties, it seemed that countervailing pressures have weakened the US. That is true in the economic field, but with the demise of USSR, militarily, it exists unchallenged. It tries to assert “first amendment” rights of US media internationally.
MNCs drive the international system and corporate speech is an integral part of the system.
Children’s TV is often castigated (38), corporations retort, parents should monitor.
It took prolonged public indignation to ban tobacco advertisements. Corporations fight against imposition of taxes on their product (47).
Even in some conservative minds state provides the sole means of dealing with social malaise (53-55).
Heritage Foundation 1980 “it is axiomatic that individual liberties are secondary to …national security…” (54).
Wrenching set of alternatives-a) accept enhancement of corporate speech, b) possibility of excessive arbitrary state power.
Public power could be used to resolve the dilemma, but to develop people’s political consciousness requires access to public media
Chap 4 Privatization and Commercialization of Public Sector: Information and Education:
Corporate take over of information sector owes more to the assault on public non-profit sphere than to the utilization of its own fabulous wealth and assets. Reagan lowered taxes and increased military expenditure and gave 1 trillion deficit in 8 years (Bush 2 did it on a much bigger scale) , cuts in social spending (10. the diminution in political consciousness is a result deliberate effort to eliminate public realm in favor of the corporate.
Post WW II there were no grant companies presiding over the information sector though there were a few large business machine firms and media corporations, production of raw and processed information was in the realm of public bodies and government agencies.
US bureau of census was housed in commerce department, and every ten years collected massive information about people and their demographics. Agriculture, labor, interior were the other departments collecting data. Federal research labs, university labs collected data in government archives. Much of it was transferred to public and federal libraries.
Business carried out R&D, but much of it was innovation and improvement and was propriety information.
Publications-General printing office, congressional reports and departmental studies: The material could not be copyrighted. Commercial publishing was a cottage industry. Paperbacks was minimal and megabuck books were few.
Information sector was non-profit, social sector character. Indicative of the low esteem of the information sector and sexism prevailing at the time meant that libraries were run by women and low paid.
Its current importance in economy and culture is striking.
Fundamental principle the library system has been its free and equal access to all users.
Libraries have been affected by the enormous expansion of technological and scientific information, computerization and MNC preeminence.
Enormous federal expense during WW II , computers (3), 1960-78, 400 billion in R&D. In later years private R&D equaled government’s. Most pressing need is access to the vast data. Major studies conducted (6&7). STI (Scientific and Technical information) , “…has to be supplemented with society related objective…we can call the expanded information set ‘Scientific Technical and Societal Information (STSI (8).
The computer:
As one generation succeeded another, cost and size went down while processing capacity went up. Specific custom made data can be called up to solve problems. It has led, just in a few years, to a new information industry. Information Industry Trade A Association (IIA) was established in 1968.
The companies pursue profit as other companies do. Tissues affecting national life are decided by corporations. Public has no input in decisions in information sector (12), and that is radically changing the social landscape.
MNC/TNCs have grown exponentially, are dependent on IT (13).
To deal with the expense of computerization necessitated by huge inflow of information has forced the use of fee for service (15). It is a shift from one set of users to another and is a very basic indeed and ability to pay became the criterion-from egalitarian to privileged. Underpinning of a democratic order is seriously undermined, and commercialization transcendent question. National commission on libraries and sciences (NCLIS) offered collaboration to private sector but latter only in profit.
Domestic council on committee on right of Privacy came down unabashedly in favor of handing over government information supply to the private sector-dismantle it and let it be expropriated by the private sector (21,22,23)
Chap 5 Corporations capture sites of public expression:
Like the British enclosure movement corporations are taking over museums, living space, air waves, radio, TV. These are renewable resources, and essential for mental and physical needs, health and consciousness and are held hostage.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger called it industrialization of the mind (1). But he remained optimistic. Dominant system could not entirely subdue, not could do without individual creativity. It remained a source of potential resistance. Consciousness industry, in many ways, in which consciousness is influenced by the products of cultural industry. Consciousness industry has the cultural conditioner. The dialectic-strenght of consciousness industry and its vulnerability-remain operative.
Enzensberger on image creation of an American super-corporation, GE, “…the corporation creates pattern of meaning wholesale and sells them to the public. It divides society into markets while ignoring fundamental difference between workers and white collar personnel, regional or ethnic groups…world fair, magazines, advertising …radio , TV, PR present a systematically controlled image…(2). Enzensberger, “fashion…design…religion… culture…polls and tourism too can be considered a mass medium in its own right (3).
Museums allowed to survive, but transformed from public to corporate service.
Museums serve as celebrants of the established order, past and present. Rare display of social conflict is akin to cryogenic installation, rather than current instructions in social change.
For all its display, it was used as a public resource. School children visited it, but now it has become an adjunct to consciousness industry.
From mid-1960s Metropolitan museum of Arts started setting up temporary exhibitions with huge banners displaying the sponsor’s name…that blended with rampant consumerism.. corporations spend huge amounts of money on art. Hans Haecke produced an exhibition in 1975, called it social grease and produced plaques of statements of Robert Kingsley (Exxon) and founder chairman of the Arts and Business council 6, David Rockefeller (7), on the utility of art to business.
Robert Kingsley said, “Exxon’s support of art serves as a social lubricant. And if business is to continue in big cities, it needs a lubricated environment”.
David Rockefeller, “from an economic point of standpoint, such involvement can mean direct and tangible benefits…extensive publicity…improved corporate image…better customer relations, a readier acceptance of company products…”.
.
Mobil oil, Chase, AT&T all finance art. Art pages of NY Times give listings exhibits…shows in galleries and museums underwritten by Phillip Morris (tobacco company). In Canada a 1988 law expressly forbids this practice.
In an article, “Tobacco firms pariahs to many people, still are angels to the arts, Wall street Journal quoted director of development of at the Whitney Museum of American Art saying that Philip Morris is ‘ very honorable’ (that is akin to Hitler financing a Holocaust Museum, and the Grand Rabbi of Jerusalem calling him honorable).
Tiffany’s took over the Metropolitan Museum of Arts for its 150th birthday and exhibited what was virtually company history. The show was entitled, “Triumphs in American silver making: Tiffany and Co 1860-1900”. They ended the year by persuading the American museum of Natural history to offer an exhibition, “Tiffany: 150 years of gems and jewelry” (13). In Boston the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, never before used for commercial promotion, turned itself over to Elizabeth Arden for introducing a new perfume.(14).
TV shows are star studded, visually dazzling, empty in substance. Corporate “sponsorship of exhibitions helps conceal…conflict between …humanitarian pretenses and…neo-imperialist expansion of MNCs…(15).leads to self censorship…public awareness of social reality is continuously diminished…shows that could promote critical awareness, present products of consciousness dialectically…have a slim chance of being approved…self censorship is having a boom. With out exerting any direct pressure, Haacke notes, that corporations have effectively gained a veto in the museums.(16). An ideological message that art id neutral is conveyed.
Debra Silverman’s careful scrutiny of two art exhibitions, one in a department store and another in a museum, China at Bloomingdale’s and at the Met (18). In 9/1980 Bloomingdale, turning its sales floor into a display of “timeless and rare “ Chinese goods, packaging communist China limitless and aristocratic 18-19).
In 12/1980 the Met had an exhibition “The Manchu Dragon: costumes of China, the Ch’ing Dynasty 1644-1912” Both had the same message: Art has no social base.(20).
Visitors generally leave museums more depoliticized than when they went in.
Hans Haacke has worked at exposing ‘masking of art’ of slum landlordism of NYC, advertiser image and reality behind it. He asked how money was diverted to art was made (23).
New downtowns:
Post WW II tens of millions moved from the city to suburbs for profitable land use and transport (25). Cheap mortgage, government built highway, and cars, outer cities, (26), malls sites of social interaction. By 1987 the number of shopping centers 36,000, exceeded that of schools or post offices (27). Unlike old downtowns, the malls are built on private real estate. “They are a place of public assembly, but they are private property.(28). “…rents are usually based on sq foot and % of gross receipt (29). Likelihood of independent thinking is excluded. Some states allow distribution of political/social pamphlets. NY court of appeals in 12/85, owner may exclude any pamphlets. Constitution governed the rights of citizens with respect to their government and not the right of private individuals against private individuals. The mall comes as close as possible to a corporate commercial environment with conflict seeking solutions distilled out.
Old Downtowns:
Many city centers repopulated with the poor and black left out of mechanized agriculture .Later returning affluent young displaced the poor again. Developers are the new princes of city center. To mollify communities, they include small concrete parks in the atrium. (32-33).
Control of the Street:
Affluent people do not like demonstrations in their neighborhoods. Folklorist Susan Davis “19th century constraints…on public use of the street…diametrically extended …”Parades…give only a …prefabricated appearance…” (35). John Friedman, urban planner “only two occasions when people take to the street…when they protest…and when they celebrate (36). TV since 1950s caused commercialization of celebration, demonstrations and parades, festivals and fetes, taken over by corporations into a vacuous show. National celebration of independence day and centennial of statue of liberty commercialized. A judge refused to participate, (37). Chief justice Berger relinquished his SC seat to raise funds for the 200th anniversary of the constitution (39). One looks in vain in public events of social struggles that marked American Life and history in sanitized public pageants.
Party life corporatized a caterer who averages 10,000 parties a year states that 80% of the business is corporate driven. (40). Even block parties are sponsored by banks/corporations. Public attention is focused on corporations as benefactors. 6/1998 was very busy when the Chemical Bank sponsored an opera in the central park (41) AT&T the NY summer festival (42) Shearson Lehman Hutton ‘ Bill Cosby in concert” (43).
The nation’s physical space in and outdoors and airwaves occupied by corporations”… there is hardly a public issue affecting American life…not touched by commercial entertainment program, abortion, nuclear holocaust, homosexuality, drug , race…intelligence agencies “ (45).Influence of TV time has far surpassed that of formal education. Benjamin Barber “Kids are society smart rather than school smart…their teachers in the world are TV, movies, and advertising (46). Near total utilization of TV for corporate advertising …incessant identification of consumerism with democracy.
Presidential debates are sponsored (48). A program of serious criticism is rarely broadcast as sponsors won’t like it. Public TV in the US has never been as strong as it has been in Europe. High income viewers are attracted to non-commercial channels which have no mass audience. In 1984, FCC obsessed with deregulation, allowed greater scope for sponsor messages. In the 1987 FCC inquiry into c0ommercialization of children’s program (50) on HBO “It is in their (parents) hands to determine what children watch (51). Legislative efforts to limit commercial children TV 1988 (52), Reagan vetoed it. (53).Measure to tax and pay for non-commercial TV failed. Senator Ernest F Hollings “…broadcasters were more powerful”.
Long term disability of American Public TV is symptomatic of general national malaise and take over of cultural spaces by corporations.
Chap 6 Trans-nationalization of Corporate Expression:
Deep penetration of corporations in politics, law. Education. Culture not confined to US boundaries. In the initial post WW II years, they were mostly US owned. Lately Europeans and Japanese have joined in.
In the new world economy, national states are increasingly subjected to the imperatives transnational capital (euphemism for control of governments, even the most powerful). The authority that TNC exercises over domestic US policy extended to international arena. US capital benefited from the War and uncontested global market supremacy for many years post war. A tiny share was passed on to organized labor in the USA. Mildly redistribute post depression program were kept on (and somewhat expanded under Johnson). International competition cut into US profits and the illusory benevolence changed into its true colors.
US capital worked to improve its position by deregulation started mid in 1970s and carried on since.-elimination of public scrutiny and oversight. On pricing, profit, safety, labor policy, consumer interest, environment, foreign trade, monopoly, mergers (1). It is a strategy to regain the measure of control lost in 1930s and 1960s, to weaken labor ( outsourcing and NAFTA)and enhance profits.
Deregulation removes all restraints. IT has caused an explosion of outsourcing of jobs. US manufacturing has gone over to China, chief culprit is Wal-Mart, the country will be reduced to industrial wasteland.
Communications is destined to be the dominant industry in the 21st century.
In 1982, AT&T broken up. It kept its labs, manufacturing and long line communications and allowed to enter international tele-com and computers. AT&T was mugged by its heaviest users to lower cost of commercial rate and use of new tech for their own purpose (3). It led to destruction of oversight in Europe and US.
US government has acted as the agent of privatization and deregulation all over the world. Opposition of Reagan to UNO and UNESCO, effort to destroy international public sector, As UNESCO could defend the interest of its members against TNC in communications field (5). US withdrew from it in 1984.
US applies pressure on poor countries by denying favors, unless they abandon their public sector enterprises. Participation in UN moots is at a low level (6) or not at all (7).
US imposes its will on WB, IMF, and other development banks due to its being largest contributor, loan against loss of control of indigenous industry/assets, and denationalization.(NY Times-Global march to free markets-8,9,10).
Privatization pressure is more intense in community sector., national corporations, BBC called paternalistic, elitist, stodgy. State run corporations lack support.
Deregulation promotes/protects commercial information activity of TNCs, satisfies specific marketing needs of corporations for consumer goods and service products.
For that national control to has be removed.
Deregulation is equivalent to loss of sovereignty. Business Roundtable of CEOs of a few hundred most powerful US corporations. International Information flow (IIF) has transformed the way… companies…do business (11). “Any exception to (free flow of information) should be limited…(12) according to TNC imperatives(13). Transgressor against national state is not at fault. George Ball undersecretary of state under JFK and LBJ recommends restricting of political structure. Canada eventually gave in to NAFTA in spite of concerns about its cultural industries.
Once IIF inviolable, deregulation (liberalization in Europe0 moves in. TNC information must be given access to national media. This is the core requirement of corporate capital.
TNC establish subsidiaries and branches in different nations. Mechanism of persuasion and titillation tailored to national taste used for creation of consumers. National media reluctant to advertise TNC products TNC targets them for deregulation.
Non-commercial radio, TV, post, telegraph funded by listener fee or public funds enjoyed a degree autonomy. The restrictions demolished (16-17). TNC increased control over government to deregulate. .New tech threaten to bypass national system which only TNCs can afford. Yield or be abandoned. Nations competent against each other., deregulate under the threat of being by TNCs. New tech is flexible, relocation at little cost. It has always happened in capitalism, shift to less expensive sites, but do so more frequently now.
Satellite and cable can circumvent national authority. Advertisement revenue would go to TNCs, not the national system. Short of shooting satellites or suppressing the cable nations are in a bind. They fund a national system with increased taxes, but that is unpopular. National cultural sphere, it is not yet adequately recognized, yields to corporate interest.
New Frontiers:
TNC penetration in Europe and elsewhere is deep and multi-layered and increasingly seems natural. The new culture information flows on TV programming, and politics, sports and tourism, language, hitherto independent broadcasting system of Britain, France, Italy and other European countries increasingly privatized 18-19-20 (and Asian countries too).
TV the most powerful educational force. TNCs control it. There is a lot of infighting to share global TV profits. Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi and other media barons have been able to buy up competitors due to deregulation.
Disney world has been exported to France and Japan. Franc’s historical concern with preservation of culture has given way to TNC commercialization .(30). Louvre sought US finance (31).
Corporate culture seeks to change public’s mind set. US TV news channels taking over Europe. US information agency, in contrast, to other runs a surplus. (40). Production costs rise, so does dependence on export market.
In 1960s Asian/African countries objected to one way flow of information. No more, they have been taken over.
Data hurtles through space out of control of nation-states, banking, insurance and finance. The entire social mechanism has been transformed into corporate channel.
Not just the US, Japanese are also spending heavily to shape the American view of them (44).
The effort to transmit a mind set is especially evident in sports programs. The pay off is in the carefully constructed frenzy of super bowl, advertisement costs more than a million for 30 second. (45). Half the US population sees it, beer, auto, insurance, cosmetics ads abound.
More and more advertisers are sponsoring whole sports events.
Information industry is an integral and controlling partner of electoral system, package and sell candidates as auto and beer are. The staggering sum required for TV ads come mostly from corporate donors. Candidates have to pass the Litmus test of corporate acceptability. The trend is catching on in Europe, Latin America and rest of the world. Image making specialists abound. Political consultants mushroom. Deregulated media put politicians in corporate power.
Lamenting the reductionist thinking of media is irrelevant. That makes is effective marketing and it is so intended. It is cultural imperialism.
The world is being made secure for global advertisers (57). A time could come when the UNO and wars could be sponsored (Gulf I seemed as though sponsored by CNN).
Ngugi Wa Thiong’O, Kenyan novelist in exile , as his country controlled by TNCs…the biggest weapon daily unleashed by imperialists against collective defiance is the cultural bomb…the effect is to annihilate a people’s in their names…language…environment, in their heritage of struggle…(60).
Chap 7 Thinking About Media Power holders:
Transnational information industry wields enormous power and controls a significant segment of economy. Reliance on information technology/data most salient feature characteristic of current capitalism.
Given these structural changes in economy and legal support to corporations to exercise power of communication, it is strange that the power of media is underrated by academics. They are sponsored to say so.
Three fairly distinct periods over the last ½ century can be identified in the changing view of media power.
Period I: 1945-65Elihu Katz, a major figure in communications traces the current appreciation of the ‘limited effects’ of media to the communication research of Paul Lazarsfield and his group (including himself) at Columbia university undertaken in early 1940s. it emphasized the limited effects of media, stressing instead individual selectivity, perception and recall (1).
Katz et al pay little attention to those who were concerned with global arena and to the role of mass communications in securing the attachment of people outside the US, especially by the newly decolonized regions. They strongly supported the expansionist role of the US.
This group largely centered at MIT, the basic assumption was that media were powerful agents of social change and could help development of decolonized Asian and African countries along lines beneficial to Western private enterprise.
Early post War US policy –halt, push back non-market socialist states, integrate the rest into an international market economy controlled by the USA. Use of communications industry for the objective was indispensable.
Daniel Lerner was the first to grasp the significance of communications. He quoted Harry S Truman’s state of the union address in Jan 1949” the fourth point…became known as point 4…US technical assistance…to poor countries…development paradigm…major process in…political process”. Truman “The old imperialism… exploitation for foreign profit…has no place in our plans” (3).
Fortune magazine called it “great international propaganda victory (4). Lerner recognized the inspiration of point 4 with decline of empire, bipolar world, emergence of the third world (5). The third world held the key to long-term viability of the world market system. Marshall plan 1947saved Europe for capitalism. Point 4 prepaid the third world for it.
Lerner “under the new conditions of globalization communication has largely replaced the coercive means by which colonial territories were seized and held. The persuasive transmission of enlightenment is the modern paradigm of communications (8).
In Lerner’s prescription there is a transition from “coercion to communication” which applied only if the former colony opted for market economy and allowed incorporation into the world system. In those instances when the states insisted on some degree of autonomy in selection of their socio-economic system, relentless coercion-military, economic and cultural was applied. Maps locating intervention, coups and economic blockade enforced by US power, could nearly fill an atlas. Once in control, communications provides essential means of harmonizing operations and routines of the world commercial economy in the area.
Period 2 Challenges to cultural industry:
Lerner and other non ‘limited effect’ communication scholars had no doubt that modern media and new technology had great potential of influence.
Torrential information flow in post war years created a world order largely structured by the US cultural industry. Taking advantage of a devastated Europe, they established domination there too. AP and UPI replaced Reuters and others like AFP. American commercial TV also dominated.
This was reported as modernization of poor countries and meant adoption of private enterprise and the goal was a consumer society. UNESCO gave endorsement to free flow of ideas and led to global penetration of CBS, Time magazine, 20th century Fox and others. Any effort at regulation was regarded as totalitarianism. Third world countries criticized it in Algiers conference in 1973 “activities of imperialism not confined to the political and economic fields…but also on the cultural and social fields…imposing an alien domination in …” (11). Three demands emerged from the meeting- greater variety, less monopoly, preservation of national spaces in culture.
Struggle went on in domestic anti war, HR and women’s, and environment movements. Underground press and alternative media were started.
Period 3-Re-emergence of old Paradigm:
Reformist social movements in the US began to ebb in 1960s, coinciding with the shift of power signified by the Nixon presidency. Big business reasserted itself.
In the 1976 Nairobi UNESCO conference the US delegation had to accept the existence of information disbalance and to appease public opinion, agreed to the appointment of the Mac Bride commission named after Sean Mac Bride, the Nobel and Lenin peace prize winner, and offered techno assistance to those nations which wanted to expand communications capability.
Volume and quality of information matter. The offer of aid diverted the demand for a new information order to technical solution. Domination is based on superior technology. TNC has augmented power of western media. Social forces, which kept the system relatively checked, are declining. Nation-state autonomy is eroding. Labor has been emasculated as jobs are outsourced. UNO has been sidelined. US left UNESCO in 1984, complaining that “normative standards …impose restraints on western media and restrict activities of TNCs.
Few would dispute role of media in world economy, politics and culture. Efforts made to reinvest limited effect theories-media power is more than balanced by audience power. New information technologies afford greater choice, and the audience is not a monolithic mass.
The Audience as producer of meaning:
Resistance, subversion, and empowerment of the viewer serve to minimize the influence of media-cultural power. Information management calls into question the very possibility of audience participation, much less resistance.
Just consider the work of disinformation industry about the Arabs (Gadafi), Castro, Sandinistas, Saddam, Iran and Chavez. Anti-communism was the dominant theme till the fall of USSR. TV owners and broadcasters cozied with FBI, Pentagon, and VOA. Writers unacceptable to the right were purged (33). Reagan was the prime peddler of the right wing. Very few raised voices. William Attwood associated with the highest rank of policy makers “illusion, really a deception that Moscow conspired to take over Western Europe by force” (34). Same assessment of Alan Tonelson, 20th century fund author (35).
All the dreadful policies that flowed-arms build up, NATO, remilitarization of Germany and Japan, military intervention, coups, subversion, blockades were based on lies with full complicity of cultural industries.
It is not a matter of people being dupes, intentional or cultural. Human beings are not equipped to deal with pervasive disinformation system. People respond to catastrophes, 9/11, Iraqi lies.
Chap 8 Public expression in crisis economy:
Industrial ascendancy of US matched with global domination of information industry. But the country is turning into a historical anomaly “…a first rate military power and a second rate economic power” (1). Market economy is facing an identity crisis.
Intellectuals convinced themselves we lived in a post-industrial society. Social classes no longer mattered. It was service economy, soon afterwards to be replaced by information society. Later attention given to “manufacturing matters” proponents. There is still a working class and an owning class which enjoys economy’s surplus. Cyclical crisis remain a recurrent feature (3), a glut economy (4). Elemental needs of at least 25-30% of Americans are unfulfilled (health, homes) and desperate conditions of 7 and1/2 %. The world glut is grotesque if not obscene. Profit, not need, determinant of economic activity.
Post war US predominated. Vietnam and Korea gave stimulus to industry. Reagan expenditure on the military deepened the economic crisis.
During depression private enterprise and its myths were not credible. How far the state intervention should go, was the political question. Public works and public funds underwrote dramatic plays. Social themes, novels, murals, guide books of non-corporate America abounded.
Social concerns infused art. It was downgraded by post war corporate USA.
The economic order has structurally changed. Pervasive internationalization of capital has intervened with increase command of resources and finances. They are MNCs and are not as focused on the national market. In most cases foreign returns exceed 50% of the total. They escape national pressure from labor or resources. TNCs transfer strain to national economy (sub-prime and credit crunch 2007-08) Billions poured in by the Fed.‘s, huge trade deficit. The state can no longer exert sufficient autonomous authority over MNCs. The SC used to favor the state over corporations. Reagan on, courts turned neo-con. TNCs call in state aid against foreigners.
Military is hand in glove with industry. MNCs security services increased since 9/11. Illegal and egregious acts presented as aberration, if discovered and exposed. FBI intrusion and violation of HR (5) are pushed under the carpet. In unsettled times law and order coercive practices increase. Post WW II communist witch hunt worked. Ant-Vietnam protest were vigorous. Anti-Iraq ones are subdued.
State came down hard on critical expression in post 9/11. Historical record,
fascist regime in Italy and Germany and substantial number of fascists in Britain and France, are evidence of the susceptibility of capitalists to adopt repressive measures . Erosion of democratic principles in information industry will facilitate a coercive state. Centers of democracy and public expression, though they do exist, are small and dispersed.
Restraints on coercive power-public opinion Absence of US intervention in Latin America and failure of Reagan’s attempts to cut down social security benefit had limited effect. But it could not stop bush/Blair from going into Iraq.
Control on mass media is the key to exercise of power taking up or ignoring a problem is the critical exercise of power. How the power is used to define, explain or identify an issue is a matter of the greatest importance in social control. To accept that information industry is neutral or autonomous is disingenuous. Corporate speech, if left unchallenged, will preempt public expression and facilitate the coercive state.
If attention is diverted from message to message receiver, full significance of constitutional right to corporate speech will remain hidden.
The central dilemma is that we are dependent on the information system to alert us of malfunction in the system.
Billions dollar acquisitions, buy outs, mergers, growing oligopoly are indicative of the malaise. Ben Bagdikian, former dean of UC, Berkeley, school of journalism “USA has a private ministry of information and culture (6). The seeming pluralism of thousands of newspapers, magazines, TV, is belied by the near total absorption into media combines, leading to one dimensional national discourse and calls into question elemental assumptions of democratic government.
Free public information is attacked as unacceptable subsidy. Ability to pay is the governing principle of access to information.
Pre-requisites of Challenge:
Changing information ministry conditions is not a single issue political effort. It collides directly with underpinnings of power. Florida’s surrender on tax in advertising, when its legislature wanted to impose it, is not an isolated incident.
Freedom is interpreted as the opportunity to choose between different car models or soap products.
Catholic bishops published a draft letter of reflections on US economy “ a consumerist mentality which encourages immediate gratification mortgages our future and ultimately risks undermining the foundation of a just order” (7).A private group consisting of eminent Catholics tried to diffuse the impact of the statement, before it was published (William Simon, Alexander Haig, former treasury and state secretaries, J. Peter Grace of W.R. Grace and Co and hair of president’s privatization commission (8).
Ideological Bases of Information Industry:
Rest on vast resources and near universal acceptance of its own definition of its role. Free press, can private ownership be synonymous with free? It is their rock defense. And hammer to pound alternate media. State support is tainted. Advertisement money is clean. US media conveying reports from non-market economy countries give a warning akin to that on cigarette pack that it comes from state controlled press. Domestic reporting should be labeled, “comes from a billion dollar company”
The trust that information industry has been able to acquire is remarkable. Rarely there is a murmur on its unacceptable private ownership. Any questioner will suffer a serious backlash.
On the positive side, thousands of journalists and writers keep alternate media alive. Some in the commercial media try to do their bit too.
After all, Khomeini organized a revolution through alternate media, but he had a receptive audience. America has a limited scope and audience for alternate media. America is encapsulated in a corporate message cocoon, unlikely to be breached by independents.
The highly desirable information network revolution via personal computer has not come about, remains insignificant compared to the enormous computational power of the Pentagon, security agencies and corporations.
Information industry must become high priority in socially conscious political movements. It will inevitably meet head on with a storm of opprobrium from corporations/TNCs.
A decade or two ago, it was felt that, given the economic crunch, political activism will be revived. (Even Bush and the three trillion dollar wars failed to do so). The world has seen the decline and fall of national sovereignty movements.
TV cameras can no longer shut off Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Darfur, the Congo, Somalia, and many other places, but few are allowed to see the images. Post WW II, the US replaced Britain as colonial power. What would replace is a big question.
Future Agenda:
It already is, and will increasingly become matters of jobs, living standards. In times of crisis power brokers will impose burdens on those least able to bear it and resist the poor and the wretched, with increase sales tax and decreased welfare.
Newly independent countries needed and lacked information/cultural autonomy to proceed with goals of economic development. The US is working class needs it too. Corporate media will not explain that sales tax was inequitable. They would rather promote tax breaks for TNCs, that will give more capital; for investment, and workers should accept lower salary. They will not promote general austerity, they would consumerism as usual.
Public xenophobia and chauvinism will persist as long as the role of TNCs is not exposed. A black hole of ignorance about TNC activity is the outcome of systematic omission of information, and its meaningful analysis. These impulses are utilized for diverting attention the root cause of national malaise. Americans are like colonized people, and lend legitimacy to policies, which benefit a few.
A hundred years ago people demanded anti-trust laws. There was no media monopoly to suppress them.
Focus should be on transfer information management from private to public hands. Government policies on information have had a severs adverse impact on freedom of speech, academic inquiry and democratic process.
Massive expansion of the public sector is required. US should support rather than denigrate UNO. International and informational sovereignty should be restored.
Private monopoly power over media had to be curtailed.
Publicly funded media should be protested from state encroachment and control. Diversity will replace homogeneity. Technology should be used for social purposes, not as a social end in itself.
The drift has been towards greater corporate control. But the world is a finite market. Instability and rupture points will multiply.
Post 10/1987 stock market crash, NY Times permitted radical and socialist news and solicited them (10). It did again in 1999 slump (and post 2008 crash).