The Media, does it actually influence?

RightinNYC said:

Which rebuts my point because...?

The point is that corporations are biased toward making money. If the way to make money is to talk about how corporations are evil or how capitalism sucks, then they will do that. It's a bit simplistic to assume that because major media organizations are large corporations, they are always biased in favor of corporations or capitalism.

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You also need to remember that the profit comes from advertisement. So if you have a news angle that mostly upset people with lower income, it doesn't do that much compared to loosing more high income people watching the show. That having high income people watching the show are more profitable for the companies that buy the ads that financed the news corporations. Also I don't believe that big capitalist firms are so happy to pay for ads in news show that potrays corporations as evil or how capitalism sucks. You maybe also have a general feel good factor. That if news shows is full of children that is dying in Africa or evil greedy corporations the ads will be less effective then potrayed during and after a more light hearted news show.

One thing that also can be profitable is news shows that enhanced the opinions the wiever already have. That for a conservative it can maybe be more fun to watch a show with a conservative bias and for a liberal to watch one with a liberal show. That can of course have bad conseqvuences that people become less critical and more narrowed minded.

I believe that studies have proven that the answer is "no".

People may bitch about "the media", but it doesn't actually change anyone's views; just re-affirms them.

Dav said:

I believe that studies have proven that the answer is "no".

People may bitch about "the media", but it doesn't actually change anyone's views; just re-affirms them.

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Agreed.

"Manufacturing consent"

idk said:

Capitalism has no political bias, it follows the profits. Seeing as capitalism is consumer based and this country is center-right, there should be some apparent bias; but this is a reflection of consumer demand, not inherent capitalistic conservatism.

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Yea, except that Disney owns ABC, GE owns NBC, Viacom owns CBS...
- Networks would then be expected to lean 'pro-business/large corporations'
- If so, who do you think they would be more likely to support in the political arena: a Republican or a Democrat? And since we have no big real mainstream libertarian, it has to be republican.
-That does not mean there cannot be liberal news stations, just look at MSNBC, all it means is that it would've been more liberal, along with every other major news channel.

I'll just play devils-advocate on this whole point to save you the trouble :
So on the flip side, we could say that MSNBC, though owned by GE, is liberal because GE is interested in ratings and profits, though GE would rather it be more conservative, it recognizes that as a liberal station it would pull in more cash (more liberals in U.S.).
-Doing something based on cash rather than principle? Shocking.

JoeMama said:

The Media, does it actually influence?

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If you have any doubts about it, watch this: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9nOIusbDwI"]YouTube- Jerry Day on Ron Paul and the Media[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jZTd9j6_yg"]YouTube- Ron Paul - The Smear Campaign[/ame]

RightinNYC said:

Which rebuts my point because...?

The point is that corporations are biased toward making money. If the way to make money is to talk about how corporations are evil or how capitalism sucks, then they will do that. It's a bit simplistic to assume that because major media organizations are large corporations, they are always biased in favor of corporations or capitalism.

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Its proven that 60%+ of the ownership of newspapers and media outlets are conservatives.