Page 201 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

1 0 | Hypercommerc al sm

Review, Neil Hickey has tracked newsroom developments and he makes the fol-
lowing points: editors pull back coverage of major advertisers to protect ad rev-
enue. They work with marketers, advertisers and promotion experts on story
ideas, collapsing church and state, and losing editorial independence. They ac-
quiesce to shrinking news holes that augment the bottom line. Executives cut
budgets to satisfy demands for higher profit margins and fail to reinvest in train-
ing, support, staff and equipment. Taken together, according to Hickey, these
things constitute the “fatal erosion of the ancient bond between journalists and
the public” (Hickey 1998).
At the same time, journalists and critics alike have lamented the changes in
serious news reporting (Koppel 1997). They point to newsmagazines and other
nonfiction fare produced in entertainment divisions and designed to compete
for ratings, which use dramatic production techniques, such as intense and mys-
terious soundtracks to tell theatrical tales and juicy plots of murder and may-
hem. Such ratings-boosting fare offers distraction and visceral responses in a
world becoming more complicated and less comprehensible.
Most disturbing is the habitual suppression of an entire terrain of information
deemed unacceptable to corporate business interests. A conglomerate such as
Disney has declined to allow ABC news to cover conditions at its theme parks,
and the company is not eager to air stories that detail the conditions under which
Teletubbies are made. Few investigative reports show Chinese workers toiling up
to 16 hours a day for less than two dollars to make the merchandise sold in Dis-
ney’s retail outlets. And with the shared directorates between Time Warner and
Chevron Corp., it is no wonder that Chevron’s role in the destruction of Nigerian
wetlands was identified as a censored news story by Peter Philips and Project
Censored. From information about faulty and unhealthy products, to the human
and environmental consequences of some corporate practices, critical informa-
tion is harder to find outside the Internet and alternative media outlets. Crit-
ics charge that news produced in the age of hypercommercialism increasingly
reflects the interests of the wealthy few that own and advertise on the media.

ConCLusion

The current reliance of commercialtainment of all sorts, and the branding
and merchandising of programs and media companies alike, together with pro-
gramming pressures from advertisers and their agents, are the result of media
conglomeration and corporate friendly regulatory decisions. These changes have
raised fundamental questions about democracy and the First Amendment. For
fictional fare, as creators lose production independence, the singularly positive
portrayals of products and corporate sponsors should not be considered pro-
gramming in the public interest, but uniquely beneficial to commercial interests.
At times, corporate interests are at odds with consumer needs and the public’s
right to be informed. Analysts wonder if this increasingly hypercommercialized
landscape can serve the democratic needs of the public. If not, can the course
be changed in a direction able to reenvision a more inclusive, less commercial
communication system?