Thursday, November 11, 2004
Big Media's War on Creativity
I made the argument in my previous blog that from looking at editorial endoresements by newspapers in the election that was just concluded, it would appear that fears of corporate control over the voice and opinion of local newspapers are unfounded. I know from my own experience and from the data I looked at and reported on about newspaper endoresements that the vast majority of large media corporations allow their local media outlets autonomy in their editorial and candidate endoresement decisions.
If this is the case, then what is the concern about letting big media corporations get bigger--owning more stations and owning newspapers and television stations in the same market? Big, public media companies are more interested in growing profits than in influencing voters. The obvious exception is Sinclair Broadcasting, but it appears to have suffered financially because of its attempt to influence voters, which will reinforce the local autonomy policies of other big media conglomerates.
Other than coportate opinion control, one of the other major argument against media consolidation is that it stifles a diversity of voices in a market. However, with hundred of channels on cable, satellite television and radio, and, especially, the millions of blogs and information sites on the internet, this argument is weakend.
The biggest problem I have with the big media companies getting bigger is because these congomerates emphasize profit growth, not serving their communities and certainly not nurturing and encouraging creativity and innovation in the arts.
In many markets local radio stations used to encourage and even play local bands and would break new music if a popular DJ or a program director liked the sound of a new artist or band. But this sort of experimentation is not allowed in corporate radio where independent record promoters pay stations to play records the big record companies are pushing.
In some markets, locally owned television stations used to occasionally air performances by local theater groups and other local performance artists, but this practice is declining as more and more stations, particularly corporately owned stations, chase profits. Corporate radio and television today is lowering the standards of taste, culture, and creativity.
Don't get me wrong, profits are necessary for businesses to survive, but the question is how much profit is enough? The answer for big media is always "more." That's how big media bosses keep their stockholders happy and, thus keep their jobs, by demanding more, always more. But as newspaper circulation and radio and television audiences slowly and irreversibly decline, how does the big media get more? By adding advertising pages and adding commercials, by imbedding product placements in programming, by producing cheap (in both senses of the word) look-alike programming, and by appealing to the lowest cultural common denominator ("The Swan" instead of Swan Lake).
I'm not a cultural elitist. I hate the opera and am not a fan of the ballet or classical music, but I am a fan of jazz and theater, both of which have a rich and deep artistic American heritage that is being ignored by big, corporate media. Add to this cultural inattention by big media the FCC's crackdown on "indecency" (translation = freedom of speech) which further inhibits creativity, and you have what amounts to a war on culture and the arts--to say nothing about the religious right wing's attack on free artistic expression through idealogical bombardment of the National Arts Foundation.
The country doesn't need, especially at this time of the ascension of the conservative religious right, more big, corporate media, more media consolidation that it order to grow will genuflect to the conservatives' attacks on indecency and, thus, creativity. American needs more independent voices who will have to learn how to survive through the hard necessity of innovation, and what is innovation but applied creativity.
If this is the case, then what is the concern about letting big media corporations get bigger--owning more stations and owning newspapers and television stations in the same market? Big, public media companies are more interested in growing profits than in influencing voters. The obvious exception is Sinclair Broadcasting, but it appears to have suffered financially because of its attempt to influence voters, which will reinforce the local autonomy policies of other big media conglomerates.
Other than coportate opinion control, one of the other major argument against media consolidation is that it stifles a diversity of voices in a market. However, with hundred of channels on cable, satellite television and radio, and, especially, the millions of blogs and information sites on the internet, this argument is weakend.
The biggest problem I have with the big media companies getting bigger is because these congomerates emphasize profit growth, not serving their communities and certainly not nurturing and encouraging creativity and innovation in the arts.
In many markets local radio stations used to encourage and even play local bands and would break new music if a popular DJ or a program director liked the sound of a new artist or band. But this sort of experimentation is not allowed in corporate radio where independent record promoters pay stations to play records the big record companies are pushing.
In some markets, locally owned television stations used to occasionally air performances by local theater groups and other local performance artists, but this practice is declining as more and more stations, particularly corporately owned stations, chase profits. Corporate radio and television today is lowering the standards of taste, culture, and creativity.
Don't get me wrong, profits are necessary for businesses to survive, but the question is how much profit is enough? The answer for big media is always "more." That's how big media bosses keep their stockholders happy and, thus keep their jobs, by demanding more, always more. But as newspaper circulation and radio and television audiences slowly and irreversibly decline, how does the big media get more? By adding advertising pages and adding commercials, by imbedding product placements in programming, by producing cheap (in both senses of the word) look-alike programming, and by appealing to the lowest cultural common denominator ("The Swan" instead of Swan Lake).
I'm not a cultural elitist. I hate the opera and am not a fan of the ballet or classical music, but I am a fan of jazz and theater, both of which have a rich and deep artistic American heritage that is being ignored by big, corporate media. Add to this cultural inattention by big media the FCC's crackdown on "indecency" (translation = freedom of speech) which further inhibits creativity, and you have what amounts to a war on culture and the arts--to say nothing about the religious right wing's attack on free artistic expression through idealogical bombardment of the National Arts Foundation.
The country doesn't need, especially at this time of the ascension of the conservative religious right, more big, corporate media, more media consolidation that it order to grow will genuflect to the conservatives' attacks on indecency and, thus, creativity. American needs more independent voices who will have to learn how to survive through the hard necessity of innovation, and what is innovation but applied creativity.
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