Corporate Propaganda Still On the News 275
mofomojo writes, "Democracy Now! reports that a new study by the Center for Media and Democracy says Americans are still being shown corporate public relations videos disguised as news reports on newscasts across the country. In April, the Center identified 77 stations using Video News Releases in their newscasts; the findings led to an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. A followup study has found that 10 of those stations are still airing VNRs today, for a new total of 46 stations in 22 states." From the article: "Most of the VNRs have aired on stations owned by large media conglomerates such as News Corp., Tribune, and Disney. They've also been sponsored by some of the country's biggest corporations including General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, and Allstate Insurance."
Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than government news stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way, it's pretty sneaky and low.
Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:5, Insightful)
The situation in many ways resembles the old medieval baronies, who quarralled and feuded amoung themselves, and methaphoricall and literally stamped on the faces of the general population. The state/king had only limited ability to exercise control and essentially each barony was a virtual state within a state. In many cases, different parts of a country could be at war with one another, or with the monarchy.
In case anyone thinks this is a bit far fetched, consider this. What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense? Barons and Lords did this kind of thing all the time. What can you do? It's getting to the point that the police will not even dare to investigate large corporations with their armies of lawyers. Your ability to conclude a successful suit before you grow old and die is also ever decreasing.
You get a lot of SciFi where in the furture, corporations rule everything. Is this really so far fetched? If they have more de facto power and influence than the nation states in which they reside, then what is to stop them, like the old barons before them, from simply all but forming states of their own? Maybe Richelieu's reforms will be rolled back, just in a different form.
Real Story...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations gaining power == fascism (Score:5, Insightful)
(oh and mods: please show your immaturiy to mod something down when you don't agree with it)
Re:Better than government news stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Corporate Propaganda Still On the News (Score:2, Insightful)
"Certain types of subliminal perception (hypnosis, for example) are known to affect the perceiver without any conscious knowledge of the effect on his part. However, there is no strong evidence that the types of messages discussed in this article (ones embedded into normal objects such as posters or movies) are at all effective."
That's only the wiki quote on the subject. IANAP (but my mom is, so I hear no end of the stuff 2nd hand) but this is way beyond no strong evidence of it being effective. It's -no- evidence of any statistically significant effect in any serious study i.e. as close as you can get to proving it's not effective in any way we we've tried to do it.
Now, to the topic of the article on the other hand, while many people can recognise stories like these as corporately funded, studies do show stories like these at minimum confuse the issue in statistically significant amounts. i.e. it's worth the companies to spend their money doing things like this rather than directly address the root issues they're trying to spread propaganda about.
Ontop of this, despite some of this being found out, it doesnt cause enough public backlash on average to harm the company more than it helps. Some don't get found at all, some create a very minor stir, I dont know of any companies getting a major backlash against tactics like this, but if there have been any they're a minority to the point of it still being a sensible buisiness policy to take the risk.
Until this changes, companies will continue to make business decisions like this because it's simply cheaper, including possible damages from backlash, to effect change in the population & the laws, than to actually fix their problems.
Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:2, Insightful)
I know there are a lot of sincere libertarians on this site, and I sympathize with the libertarian idea (breifly, get the government off our backs). But this is what always gets me. If we just deregulate, it leaves a power vacuum, and we're left with these other entities governing us instead. Private, unelected oligarchs get to be in charge, and no one 'gets them off your back' if they decide that getting on your back is going be more profitable.
VNRs seem to be a symptom of this. There's no law, that I know of (or that I could find cited in either article), forcing stations to disclose a 3rd-party PR puff-piece. In the same department, what is there to discourage corporate conflicts of interest in general between the larger corporations and their news companies (i.e. between selling ads and promoting journalism)? Really, I'm asking, is there anything?
On the other hand, we do have the internet. I doubt incidents like 'macaca' would get any traction without this big, unregulated, free-for-all of journalism. So let's pretend the market stays totally 'unregulated' for the next 10 years, and AT&T manages to dominate the entire ISP market in, say North Carolina. And they decide that all forum posts, sites, videos and emails critical of Sen. Dole (who happens to be in a close re-election race) violate their Terms Of Service, so they get second-tier delivery, or dropped entirely from their routers and servers. Effectively, it's the pre-internet information landscape all over again, but without those pesky equal-time regulations. Still no government regulation of the internet, but would you feel freer? What, besides faith in (free market == personal freedom) makes you think this wouldn't happen?
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot editors don't check the affiliations of people who submit stories, and allow anonymous submissions, so Slashvertisements are possible. However, I don't think anyone expects anything different. The submitters are named, or the story starts "An anonymous reader writes...", and readers are left to draw their own conclusions about any potential bias.
On the other hand, news channels don't take submissions from just anyone when they make news stories. They're supposed to be deciding what to air themselves, with the aim of informing their viewers. If they use a corporate PR video that looks like a news report, they ought to know the source; the problem is when they deliberately fail to declare who made it, as this means that they are disguising advertisements as news.
Re:Corporations gaining power == fascism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In a related story (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Evan
Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:2, Insightful)
And why do certain groups end up with the most money?
Because consciously or unconsciously, directly (by forking over cash) or indirectly (through public policy), people direct the flow of money towards them.
If one group has the most money, that's exactly because society deems them to be the most important.
Please define 'we' (Score:3, Insightful)
Pardon me, but have you been drinking the nationalistic-flavoured Kool-aid? All people that fought in WW2 are retired or dead. The politicians that got you in that war are all dead. Do you think you somehow inherited some right over 'your' former allies?
Re:Better than government news stories (Score:3, Insightful)
To put the whole topic of "corporate bias in the media" in a nutshell: "Beware of advice from the rich, for they do not seek company."
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Simon
Re:Corporate campaign contributions (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, I could. In the same way that I could become a ninja, or climb Mt. Everest, or fly to the moon. It's not impossible.
Lobbyists get paid by corporations to do nothing but influence legislators. I get paid to do my job. If I'm not doing my job, and I'm off attempting to get an appointment with legislators, I do not get paid.
So, no, John Q. Public does not have the same access to legislative services as corporations do.
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively, I could turn this around and say that typically people who aren't pro-Palestine hate the place because it's "full of Arabs".
-OR-
It could also be because you disagree with how Israel handles conflict with Palestinians and has nothing to do with them being Jewish. Just a thought before you run off accusing people of being anti- whatever.
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:1, Insightful)