Media War (cont.)

[interesting timeline of behind-the-FCC-curtain activities, an on target
synopsis, and a good recollection for folks, like me, who lost track of
this stuff.  i was looking back on heads post and collected some
pointers.]

The Escalating War Against Corporate Media
Monthly Review
by Robert W. McChesney

This article is a revised and abridged version of chapter 7 from Robert W.
McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the
Twenty-First Century (Monthly Review Press, 2004). Footnotes for the
material in this article are available in the book.

A recurring issue for the left historically has been how to address the
capitalist media. In recent years the problem has grown ever more severe,
and no small amount of attention has been given to examining the problems
of the commercial media and how closely they reinforce and accentuate
problems within the broader social order. The logic of this criticism has
become clear: progressives need to work on challenging the corporate
domination of media as part of the broader struggle for social justice. If
changing media is left until "after the revolution," there will be no
revolution, not to mention fewer chances for social reform. But
politicizing control over media has proven to be extraordinarily difficult
for activists. That is why the massive and largely unanticipated 2003
campaign in the United States to stop further media concentration, which
almost overnight reached a scale not seen in media reform struggles since
the 1930s, is so important and instructive. This article chronicles that
revolt.

The Media Reform Movement Comes to Life

Today we can see that hidden from public view in the 1990s had been a
mounting concern over media. The changes wrought by neoliberal measures
such as the 1996 Telecommunications Act only fanned the flames of this
burgeoning movement. Magazines such as The Nation, The Progressive, and In
These Times began to feature stories not only criticizing mainstream media
but also reporting on nascent efforts to change media policies. The
progressive media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
flourished, as did the Media Education Foundation, the premier producer of
critical videos on media. Across the nation local media watch groups,
reform organizations, and independent media outlets began to sprout.
Critical books on media and journalism began selling better than they had
in the past. National "media and democracy" conferences were held in San
Francisco and New York in 1996 and 1997, respectively, drawing many
hundreds of activists.

Media activism was enjoying a distinct dynamism. The emergence of
Independent Media Centers in the wake of the Seattle protests against the
WTO in 1999 galvanized opposition to corporate media among a generation of
young activists. Already media reform activism had reached a level not
seen in many decades, but it still had not reached the levels of the
Progressive Era and the 1930s. Despite all the activity and despite
evidence that the American people were concerned about this issue, the
media reform movement was almost entirely outside the mainstream political
culture and invisible within the commercial news media. It did not exist
in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the American people.

the rest of the article:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0304mcchesney.htm

===

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