perspective:“Mandelstam I can see that there can be conflicts of interest created by corporate media. There have been times when I’ve felt that news coverage was slanted in certain ways that I found distasteful. But then again, would we have heard about the WTO protest if certain people weren’t smashing windows? I would have liked to have seen more insight into why so many people were there peacefully, that was the corporate slant I suppose. But there are some things that would’t make the news whether it really favors some people or not.”
perspective, I’m not really sure I understand “But then again.” In other words, what’s the implied contrast between the absurd overemphasis on a handful of “anarchists” in Seattle and the slanted coverage you mention prior to the “But”?
“I don’t think environmental issues are being singled out for exclusion.”
No, me neither.
The biggest area of conflict of interest concerns the media itself. The story of the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act–which handed away billions of dollars of free digital spectrum to the existing players in exchange for ZIP–is fascinating. But it got virtually no coverage. Surprise, surprise!
Here, btw, is an excerpt from a short link on the subject as described by one of my favorite media critics:
" In early February [1996], the Federal Communications Commission began allocating the digital spectrum to the existing commercial broadcasters. Without any public debate or competitive arrangement, the largest media companies in the world are being handed what could become the equivalent of at least five new channels in every market where they currently own one. This near-secret process virtually guarantees that Disney/Cap Cities, Time Warner, General Electric, Westinghouse, Viacom, the Tribune Company and the News Corporation, among others, can maintain their rule over U.S. media for another generation or two. It is worth noting that The Washington Post estimated the value of this digital spectrum to run as high as $70 billion. The stench of corruption is so thick that The Wall Street Journal even ran a front-page article on March 17 deploring the giveaway, and Bob Dole followed suit in a New York Times Op-Ed two weeks later. As Senator John McCain puts it, broadcasters “are about to pull off one of the great scams in American history.”
http://www.radiodiversity.com/hiwayrobbery.html
Notice the mention of Dole, McCain and the WSJ. This is not a partisan or ideological issue. This is an example of the most blatant screwing of our democracy by a corporate oligopoly.
As pld’s post makes clear, the new FCC is worse than the one we had under Clinton (whose appointee was actually a well-meaning guy, who discovered how powerless he was when he tried to get a hugely popular measure for low power radio stations, run by community groups, past the the broadcasting lobby–which is to say, past the US congress. The measure was killed by Congress, and the FCC’s power was reduced.
“There are a lot of important things going on that most people don’t know about yet will eventually effect their lives. There are plenty of issues that are just too complex for the modern attention span.”
But that is the self-fulfilling prophecy again. What makes the modern attention span what it is?
The sad thing about it (or perhaps the encouraging thing about it), is that it isn’t at all impossible to change a person’s attention span. I mean, it’s easier to teach someone to ride a bike at age 5 than at age 45 but it can be done in either case. In both cases the requisite physiological competence is there, dormant, just waiting to be used. People actually enjoy–and crave-- complexity once you give them a taste of it.
"I don’t think we can put all of the blame on the media. Look at a movie from the fifties. Notice how it is paced, how long scenes are, how slowly tension builds and things happen. Then watch a modern thriller like “Speed” where the action is ever present. "
This is a very paradoxical statement, perspective. You’re basically arguing that you can’t blame the media for the media. Who else can you blame?
And in any case, I don’t actually agree with you about movies. It’s true that Speed was not The Maltese Falcon. But I don’t think it was utterly worthless, and, more important, it’s not the only thing out there. While I agree that US movie-making has taken a dive since the 1970s, when you had mass audiences for movies like Taxi Driver, there’s much, much
more out there for the discerning viewer than there is on the tube–especially in the category of news.
If the movies had declined as badly as television news, the example wouldn’t be Speed, but some cross between Rollerball 2001, a Howard Stern movie, and the first hour of the Titanic. 
"Our attention spans are short. I don’t think this is just because that’s what’s being fed to us. It’s because it’s more exciting and more titilating format. "
I think what you’re trying to say here is that people will always choose fast-paced titillation over intellectual stimulation or serious emotional engagement–that it’s some fundamental fact of nature. However, particularly if there were a level playing field, I don’t think that’s true at all. Notice the viewing habits of other countries where an independent cinema has (until recently, thanks to so-called “free trade”) been subsidized. Sometimes people will see Speed (I did, and lived to tell), but sometimes they will prefer Memento, Magnolia, The Usual Suspects, The Piano, Mulholland Drive, or (to name a recent personal favorite) Donnie Darko.
“At any point, we could all stop watching tv, but we don’t. The american public is addicted not force-fed.”
Again, this is blurry thinking. The first statement is true, but the second points to a paradox. If truth is that if you want to addict people to something like television, you should do anything but force-feed them. The very best way to addict people is to make them think they’re exercising free choice while making their actual choices so limited as to be meaningless. (This is the same thing that happens to us during shopping when we “choose” between 24 brands of margerine.)
Certainly with television news our “choices” are very superificial indeed; this is somewhat less so with other kinds of television programming, and far less so with movies.
Apologies to those who’ve heard me say this before:
I did stop watching commercial TV–and now watch videos only (plus the occasional PBS show). I don’t listen to any commercials on the radio (I just change the channel when one comes on and/or listen to public radio). I avoid commercial magazines such as People that try to appeal to my curiosity about who a celebrity is currently sleeping with. I pay little or no attention to tabloids and similar magazines in supermarkets, airports and other public places.
This has completely changed my life in wholly positive ways. Now when I look at or hear advertising it is with the curiosity of an alien visiting a strange planet for the purposes of sociological study. I buy much less crap, and care much less about superficial things.
Most important, though, I have much more time to read, watch good stuff, talk to my family and friends and…post on the Straight Dope.
