Sleazy Corporate culture vs Hollywood liberal bashing

[lostnfound]

My former secretary, a conservative Christian, and I agree on one thing: television programming is almost all garbage. Materialistic, shallow, degrading garbage. We are on opposite sides most of the time, but we both wrote letters to fight against media consolidation. Neither of us likes 25 minutes of commercials in every hour; we both cringe at the idea that shows like 'Fear Factor' find an audience and we wish that serial killers hadn't become ever-present on the Discovery Channel.

Does she know that commercialism and corporate greed is behind the sorry state of what is on TV? Does she know that sleaze and violence are a natural outgrowth of commercialism? When I encourage her to think about it logically: probably, yes. But deep in her heart does she blame "corporatism" or does she blame "liberals"? I strongly suspect she blames "liberals". The emails from 'Concerned Women of America" and other conservative groups don't seem to make the commercialism connection.

TV culture = Corporate residue. Wish we could get our fellow citizens to see the one as the byproduct of the other. Instead, ironically, the very people who are making money off of this type of entertainment (not the artists, but the owners) have convinced the conservative Christians to collaborate with them in the fight against file sharing.

We should be framing issues of TV quality as "Commercialism / corporatism is filling our kids with garbage for the mind". We should be collaborating with rightwing TV-reformers in the fight for worthwhile choices on television and for regulations that would restore public control over the public airwaves.

Instead, Hollywood corporations are using this opening (file-sharing) as a way to shape the perception that their hearts are in the right place, that the owners are not the problem. Media giants can conclude that the new hefty FCC fines for obscenity are okay -- won't it eventually drive out small radio startups while having no impact on the media giants? -- and it gave a sense of success to the rightwing TV-reformers. (Go rest, now, we've taken care of that Jackson nipple problem.) Now, the focus shifts towards controlling the Internet, which conveniently places those rightwing TV-reformers on the same side as the Hollywood corporations.

Eventually, maybe they will shift the dialog so that future battles over programming content can be framed as 'Hollywood corporations partner with Christians to restrain entertainment liberals' or something similar. And more than framing, they can set a framework for future collaboration (think McCarthy) or at least for the entertainment industry to make compromises in window-dressing, to avoid opening up the airwaves for more fundamental changes. Most importantly, they can ensure that the rightwingers who want less garbage on TV and the leftwingers who want less garbage on TV continue to fight against each other.

[progressoid]

1. I'm constantly amazed at the irony

of Fox News being the beacon of the Right and Fox TV their bane.

[Wise Child]

7. They think the "Liberal Media" operates differently than conservative

corporations.

They don't think of the "Liberal" media in the same way as other corporations.


It's like Fox News Channel is Rupert Murdoch's little insurance policy. Would they seriously launch a boycott?

On the other hand, there are many Liberal folks who like The Simpsons.
I find it funny that O'Rielly asked for a boycott on Fox for a poorly conceived sitcom that featured a couple of hip-hop musicians. I think it seemed obvious to everyone else that this particular sitcom would not last past the first season.

Also, to many Religious Right folks, corporate influence in media to them is just too obvious of a reality for them, something you can petition, like the government. Many in the RR, think that the media is controlled by a horned guy with a pitchfork. They think corporations make winky dinks in factories. The "Liberal" media controls people.

[ixion]

2. I got rid of cable, because of the commercials, and because of the

shallow, mind-numbing vacuousness of the programming. When I want to watch something visual, that's not too abysmal, as the song goes, I watch a movie.


That was my solution to the problem. For me to return to the land of cable, there would have to be fewer commercials and better programming. However I don't believe that the religious right's vision of reform and my vision of reform are the same. ;-)

[Nimrod]

4. Me too

For exactly the same reasons. I might briefly consider hooking it back up again if the price dropped to about a fifth of what it is now... but probably not. There were just too many evenings I found myself sitting in front of the box and physically feeling my IQ drop. Plus I've developed a "starve the beast" philosophy, and TV's a big part of that.

We could put on an old Steve Reeves movie.

[ixion]

6. lol... I was wondering if someone would catch that

cheers :beer:


You're right about the price, and sitting around feeling your IQ drop. I went w/o cable for years, and then it came with an apartment I had at one point, so I once again had the monkey on my back. Getting rid of it felt good. Not having my life, or the movie, invaded by over-compressed fairyland garbage makes it easier to bear the degeneration of the species.

[jdots]

3. It goes back to the medium becoming the message

The F.C.C. is an important part of this,rules that were set up to be broken or worked with.The difference between liberal and conservative may be used by a machine that cares only about a profit statement.Television is a sixty year old grown up now,not a baby with dreams and questions.

[Walt Starr]

5. Bread and Circuses

The power eilite are only practicing that which has been practiced in prior cultures.

[bryant69]

8. It is amazing

It could be a wedge to show them that corporations don't always act as good citizens. Get them wondering about other ways in which corporations screw us.

But the dirty little secret is that if that stuff wasn't popular it wouldn't be on the air. And I'm also not sure we want to set ourselves up as monitors of public taste.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[housewolf]

9. "Free market capitalism"

It seems to me that the entire entertainment industry is about as perfect a model of free market capitalism at work in our society.

Shows and movies that attract an audience get renewed and copied. Those that don't get cancelled. It's all about the money - advertisers buy an audience, entertainment producers create shows that draw an audience to sell them to advertisers.

There is nothing coercive about it, few regulations restricting what can be produced.

If there wasn't a market for a particular type of program, it wouldn't be available. It's pure demand = supply.

Why don't rw'ers (who love and depend on the free market so much) want to acknowledge this success?

[lostnfound]

10. There IS something coercive about it.

Advertisers and owners coerce program-producers into staying away from certain topices, and they sometimes cancel relatively popular shows and popular hosts (like Donahue) because of content.

It ISN'T demand vs supply of CONTENT; it's demand vs supply of "viewer-consumers". A highly evolved product line: passive, easily entertained, ill-informed viewer-consumers.

I think there is a signficant demand for commercial-free programming; that's how cable TV built up its base, originally.