for the privileges they receive—typically made by the media owners themselves—are based on the notion that the media play an important, perhaps a central, role in providing the institutional basis for having an informed and participating citizenry. If this is, indeed, a democracy without citizens, the media system has much to answer for.
THE DECLINE OF DEMOCRACY
I argue in my most recent book that the media have become a significant anti-democratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. The wealthier and more powerful the corporate media giants have become, the poorer the prospects for participatory democracy. I am not arguing that all media are getting wealthier, of course. Some media firms and sectors are faltering and will falter during this turbulent era. But, on balance the dominant media firms are larger and more influential than ever before, and the media writ large are more important in our social life than ever before. Nor do I believe the media are the sole or primary cause of the decline of democracy, but they are a part of the problem and closely linked to many of the other factors. Behind the lustrous glow of new technologies and electronic jargon, the media system has become increasingly concentrated and conglomerated into a relative handful of corporate hands. This concentration accentuates the core tendencies of a profit-driven, advertising-supported media system: hypercommercialism and denigration of journalism and public service. It is a poison pill for democracy.
Nor is the decline of democracy in the face of this boom in media wealth a contradiction. The media system is linked ever more closely to the capitalist system, both through ownership and through its reliance upon advertising, a function dominated by the largest firms in the economy. Capitalism benefits from having a formally democratic system, but capitalism works best when elites make most fundamental decisions and the bulk of the population is depoliticized. For a variety of reasons, the media have come to be expert at generating the type of fare that suits, and perpetuates, the status quo. I argue that, if we value democracy, it is imperative that we restructure the media system so that it reconnects with the mass of citizens who in fact comprise “democracy.” The media reform I envision, and write about here, can take place only if it is part of a broader political movement to shift power from the few to the many. Conversely, any meaningful attempt to do this, to democratize the United States, or any other society, must make media reform a part (though by no means all) of its agenda. Such has not been the case heretofore.
Robert W. McChesney is Research Associate Professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has authored or edited five books and more than 100 articles on media history and media politics.
My book is about the corporate media explosion and the corresponding implosion of public life, the rich media/poor democracy paradox. Its purpose is to analyze the existing situation by drawing upon history and pointing toward democratic change in the future. As such, it goes directly counter to the prevailing wisdom of our times. The ultimate trump card of conservatism and reaction, after all their other arguments have been discredited, is that there is no possibility of social change for the better, so it is a notion not even worth pondering, let alone pursuing. This card has been played by ruling elites since the dawn of civilization, but never has it been waved more ferociously than at the close of the twentieth century. It has deadened social thought and has demoralized social movements and public life. And it is a lie, the biggest lie of them all. The world is changing rapidly and is doing so because of decisions made by actors working within a specific social system. If anything, humans now possess greater ability to alter their destiny than ever before. Those who benefit by the status quo know this well. They want to ensure that they are the ones holding the reins; they want everyone else to accept their privileges as “natural” and immutable. In my view, the duty of the democrat, and especially of the democratic intellectual, is to rip the veil off this power, and to work so that social decision making and power may be made as enlightened and as egalitarian as possible.
It might be wise to address what exactly I mean by the term democracy. One of the heartening features of our age is that the term is embraced by nearly all but a handful of bigots, fanatics, and xenophobes. This is a relatively recent development, and its newfound popularity is a reminder of how far humanity has traveled over the past few centuries. But the term is employed so widely that it has lost much of its specificity and meaning. Hence a product that is consumed widely is termed a “democratic” product, as opposed to a product consumed by the few. Indeed, the term democratic is seemingly applied to describe anything or any behavior that is good, while words like “fascist” or “Hitler-like” are used to describe negative behavior, regardless of any actual relationship to the Third Reich or fascist politics, or politics at all.
So it is that, when the United States is characterized as a democratic society, what is meant varies considerably with the assumptions and values of the person making the claim. If we may generalize, however, when the United States is characterized as a democracy, this is meant to suggest that in the United States the citizens enjoy individual rights and freedoms, including the right to vote in elections, and that arbitrary government power is held in check by a constitution and laws and a legal system that enforces them. What is conspicuously absent from notions of the United States as a democracy is anything that has much to do with democracy, the idea that the many should and do make the core political decisions. In fact, very few people would argue that the United States is remotely close to a democratic society in that sense of the term. Many key decisions are the province of the corporate sector and most decisions made by the government are influenced by powerful special interests with little public awareness or input.
the First Amendment (“freedom of the press”) as a means of shielding corporate media power and the wealthy and limiting the possibility of the development of democracy in the United States. This is not merely a campaign by the rich and powerful; it has received vocal and aggressive support from many liberals and civil libertarians. So it is that Nat Hentoff spends much of his time chastising those who would wish to regulate political campaign spending or commercial broadcasting as being “Brothers and sisters under the skin” of the most reprehensible bigots, fanatics, and book burners.10 I argue that putative “progressives” and “democrats,” like Hentoff, who accept this new corporate friendly commercialized interpretation of the First Amendment are making a dreadful error. I believe it is imperative that groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which at one time battled first and foremost for political democracy, be urged to return to their roots and understand that the First Amendment cannot simultaneously protect the privileges of corporations and the wealthy and protect and promote the democratic rights of the many.
I conclude that there is a need to organize politically to enact structural media reform. I argue that if the United States is to change its media system for the better, it will require the emergence of a broad-based democratic left that makes media reform one of the core elements of its platform. The conclusion therefore concentrates upon why a left is necessary for extending democracy, and why any prospective American left needs to understand the critical importance of media reform better than any of its predecessors have. My purpose ultimately, is to contribute to these movements everywhere and especially in the United States. fi
Excerpted from Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by Robert W. McChesney (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999). Copyright ©1999 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press. See www.press.uillinois.edu.
Notes
I. Martin Peers, “Can Congloms Cope with Cash Cache?” Variety, July 20–26, 1998, pp. 1, 62.
2. John Consoli, “The I l.8-Hour Daily Diet,” Mediaweek, April 20, 1998, pp. 8, 1 2.
3. John Merli, “Internet Users Not Forsaking Radio,” Broadcasting and Cable, October 19, 1998, p. 59.
4. Eben Shapiro, “Surfers of the Web Still Love TV and, in Fact, Often Watch Both,” Wall Street Journal, June 12, 1998, p. B9.
5. John Harwood, “Are You Apathetic about Fall’s Election? You’re Written Off,” Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1998, pp. Al, A7.
6. Robert M. Entman, Democracy without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
7. Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy against Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), chap. 7.
8. Richard N. Rosenfeld, American Aurora (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 3.
9. Quoted in Anna Couey and Joshua Karliner, “Interview with Noam Chomsky,” Z Magazine, June 1998, p. 9.
10. Nat Hentoff “Fair-Weather Friends of the First Amendment,” Progressive, January 1999, p. 29.