German guy
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2010
- Messages
- 5,187
- Reaction score
- 4,255
- Location
- Berlin, Germany
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
Of course the comparison with China is absurd. State controlled media and obvious censorhsip is much worse than anything we have in the West.
But it's true mass media in the West has certain flaws. Certain opinions are underrepresented in the reports, the media elites or private actors with lots of resources may skew the reports in a particular direction, silence down opinions and facts they don't like, or push their agendas on the cost of objective information and education. The media elites also have the power of agenda setting. An extreme example is the "Berlusconi effect": Berlusconi, who owns a majority of Italian tv channels, used his power as media owner to push his political ambitions into debate, and used this power to win the elections. As prime minister, he used his media power to distract from reports about scandals he was involved in, most tv stations hardly reported about it. He further de-politized the public by bombing the people with boobs and soccer. Many Italians don't even know about the corruption and scandals Berlusconi is involved in, because he used his concentrated media power to distract. Without this power, he would probably have sunken already.
A similar example may be the Murdoch media, where the owner pushes his political agenda, by heavily influencing editorial decisions of his media outlets.
A while back, I read a weekly paper in Germany with a top story about oil and climate change. To my surprise, the general tone was very pro-fossil fuels and critics were either mocked, downplayed or their arguments ignored. Then I took a look at the advertisement in that issue. Guess who made these ads: Shell, BP, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen ...
A classic problem is the dumbing down and luridness of many news reports. They want to make money, and lurid stories and hyped scandals apparently bring more readers, than sober analysis or balanced background information.
So yes, the market logic of private media outlets, the power of media elite and/or private actors, does skew the opinions in many media outlets. But you'll always find gems among all the crap, and the internet offers a new platform for a different kind of news distribution.
But it's true mass media in the West has certain flaws. Certain opinions are underrepresented in the reports, the media elites or private actors with lots of resources may skew the reports in a particular direction, silence down opinions and facts they don't like, or push their agendas on the cost of objective information and education. The media elites also have the power of agenda setting. An extreme example is the "Berlusconi effect": Berlusconi, who owns a majority of Italian tv channels, used his power as media owner to push his political ambitions into debate, and used this power to win the elections. As prime minister, he used his media power to distract from reports about scandals he was involved in, most tv stations hardly reported about it. He further de-politized the public by bombing the people with boobs and soccer. Many Italians don't even know about the corruption and scandals Berlusconi is involved in, because he used his concentrated media power to distract. Without this power, he would probably have sunken already.
A similar example may be the Murdoch media, where the owner pushes his political agenda, by heavily influencing editorial decisions of his media outlets.
A while back, I read a weekly paper in Germany with a top story about oil and climate change. To my surprise, the general tone was very pro-fossil fuels and critics were either mocked, downplayed or their arguments ignored. Then I took a look at the advertisement in that issue. Guess who made these ads: Shell, BP, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen ...
A classic problem is the dumbing down and luridness of many news reports. They want to make money, and lurid stories and hyped scandals apparently bring more readers, than sober analysis or balanced background information.
So yes, the market logic of private media outlets, the power of media elite and/or private actors, does skew the opinions in many media outlets. But you'll always find gems among all the crap, and the internet offers a new platform for a different kind of news distribution.