Today the film makers are the people who control the most powerful
medium in the world, and art that can create ideals, change language
or topple governments." [John Baxter in the Daily Mail, 28th December
1995]
According to the theory of democracy, "the people" rule. They elect
politicians by their own choice, and if and when those politicians
fail to act according to their wishes they can be dismissed by the
vote of the people. The pluralism of different political parties
provides the people with "alternatives"; if one loses their
confidence, they can support another. Thus is realised the democratic
principle of: government of the people, by the people and for the
people.
It would be nice if it were all so simple. But in a medium-to-large
modern state things are not quite like that. How do "the people"
acquire the information and knowledge necessary for them to use their
votes other than by blind guesswork? They cannot possibly witness
everything that is happening on the national scene, still less at the
level of world events. Only a tiny few of them ever see their
political leaders close up and are able to watch and assess their
performance of their duties. The vast majority are not students of
politics. They don't really know what is happening, and even if they
did they would need guidance as to how to interpret what they knew.
"The people" are doctors, lawyers, engineers, clerks, shopkeepers,
factory workers, farmworkers, small tradesmen, nurses, secretaries,
schoolteachers and a thousand or more other things. They know, or
ought to know, something about the occupations in which they are
engaged. But only the minutest number can be expected to know the
business of politics - one of the most complex of subjects, with its
vast range of issues and the many points of view that will be brought
to bear on each of these issues. To know what the issues are, and to
examine and evaluate these points of view, the people need to have
these issues presented to them and the points of view expounded in a
form that they can understand.
This is where the "mass media" come in: newspapers; television;
radio. And for those with a more studious and enquiring bent there
are other media: books, magazines and the Internet. The list is
growing as information technology advances.
But there is a problem here. "The people" cannot own, control and
regulate the media. That can only be done by a small minority - a
mere fraction of the population, in fact much fewer than one per
cent. And it is this minority which is able to determine which facts
the people will be allowed to know about, which events will be
reported to them, which points of view they will be able to examine
and evaluate, which political parties it is good to vote for and
which not, which politicians are decent, upright, honourable and
capable citizens and which are disreputable, incompetent, "dangerous"
and "extreme".
This invests that minority who control the mass media with enormous
power - perhaps even greater power than a prime minister or cabinet.
It is this minority which determines the climate of "public opinion"
in which politicians have to operate, the "public opinion" to which
they have to defer and which they dare not offend if they are to get
elected and stay elected.
Even when the mass media consisted mainly of newspapers, and only a
small minority read those newspapers, this power was considerable.
Today, when it embraces mass-circulation newspapers and television,
it is colossal beyond imagination. And we must not forget another
fact about the media. Their political influence extends far beyond
newspaper reports and articles, and television programmes, of a
direct political nature - connected, that is, with current affairs
that bear upon politics.
In a much more subtle way, they can influence people's thought
patterns by other means: newspaper stories, pages dealing with
entertainment and popular culture, movies, TV "soaps", "educational"
programmes: all these types of fare help form human values, concepts
of good and evil, right and wrong, sense and nonsense and what is
"fashionable" and "unfashionable". These human value systems, in
turn, shape people's attitude to political issues, influence how they
vote and therefore determine who holds political power. Yet for some
strange reason there is very little public discussion of who actually
exercises media control.
The people are encouraged to get tremendously excited about the
outcome of a general election, even of local government elections,
yet these contests probably have far less a bearing on the question
of who wields power over us than the much more crucial one of who
regulates "public opinion" and therefore determines the agenda both
for the contesting of elections and for what is done in government by
whoever wins. Any study of what is happening on the national scene
must therefore today include a study of the workings of the mass
media: who the people are, who own, control and operate those media,
and to what purposes their immense power is being put!
medium in the world, and art that can create ideals, change language
or topple governments." [John Baxter in the Daily Mail, 28th December
1995]
According to the theory of democracy, "the people" rule. They elect
politicians by their own choice, and if and when those politicians
fail to act according to their wishes they can be dismissed by the
vote of the people. The pluralism of different political parties
provides the people with "alternatives"; if one loses their
confidence, they can support another. Thus is realised the democratic
principle of: government of the people, by the people and for the
people.
It would be nice if it were all so simple. But in a medium-to-large
modern state things are not quite like that. How do "the people"
acquire the information and knowledge necessary for them to use their
votes other than by blind guesswork? They cannot possibly witness
everything that is happening on the national scene, still less at the
level of world events. Only a tiny few of them ever see their
political leaders close up and are able to watch and assess their
performance of their duties. The vast majority are not students of
politics. They don't really know what is happening, and even if they
did they would need guidance as to how to interpret what they knew.
"The people" are doctors, lawyers, engineers, clerks, shopkeepers,
factory workers, farmworkers, small tradesmen, nurses, secretaries,
schoolteachers and a thousand or more other things. They know, or
ought to know, something about the occupations in which they are
engaged. But only the minutest number can be expected to know the
business of politics - one of the most complex of subjects, with its
vast range of issues and the many points of view that will be brought
to bear on each of these issues. To know what the issues are, and to
examine and evaluate these points of view, the people need to have
these issues presented to them and the points of view expounded in a
form that they can understand.
This is where the "mass media" come in: newspapers; television;
radio. And for those with a more studious and enquiring bent there
are other media: books, magazines and the Internet. The list is
growing as information technology advances.
But there is a problem here. "The people" cannot own, control and
regulate the media. That can only be done by a small minority - a
mere fraction of the population, in fact much fewer than one per
cent. And it is this minority which is able to determine which facts
the people will be allowed to know about, which events will be
reported to them, which points of view they will be able to examine
and evaluate, which political parties it is good to vote for and
which not, which politicians are decent, upright, honourable and
capable citizens and which are disreputable, incompetent, "dangerous"
and "extreme".
This invests that minority who control the mass media with enormous
power - perhaps even greater power than a prime minister or cabinet.
It is this minority which determines the climate of "public opinion"
in which politicians have to operate, the "public opinion" to which
they have to defer and which they dare not offend if they are to get
elected and stay elected.
Even when the mass media consisted mainly of newspapers, and only a
small minority read those newspapers, this power was considerable.
Today, when it embraces mass-circulation newspapers and television,
it is colossal beyond imagination. And we must not forget another
fact about the media. Their political influence extends far beyond
newspaper reports and articles, and television programmes, of a
direct political nature - connected, that is, with current affairs
that bear upon politics.
In a much more subtle way, they can influence people's thought
patterns by other means: newspaper stories, pages dealing with
entertainment and popular culture, movies, TV "soaps", "educational"
programmes: all these types of fare help form human values, concepts
of good and evil, right and wrong, sense and nonsense and what is
"fashionable" and "unfashionable". These human value systems, in
turn, shape people's attitude to political issues, influence how they
vote and therefore determine who holds political power. Yet for some
strange reason there is very little public discussion of who actually
exercises media control.
The people are encouraged to get tremendously excited about the
outcome of a general election, even of local government elections,
yet these contests probably have far less a bearing on the question
of who wields power over us than the much more crucial one of who
regulates "public opinion" and therefore determines the agenda both
for the contesting of elections and for what is done in government by
whoever wins. Any study of what is happening on the national scene
must therefore today include a study of the workings of the mass
media: who the people are, who own, control and operate those media,
and to what purposes their immense power is being put!
