From: maxwell@fnala.fnal.gov
Subject: Re: Sources of Bias
Organization: What does *this* button do!?
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 10:10:15 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnala.fnal.gov
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

 jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
> maxwell@fnala.fnal.gov writes:
>> Media organisms stay in business by selling a product.  People have to buy
>> the product. Therefore one bias in reportage will be to provide a product
>> that people are willing to buy.  Since most people don't like challenges to
>> their world-view, reportage will tend to support the world-view of the
>> people who consume the reporting.
>> The logical consequence of repeatedly and profoundly challenging the world-
>> view of the consumers of a media product will be that the consumers will 
>> find a product more to their liking. 
>> Similarly, the media organism will not produce a product hostile to its 
>> subscriber base.
> 
> This naively ignores the actual economics and control mechanisms of the
> mass media.  They are owned by large corporations which usually have many
> other interests beside selling newspapers; and the people and institutions
> that control those corporations have share portfolios that embrace other
> corporations.  Those interests have quite specific effects on what gets
> printed that have nothing whatever to do with market demand.  

From my original posting, further down the page:

   Many media organisms are part of a larger entity. 
    Therefore there are limits beyond which the media organism cannot reach. It
    will not consistantly provide a product hostile to its parent entity.

The above only mentions a negative control function.  Obviously a positive
control function can also exist.  

I guess I forgot to explicitly add the logical corralary that the parent 
organism might (has/does) pull strings within the media entity. 


>                                                               To a large
> extent, a newspaper can print anything and still sell; they are in the
> business of alleviating boredom, and it's possible to make just as good
> entertainment out of anti-establishment news as from the stuff they
> actually do print - any competent writer could have turned the story of
> Bush's secret mistress into a headline-grabber at least as good as Woody
> Allen's daughter, and done it years ago.
> 

Again, from my original posting:

   The government is more powerful than any individual media organism. 
    Therefore there is a limit to the level a media organization can independantly
    challenge the government. [exercise left to the reader]


Here are a few of the excercises I had in mind, WRT pissing on the gov't 
(esp. the president):

1. Your reporters don't get the kind of press credentials they used 
   to get. They find themselves ignored at press conferences, don't 
   get decent seating, maybe don't even get into the press conference
   at all. They find critical pages missing from their advance copies...

2. (This is germane to the broadcast media only) You find that you are
   having trouble with your broadcast liscence when renewal time comes
   around. Or you suddenly find the Federal Communications Commision
   (or whatever gov't ministry controls it in .uk) investigating you 
   for standards violations, complaints etc.

and of course, in places less kind and less gentle ...
     
3. Your offices get bombed and  your journalists are jailed or 
   murdered. 


regards.max

Newsgroups: alt.news-media