One of the more systematically-used
arguments by the US oligarchy –widespread
all over the world to defend the capitalist
social system for the benefit of their interests
of global domination– is the right to choose
information they argue that US citizens enjoy.
Such an illusion, stimulated by the oligarchy
itself, tries to ignore the strict control over
the media exercised in the United States by a
conglomerate of financial consortia.
Although this is carefully excluded as
information from the large corporate media,
it has been known that only half a dozen
oligarchic conglomerates exert control over
the informative, ideological and political
media content in the United States.
These conglomerates are: General Electric,
News Corp., Disney, Viacom, Time-Warner
and CBS. Compare this phenomenon
with the situation in 1983, when the media
industry was represented by 50 independent
media companies.
These six financial monsters own, or otherwise
control, 90% of the mainstream media in
the US and subsequently exert a decisive
influence in all countries influenced by
Washington’s information policies. The names
–or the segments that each one controls– may
vary due to sales, mergers or similar capital
operations; but the result will always be the
same.
“All are corporations which have their own
shady histories, dealings and suspicious actors.
Disney, for example, is widely regarded as dark
enterprise aimed at warping the minds of
children with disturbing subliminal imagery.
One of these companies is also the 12th
largest US military defense contractor, so it’s
no surprise that so much of our entertainment
centers around the glorification of war and
violence,” says journalist Vic Bishop, staff
writer of the Waking Times, in an article
published on August 28th.
In his comment, Bishop refers to the different
tactics used by US media to coerce citizen
consensus towards the objectives of the
oligarchy.
The promotion of shallow, materialistic,
ego-centric values and the obvious
oversimplification of the product for
consumption by the population are in
keeping with the interests of these six
corporations. They glorify consumption,
obedience, ignorance, the hyper-sexualization
of youth, the glorification of war, government
surveillance over the private lives of citizens,
and so on.
The advertisers which support these media
companies have tremendous sway over what
makes it to the airwaves. They help control
public perception.
According to Bishop, “by surveying what is
available for consumption in the mass media,
it is easy to see what type of society these six
corporations are helping to construct. They
have the power to warp reality by calling
staged programs ‘reality’ shows. Ideas which
don’t support mainstream narratives and the
consumer agenda are omitted,” because they
don’t depict the society they wish to portray.
The harmfulness and danger of this ideological
product lies in the fact that it is consumed
daily by hundreds of millions of readers, TV
viewers, radio listeners and even Internet users
who are not fully aware of the problem.
Strong lobbies, foundations and groups with
political or corporate power have sufficient
organizational, financial and political capacity
to exert pressure against media or journalists
which step out of the dominant line. For most
of the media it is less troublesome and more
profitable to yield to this pressure than to
confront these lobbies.
Add to this the fact that 80% of the
international information published in the
world comes from four major agencies in first
world countries (AP, UPI, Reuters and AFP)
which set the news agenda according to their
corporate interests.
The supposed ideological plurality is even
more false. They present discussions and
debates which are not real because they are
always held within parameters that do not
affect the essential. The reader or the audience
believes they are attending a discussion that
shows plurality and breadth of opinions
when, in fact, they are being cheated with a
discussion which is maintained within a very
limited space and ideological spectrum.
In his foreword to the book by Pascual Serrano
Desinformación; Cómo los medios ocultan
el mundo [Disinformation; How Media
Hide the World], Ignacio Ramonet writes
that in the United States, censorship works
by choking, suffocation or jamming. “They
provide so much information that the public
does not realize that some of it (precisely
that we would need the most) is not there.”
*Manuel E. Yepe, is a lawyer, economist and
journalist. He is a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana.
He was Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general director of the Prensa Latina agency; vice
president of the Cuban Institute of Radio
and Television; founder and national director of the Technological Information System
(TIPS) of the United Nations Program for
Development in Cuba, and secretary of the
Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by
Walter Lippmann.
www.walterlippmann.com
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