Over the past century, mass media has evolved from informational for the public to a monopolistic situation where the public has lost its say in what is aired. Back in early 1900s, newspapers had entertainment, news, information, and public views which in turn earned the publics interest. As interest grew, of course the companies did as well. At the turn of the century, the U. S. labor movement published hundreds of newspapers in dozens of languages, and regional dailies issued by working-class political organizations and mutual aid societies to national union weeklies and monthlies (McChesney 151).
These newspapers practiced a journalism very different from that of the capitalist newspapers, which were produced and sold as commodities, which contended, were poisoning the minds of the public. The old papers gave information, news, and help, and had little for entertainment. This paper will investigate the changes in the media, focusing on newspapers, magazines, and television, and the effects upon public perspective it has had. In the decades that followed the emergence of radio broadcasting in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, much of the scholarship on the origins of the U. S. oadcasting setup was a fortunate success (McChesney 222).
It is assumed that the United States had adopted the best broadcast system imaginable and that the laws that had permitted and encouraged the development of a regulated commercial system had been products of well-intentioned public servants (McChesney 222). Sometimes the U. S. broadcasting system was characterized as being a result of a painstaking study and debate of a variety of alternatives. At other times, the notion that debate or study had even been necessary was dismissed categorically, as the existing system was the sole conceivable system appropriate for U. S. democracy (McChesney 223).
In either case this perspective, which had been encouraged strongly by the commercial broadcasting industry, remained prominent in mass communication circles well into the 1970s, thus the real emergence of media conformity. Conformity of the media means that less and less companies exist today and the major corporations have bought out all the smaller ones. What people watch, see, read, and even talk about has been effected by the media. With the emergence of these changes we are now more interested in entertainment. This will be explained later.
Effects and Changes in Mass Media A description of mass media in the United States can help to explain much of why they do what they do. There are two categories of media defined as follows: print (newspapers, magazines, etc); and electronic which is the radio, television, movies, and the internet. These media carry messages quickly to a wide range of audiences (Heibert 4-5). With this technology media has conformed slowly over time, and less companies produced because they have either been bought out or fell off the charts as these numbers show (Heibert 4-5).
At the end of the twentieth century, about 1,550 daily newspapers were published, which is down from about 2,600 at their peak earlier in the century (Heibert 5). Some questions can be brought to light such as, do the media make things happen, or do they merely report what has happened? Do they make us act? Do they influence peoples opinions? Obviously this cannot be answered with undeniable certainty, but one can argue. In the 1950s, television was still primarily a limited adult activity. Most peoples values had already been shaped by other forces – namely, family, religion, teachers, and print media (Heibert 7).
By the end of the twentieth century, social scientists were ready to assign a more direct and powerful impact to television (Heibert 7-8). The most important has been the work of George Gerbner, whose cultivation analysis is based on theory that television, as a dominant medium, has a cumulative effect, ultimately creating the culture in which we live (Gerbner 23). Today many experts say it is television – not parents, teachers, or religious leaders – that establishes the values of young children.
Many scientific studies have confirmed that for the news and information we need about ourselves, our communities, and our world, we now turn more often to mass media, especially television, than to our families, friends, or neighbors (Bagdikian 23). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average American spent a few minutes each day reading a daily newspaper, a few minutes more reading magazines, maybe less than an hour reading a book – and no time at all watching movies or television, listening to radio or recordings, or surfing the World Wide Web, none of which existed as a public medium.
By the end of the twentieth century, Americans spend more than half their leisure time – activities other than eating, sleeping, or working – on mass media, and the majority of that time is spent watching television. Today the numbers are 3,400 hours a year on media (such as TV, computers, etc), or about 40% of our total time, more than we spent time sleeping (2, 900 hours, 33%) or working (2000 hours, 23%), or all he other things people do (only 460 hours, 5 %) (Heibert 9). Conformity To understand he changing media at the end of the twentieth century, it is important to analyze the anatomy of the big bang.
The best place to start is with history. America was expected to be a diverse society, in terms of perspectives, and the mass media were supposed to represent and ensure that diversity. The fact is that by the end of the twentieth century the mass media had become less diverse, less competitive, and more standardized despite more television channels to watch, more radio stations to listen to, and more printed material to read (McChesney 223). Media critic Richard Harwood points out that the Golden Age for diversity in American press was the period from 1880 to 1930.
During that time, some 2,600 dailies were published, and every major city had a half-dozen or more competing papers. By the end of the twentieth century, only a handful of cities had competing dailies, and few independently owned newspapers remained (Harwood 143). Nearly all daily papers in the U. S. had become politically independent with bland or conformist political convictions, or none at all. The ethnic press had declined to 236 papers and lost much of its distinctiveness, Harwood writes, and the shrinking black press been enfeebled (Harwood 143). So, while newspapers are more profitable than ever today, they also are more efficient.
They can operate with fewer employees, meaning that even within the newsroom, fewer voices are being heard. According to a study by the Freedom Forum, the newsroom labor force of 53, 700 in the mid-1990s was expected to decline to 50, 000 by the year 2001 (Heibert 10). This is due to the fact that major publishers have bought the independent companies and only publish and limit what is sent out today. Radio and television have never been nonconformist, extremist, or highly partisan. They have always broadcast middle-of-the-road programming that would reach the largest possible audience.
The Fairness Doctrine, which mandated that broadcasting gives all sides equal time and opportunity, in fact discourages stations from taking a strong stand on issues(Bagdikan 25). Corporate Ownership and Interesting Numbers Patterns of ownership have changed as well. Daily and weekly newspapers once were locally and family owned businesses. Of the 1,550 or so daily newspapers published in America today, more than three-fourths are owned by newspaper groups or larger corporations. Somewhere around 145 account for more than four-fifths of the total circulation of the U. S. dailies (Heibert 11).
All this is the same for book and magazine publishing companies. Most of the publishing companies headquarters are in New York and there exists only several major companies across the country (Heibert 11). Radio and television were also small and locally owned businesses, mandated as such by Federal Communication Commission regulations that limited ownership to seven AM, seven FM, and seven TV stations. The other rule was that no owner could operate more than one in any given listening area. With deregulation happening in the Reagan administration, limitations on ownership were relaxed.
When deregulation completed with the overhaul of the communications law in 1996 – states: including no limits at all on the number of radio stations an individual or corporation can own- mergers began on the dime (Heibert 11). Within a few months the Fox network, with 22 TV stations, was the larger than ABC, CBS, and NBC, and its stations reached around 40 percent of American homes, being located in 11 of the top 12 markets. By 1996, writes McChesney, only about 50 firms controlled the majority of the worlds mass media, nine of those 50 – Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, Murdochs News Corp.
TCI, General Electric (NBC), Sony, and Seagram- held the dominant share. Right behind them were Comcast, Westinghouse (CBS), New York Times, Hearst, and Gannett (Bagdkian 25, McChesney 227). Also, fourteen out of fifteen of the worlds largest media corporations list the U. S. as their headquaters (Baran 522). Effects on the Public Whether the issue is online hate groups, televised violence, the absence of minority characters in prime-time television programming, or a decline in the quality of political discourse, the topic of the effects of mass communication has been hotly debated for a long time.
An important term to understand is selective exposure. This is the process by which people expose themselves to or attend to only those messages consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs (Baran 424). This is where our public perspective has been mostly effected. The major corporations know about this selective exposure and have used that to their advantage (Baran 424). Taking a look at the numbers in the previous paragraph, it is clear that there exists fewer companies related to the media that ever today. With that, it is also true that what the people see and hear is what the corporations want them to see.
In a country of free enterprise, these corporations air what will give them high ratings, thus, in turn, more profit (Bagdkian 25). So, since we only see what they air, we are limited to the information that we do not have. We no longer talk about the news. Instead we talk about NYPD Blue, or any other sitcom, or what interests us. Another interesting fact is that we rarely here much about politics these days. This is because entertainment has become more important because it creates revenue (Baran 522). Conclusion Over the course of many years, it is astonishing to read the numbers as conformity has taken over rather than diversity.
Its amazing to look at the evolution of mass media over past century. It has changed the country and world in such a manor thats hard to describe. Within the United States, media changed the way people looked at each aspect of life. They no longer read newspapers for news, or watched TV for information; they watched out of curiosity and for entertainment. Competing companies had to make the same sort of shows that the leading companies were airing, thus the conformity of media. Whatever made them money is what mattered. Our loss of perspective as a people has happened because of this media frenzy.
We no longer turn to our neighbors or family members for information (Bagdkian 24). We listen to the people on TV, on the radio and in the newspapers. With the economic imbalance the world has today, there is no telling what might happen in the future with the mass media. At the current rate it is going, one massive company will eventually own everything and limit everything an individual may hear, read, or watch on any network. Yet, these conclusions cannot be proved by this paper, it is only what may happen in the future and there may be no real solution either, but that is also just an inclanation.
