Michael Parenti's Mass Media

365 Words1 Page

Michael Parenti (2002) declares media in the United States is no longer “free, independent, neutral and objective.” (p. 60). Throughout his statement, Parenti expresses that media is controlled by large corporations, leaving smaller conglomerates unable to compete. The Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, restricted “a single company to own television stations serving more than one-third of the U.S. public,” but is now overruled by greater corporations. (p. 61). In his opinion, Parenti reveals that media owners do not allow the publishing of stories that are not beneficial and advantageous. Parenti supports his argument very thoroughly by stating how the plutocracy takes control over media in multiple ways: television, magazines, news/radio broadcasting, and other sources. …show more content…

They frequently kill stories they dislike and in other ways inject their own preferences.” (p. 61). Michael informs the reader how it is rare to see media portray attention to those who are poor and who are undergoing financial instability. In Mass Media: For the Many, by the Few, the author, Michael Parenti, persuades the reader by providing a variety of facts to support his claim. This article is persuasive because it has valid resources to convince that the media is mostly ran by higher corporations. After reading his writing, I was able to see that the media does not illustrate every side to every story. There is much more to nation/world issues than just rich politics, and private

Show More
Related

  • Causes Of Prejudice By Vincent Parrillo

    1578 Words  | 4 Pages

    ‘Self justification involves denigrating a person or group to justify maltreatment of them’ (506). ‘ The poor are blamed for their problems; stereotypes of the homeless as bums, alcoholics and drug addicts, caught in a hopeless downward spiral because of their individual pathological behavior are omnipresent in the media’ (318). By continuously portraying those who have less than the socially accepted norm the media creates a climate in which those who are struggling to survive are dehumanized and this depiction creates a self justifying culture of prejudice against these people. ‘The media socializes us to believe that people in the upper class are much better than we are. The media also suggests that we need have no allegiance to people in our own class or to those who are less fortunate’ (316). ‘Research has found that people who extensively watch television have exaggerated views of how wealthy most American’s are’ (317). Parrillo defines frustration as a result of relative deprivation, or lack of resources compared to others in society and since the media promotes the idea that many Americans are living the economic stratosphere of the rich it is not surprising many Americans feel frustrated with their current socioeconomic position (510). Prepared with the knowledge of

    Read More

  • Clear Channel and the Cultural and Socio-Political Ramifications of Media Consolidation

    6306 Words  | 13 Pages

    In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act thereby lifting restrictions on media ownership that had been in place for over sixty years (Moyers 2003; Bagdikian 2000: xviii). It was now possible for a single media company to own not just two radio stations in any given local market, but eight. On the national level, there was no longer any limit on the number of stations a company could own – the Act abandoned the previous nation-wide ownership cap of forty stations (20 FM and 20 AM). This “anti-regulatory sentiment in government” has continued and in 2004 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a new rule that would allow corporations to own “45 percent of the media in a single market, up from [the] 35 percent” established by the 1996 Act (Croteau & Hoynes 2001: 30; AFL-CIO 2004). Companies can now also own both a newspaper and a television station in the same city (AFL-CIO 2004). This deregulation has led to a frenzied wave of mergers – most notably the Viacom/CBS merger in 1999, the largest in history (Croteau & Hoynes 2001: 21). Ownership of the media has rapidly consolidated into fewer and fewer hands as companies have moved to gobble up newspapers, television stations, and radio stations across the country.

    Read More

  • Television Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950s

    3211 Words  | 7 Pages

    Tuchman, Gaye. The TV Establishment: Programming for Power and Profit. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., l971.

    Read More

  • Horse Race Journalism Essay

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    Media finds its central role in the democratic debate in providing information, analysis, and a diversity of perspectives to the public. In recent years, with what is known as a media revolution, the amount of telecommunication outlets has increased dramatically. Often called “a product of healthy market competition,” the media revolution has theoretically expanded the public’s access to a multitude of facts, opinions, and general information (Miroff, et al. 2015). However, with a

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Media Has Gone Downhill

    950 Words  | 2 Pages

    The media takes a biased approach on the news that they cover, giving their audience an incomplete view of what had actually happened in a story. Most people believe that they are not “being propagandized or being in some way manipulated” into thinking a certain way or hearing certain “truths” told by their favorite media outlets (Greenwald 827). In reality, everyone is susceptible to suggestion as emphasized in the article “Limiting Democracy: The American Media’s World View, and Ours.” The

    Read More

  • African American Injustice

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    The media has consistently taken advantage of those in need, only to increase their wealth and viewership, all while negating the harsh reality and feelings of hopelessness those in need

    Read More

  • Media Ownership Concentration Case Study

    1073 Words  | 3 Pages

    The significant question regarding this consequence is whose version of the world is being portrayed in the media content and are there any political or economical reasons behind that. Even more significant is the ideological implications of the media ownership concentration, which is especially relevant nowadays, in the time of new ideological conflicts in the world. Regarding the Time Warner example, the media concentration consequence of growing political and economical influence is also evident in that case. This media conglomerate had been accused of being politically biased several times. Time Warner is claimed to be liberally biased and thus received a lot of critique. It is perceived as a media corporation which deals with particular types of content better or worse depending on the provider’s political and financial relationship to the Time Warner Cable and the established power over it. (Sirota,

    Read More

  • The Hidden Relationship Between Government and Media

    2097 Words  | 5 Pages

    One way in which government achieves this objective, is by its ability to misuse the media’s ability to set the agenda. Contrary to popular belief, media is in fact an enormous hegemony. In fact, separate independent news organizations do not exist. Rather than creating an independent structured agenda of their own, generally lesser smaller news organizations adapt to a prepared agenda, previously constructed by a higher medium. Based upon this information alone, it is quite apparent that media functions in adherence to the characteristics of a hierarchy.

    Read More

  • How does Jesper Stromback’s Four-Dimension Concept of Mediatisation of Politics Help us Better Understand Political Communication?

    1920 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stromback, J. and Esser, F. (2009) Shaping Politics: Mediatization and Media Interventionism, in Lundby, K (eds) Mediatization: Concept, changes, consequences. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, pp. 205-223.

    Read More

  • Media And Poverty Essay

    630 Words  | 2 Pages

    In reality, the media can write whatever stories they want about the poor and have no affect on the actual people living in poverty, but as soon as the public and the public’s opinion gets involved, it changes everything. The media is nothing without the public. The majority of people only look at poverty second-handedly, in other words, they only look at poverty when it is coming from the media. Some people don’t even realize that they are surrounded with poverty but instead choose not to actually look at it. As Mehta states in her article, “The public sees images from the media such as “third world women” and “welfare queens” and those images are fixed into everybody’s minds.”

    Read More

  • Swot Analysis Of Media Broadcasting

    1589 Words  | 4 Pages

    The need to address government control over the state-owned media, both print and broadcast and to either privatize t...

    Read More

  • Media Influence On Public Policy

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the fundamental roles of the media in a liberal democracy is to critically scrutinise governmental affairs: that is to act as a watchdog of government to ensure that the government can be held accountable by the public. However, the systematic deregulation of media systems worldwide is diminishing the ability of citizens to meaningfully participate in policymaking process governing the media (McChesney, 2003, p. 126). The relaxation of ownership rules and control, has resulted in a move away from diversity of production to a situation where media ownership is becoming increasing concentrated by just a few predominantly western global conglomerates (M...

    Read More

  • The Content of Mass Media Is Determined by Those Who Own the Media

    1073 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are three main ideas relating to questions of ownership and control of the mass media. Firstly, leading-on from the outline of technological development, we need to consider the extent to which ownership allows powerful individuals and groups to explo...

    Read More

  • Formal And Informal Media Economy

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ntent” (McChesney, 73). Whereas Robert McChesney’s approach on political economy of communication in his essay “How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy” concentrates on the “structural and institutional factors and assess what types of pressures exist that will shape the content” (73). For instance, McChesney focuses on how media content is affected by the government in how they “condone and encourage” advertising which shapes an “ever greater commercialism in our culture” (78). Cunningham’s approach is essentially observational and is limited in that he fails to provide a critical edge to his argument as McChesney, who urges a critical impulse for “institutional and structural” change within these media industries. An approach that encompasses both Cunningham and McChesney’s arguments would provide a well-rounded understanding of media industries.

    Read More

  • Why Media Ownership Matters and How Can We Solve It?

    1620 Words  | 4 Pages

    Adam, Candeub. 2008. Media Ownership Regulation, the First Amendment, and Democracy’s Future. University of California, Davis

    Read More

More about Michael Parenti's Mass Media

Open Document