Nonetheless, as media enlarge, its public trust betrayal worsens, and the battle for Net Neutrality looms, anything is possible if a great enough groundswell gets behind it. Frances Fox Piven cites four historical times (in her book Challenging Authority) when people in America achieved the impossible. Conditions produced outrage enough over the status quo to erupt into a "disruptive protest movement." It shook the political establishment and brought about transforming social change - if only for a short time.
Media reform pressures are now building at a crucial moment in our history. McChesney put it this way in his 2007 book, Communication Revolution. We have "an unprecedented (rare window of opportunity in the next decade or two) to create a communication system that will be a powerful impetus (for) a more egalitarian, humane, sustainable, and creative (democratic) society." He calls it a "critical juncture" that won't remain open for long. It's a "historic moment" in a "fight we cannot afford to lose." In the digital age, "the corporate stranglehold over our media is very much in jeopardy.." Citizen actions have successfully challenged them. Important victories have been won on ownership rules, public broadcasting, and exposing fake news.
It now remains to enlarge grassroots efforts, take the fight to the next level, partner with other progressive campaigns, and force politicians to respond or be replaced. Media giants won't lay back and take it. They'll do all they can to quash reform efforts. So far they've had everything their way, and "the smart money says that the big guys (always) win." The "same smart money once said that communism" would last forever and apartheid couldn't end peacefully. It may turn out that the "smart money" isn't so smart. If enough people join the fight for media justice, "anything can happen."
The US Media Reform Movement Going Forward
Here McChesney examines the relationship of the political economy of media to the media reform movement and how the former provides understanding of the media's role in society. It's whether it "encourages or discourages social justice, open governance, and effective participatory democracy." Also vital is how "market structures, policies and subsidies, and organizational structures shape and determine the nature of the media system and media content."
For decades US media scholars have been at odds with their counterparts around the world. They assume a for-profit, advertising-supported corporate media is a given. Major reform against capitalism is unthinkable, "unrealistic, even preposterous" for a media system considered inviolable.
Over time, however, it became apparent that viewing a corporate-run media system as "natural" was erroneous. That's how it was at earlier key moments when the status quo was challenged - the 1900 - 1915 Progressive Era and again in the 1930s and 1940s.
In the last century's second half, media became a non-issue. Policymaking was corrupt and commercial interests increasingly dominant. At the same time (and like today), press coverage was nil. So when television emerged it was "gift-wrapped and hand-delivered to Wall Street and Madison Avenue without a shred of public awareness and participation." FM radio, cable and satellite TV got the same treatment.
Things hit rock bottom after 1980 at a time of Republican ascendence and neoliberal ideology's emergence. It took its toll on political economy of media scholarship. The field began declining and headed for obscurity. At the same time, "something was happening." Vital research was published and distinguished figures like Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman and Ben Bagdikian produced it. Their earlier media critiques are still cutting-edge and seminal.
They proved the crisis of media, how inhospitable it is to democracy and social justice, and how essential it is to change it. Progressive writers and publications also emerged as well as media reform movements. Groups like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) were in the vanguard and are now seen as trailblazers for today's burgeoning efforts.
Critics at the time weren't just on the left. By the 1990s, things got so bad even some conservatives became alarmed. Ownership was increasingly concentrated, labor weak, journalistic standards dismal, and hyper-commercialism overpowering. Further, editorial staffs were downsized, bureaus closed, trivia got substituted for substance, and who could know what was coming.
McChesney cites the "tipping point" - early in the new millennium "when the connection was made between the nature of the media system and a variety of policies and subsidies that created it." Global justice protests erupted, media activism grew, and the notion that the US free market media system was preordained began to crumble. Back room deals designed it, and benefits cut both ways for the dealers. Politicians were rewarded for their efforts, and media giants got an open field to get bigger. Public interest was off the table.
The key moment came in 2003, and the issue was over new media ownership rules. At the time, it looked like a slam-dunk for Big Media. George Bush was president, Republicans controlled Congress, and three of the five FCC members were Bush appointees. Media giants smelled victory and went for the kill. In spring 2003, what could stop them.
An aroused public could and did, and it seemed to materialize out of thin air. Within a year, two million or more outraged people swamped the Powell FCC and Congress with protests over the proposed relaxation of ownership rules. McChesney calls it the moment when the "contemporary US media reform movement was born," and ever since mushroomed dramatically as millions in the country are fed up and won't take it any more.
They won victories, and the Media Access Project (MAP) got one of them. In June 2004, it prevailed in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC when the Third Circuit Court threw out FCC's new rules. It ordered the agency to reconsider its ill-advised changes that if enacted would be an early Christmas for the giants. They included:
-- ending the cross-ownership ban that prohibits a company from owning a newspaper and TV or radio station in the same city;
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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