Propaganda and Media Power

Definition

• “Media corporation“ refers to any kind of organization with control over any type of media. This includes private for-profit companies, non-profit organizations, state owned enterprises, public-private partnerships, and community-owned media. We use the term media corporation for simplicity. We also include all types of ‘media’. Everything from newspapers, radio, and television to social media platforms, online magazines, and any new types of media that emerge. It includes sources of facts such as news and scientific publications. It also includes editorials and pure entertainment content such as opinion podcasts, sports channels, and fictional dramas.

Current Problems

Cross-Ownership

Conflicts of interests in ownership undermines the ability of media corporations to be genuinely free and independent. When a parent company owns a media corporation, it is unlikely to allow its media channels to investigate its other businesses. For example, if a holding company owns a media corporation and a vehicle manufacturing business, there are incentives preventing the media corporation from investigating the safety of vehicles produced by the manufacturing business. If a parent company owns both a weapons manufacturing business and a media corporation this provides an incentive to encourage wars to sell weapons.

Conflicts of interest exist even if the parent company only owns a portion of a different business. Negative coverage will reduce the value of its investment. For example, if a parent company owns shares in a chemical manufacturing firm. This would discourage the media corporation from reporting that chemicals produced by that firm cause cancer. External ownership creates a disincentive for media corporations to run stories that damage the general interests of its owners. For example, when a parent company has interests in the fossil fuel industry, they will encourage their media divisions to disregard the effects of burning fossil fuels.

Conflicts of interest in media ownership undermine the quality of democracy. This is because external media ownership erodes the quality and integrity of reporting and limits the ability of the public to make informed decisions. There is an incentive to censure investigative reports or criticism of any of the other businesses owned by parent companies. Media corporations owned by the same parent company are less likely to use their media channels to investigate the other companies in the group or owned by the same parent companies. Biased coverage then distorts public priorities, impacts the candidates and parties that voters support, influences legislation, and determines the regulations that get enforced. Media corporations are not adequately performing their function of investigating issues without bias, providing us with accurate information about critical issues, enabling us to make informed decisions, and providing avenues for meaningful public debate.

Conflicts in media ownership negatively affect everyone in society, including the owners. Media owners eat food that carries a greater risk of causing cancer because it is subject to less scrutiny, use products subject to fewer safety studies, are at risk from more frequent extreme weather events because media coverage delayed action on climate change. The owners breathe air that could be cleaner if polluting industries were investigated more often, and travel in vehicles that are more dangerous because safety issues were not publicized. Even if the owners of media companies somehow manage to escape the consequences, their children, parents, friends, relatives, and colleagues may not be as lucky. Conflicts of interest from external media ownership have negative consequences for everyone’s health, safety, opportunities, and wellbeing.

Relying on Advertising

Relying on advertising revenue is a reason to avoid criticizing advertisers. This incentive exists even if media corporations are not part of the same groups of companies. It is a matter of financial survival for profit-seeking media corporations to not criticize their advertisers. Large multinational corporations control many brands. They can withdraw all their ad spending for all these brands, even if only one of their brands receives negative coverage. Media channels will therefore avoid running negative stories about any of these brands. They will avoid negative coverage of advertisers’ products, services, practices, industries, and owners. The profit motive corrupts the integrity of media content. It provides an incentive to avoid reporting on topics that upset advertisers.

The risk of losing out on advertising revenue influences the kinds of topics covered by media corporations. This is true even when the content is not about a particular brand. For example, large candy or soda manufacturing companies controlling sugary brands would not want their products advertised alongside content about the dangers of consuming too much sugar. Breweries or distilleries selling alcohol will not want to advertise their products if media content warns of the health consequences of consuming alcohol. Pharmaceutical companies will not want to advertise their products alongside content that exposes the manipulated science supporting their drug approvals. Companies that sell processed meats will not want to advertise alongside content exposing the ethical and environmental problems of factory farming animals. Hotel and restaurant groups will not want to advertise alongside stories exposing the low pay and poor working conditions in the hospitality industry. Media corporations will censure topics or avoid stories to avoid losing out on advertising revenue. The information we get from private media is censored to avoid risking profits.

Ideological Ownership

Another conflict of interest is when ideologically motivated individuals own media corporations. This type of ownership creates systematic bias in media content. It favors special interests or censures content that does not match the morals, values, or beliefs of ideological owners. Wealthy individuals owning media corporations use them to impose their political views on public debates. They use their media to advantage favored political parties. Or they use their media channels to help their other business interests or protect their assets. Religious figures or institutions, ethnic or cultural organizations, or politicians and political parties also own media corporations. They will use their media channels to promote religious, cultural, or political viewpoints. They marginalize or demonize opposing beliefs. Media owned by ideologically motivated interests is often propaganda. It conflicts with the function of media to deliver unbiased information. Citizens cannot get a balanced perspective to make informed decisions.

Concentrated Ownership

Concentrated media ownership is a problem for democracy because it gives unelected private interests enormous influence over society. It creates a less pluralistic media environment with fewer voices, certain perspectives get marginalized, and public debate is limited. This undermines the quality of public decision making, limits policy options, and shapes the kinds of legislation that is possible to enact. These are serious problems for society and democracy. We do not hear about them enough because the media corporations that should be informing us of these issues are part of the problem. Concentrated ownership undermines the ability of media corporations to provide unbiased information to the public.

Concentrated government media ownership has evolved into a problem of concentrated private media ownership. We focused on ensuring the media was free from government control, so it became privately owned. But that is not what free media should mean. Private control is possibly worse because corporations are not directly accountable to citizens in the same way as governments. For example, we cannot vote out corporations, remove them from power, or overthrow them in the same way as governments.

Media concentration undermines the flow of information that is necessary for informed public debate and a healthy democratic process. Concentrated media ownership reduces the quality and diversity of news channels, reduces the number of voices heard, limits perspectives and stories told, and gives enormous power to special interests. A highly concentrated media system also makes it difficult for new channels to enter the market as the existing players can use their economic power to block entry. The concentration of ownership reduces the integrity of the media. Society and democracy then suffer as a result.

The problem of concentrated media ownership connects to the problem of conflicts of interest in media ownership. For example, news coverage of media corporation mergers is not objective when the same parent company owns the news channel covering the purchase of its competitor. The coverage will tend to favor the interests of the parent company. At the expense of the public interest in maintaining economic diversity and dynamic competition. The very media that is supposed to warn us of the dangers of media consolidation will instead promote consolidation and downplay any risks. This is why we cannot rely on self-regulation in industries as important as the media.

Proposed Solutions

Separate Media Organisations

Media corporations must be independent from ownership by any other type of business. A media company must only be a media company. They cannot be part of a conglomerate, group, or family of other companies. Full or partial ownership of media corporations makes them vulnerable to outside influence. This compromises their integrity. A media corporation must be completely independent from other businesses. They must be able to be objective when investigating activities, products, services, interests, and owners for stories. Removing the possibility of external ownership by other corporations will create a more independent media. A media that can perform the essential function of keeping citizens informed.

Media independence from external ownership matters for all types of media. This includes editorials, discussion shows, opinions pieces, documentaries, investigative reports, and all other types of content or programming. For example, we must prevent external ownership of academic and scientific publishers to avoid conflicts of interest affecting the integrity of knowledge and scientific discoveries. Even entertainment content can include messages that shape people’s viewpoints, opinions, beliefs, and voting choices. Media corporations must not have external ownership to protect public decision-making from manipulation by private interests.

The separation between media and other corporations must be without exception because those exceptions will become loopholes. For example, if community associations can own newspapers, this could lead to corporations setting up and financing community associations to control newspapers. If educational institutions can own radio stations, private interests may create educational institutions to control radio stations. A genuinely independent media must be independent from religious institutions, political parties, trade unions, ideologically motivated groups, and all other types of organizations. There must be no exceptions to media companies being separate from other types of organizations because this opens a path to conflicts of interest.

Diverse Funding Sources

There must be at least one taxpayer-funded media corporation in every market. This does not mean that the government of the day can influence the content. We must protect the funding mechanisms and charters of these media corporations in our constitutions to protect them from government interference and control. For example, the constitution could allocate these media corporations a fixed proportion of tax revenue, establish their decision-making as independent from government officials, and mandate that they serve public interests. Taxpayer-funded media corporations must not be able to sell advertising to avoid conflicts of interest from needing to please advertisers. Having independence from advertising revenue makes this kind of media corporation essential for holding corporate power to account.

There should be at least one privately or cooperatively owned media corporation in every market. These can be worker owned, individually owned, family owned, publicly traded, for-profit, or non-profit. What matters is that they do not receive any money from taxpayers, which makes them completely independent from the government. But they are likely to generate revenue from advertisements. This limits the kinds of content these media corporations will carry because they will not want to upset advertisers. But it also provides an avenue for special interests or specific communities to have their voices heard. Privately controlled media corporations serve a valuable role in society because they are more likely to hold government accountable than taxpayer funded media.

There should be at least one subscription-based media corporation in every market. These can be private, worker owned, or non-profit enterprises. What matters is that they do not rely on advertising revenue and are more independent from government than taxpayer funded media. The greater independence of a subscription-based funding model enables these media corporations to hold both government and industry accountable. However, since it can be difficult to get people to pay for subscriptions when free alternatives exist, there should be an option for non-profit subscription-based media corporations to receive lower tax rates. These special rates would enable them to operate more effectively, but the exception would only be available for non-profit media corporations.

Limit Ownership Share

Ownership of any private media corporation must be restricted to a small percentage. For example, no individual or organization should be able to own more than 0.01% of voting shares. This calculation must be based on all investment vehicles used to purchase shares. Otherwise, people will use proxy companies to control a higher percentage of the media company. This restriction could only apply to media corporations that have national reach or that exceed a certain threshold. Applying it to a small local media company with circulation limited to a village with a few hundred residents would not make much sense. However, the restriction should apply to media corporations that have a national reach, or at least reach a high percentage of the population. It could perhaps apply if a media corporation reaches at least 10% of the national population. It should also apply to all companies controlled by one individual or group as an amalgamated percentage. Otherwise, someone could run a series of separate corporations that each stay under the threshold, but collectively exceed the threshold or achieve a national reach.

Limit Market Share

Each media corporation must not control more than twenty percent of any audience. This must apply to each geographic area as well as to each medium (newspapers, radio, television, social media, internet magazines). This ensures everyone has access to at least five channels within every type of media. We must break up media corporations that exceed their maximum market share to maintain a diversity of perspectives and voices.

We must change how we license and operate rural or remote media corporations to ensure none exceeds twenty percent of any market. For example, local radio and television stations could expand their geographic coverage to ensure there are always at least five stations even within each rural area. Newspapers and print magazines could distribute less frequently or across a wider geographic area to ensure there are always at least five sources of print media. Online media is easier and cheaper to distribute if people have internet access, and it is easier to integrate local news with national and international news to provide relevance to local users. We can ensure media diversity across all regions and media types if we change the regulation of these markets.

The media provides benefits that go beyond what can be measured in purely financial terms. If we focus just on the money, then the argument in favor of large media conglomerates will be strong and convincing. But maintaining an informed population, supporting robust investigative journalism, and holding economic and political leaders accountable is not easily measurable in financial terms. How much is a good society worth? How much is it worth to investigate corruption, to allow the free flow of information, and to provide people with the truth? It is worth paying more money to maintain a diverse and truly free media environment, even if it would be cheaper in purely financial terms to allow a few big media companies to run everything. Applying this purely economic perspective to the media does not serve the interests of citizens or help maintain a good society.