Schreiner’s Media Landscape

Because America’s mass media machine is so large, it only understands things in terms of size. The programs, news stories, ads/commercials and other “content” are not done because of the interest they contain in and of themselves but because of the larger truths the producers try to convey. The story of a little boy saving his dying mother by calling 911 is not about the boy but about the “hero in all of us.” In fact, many stories would not be done at all if they didn’t have a larger truth or moral to teach or entertain the audience.

We are seeing the same thing happening with coverage of the world economic crisis. The stories, ads/commercials and other “content” are meant to convey a larger truth: trouble. The stories are less about what’s being done (does anyone really understand what Congress and The Big O are doing to “stimulate” the economy?) and more about our worsening economic crises and the growing pall of hopelessness.

The larger truths corporate media are trying to convey are the extremes. The greed of obscenely wealthy CEOs, the struggles of blue collar families and their numerous hungry children. The stories range from the trials of the numerous wealthy but arguably stupid investors who got ripped off by Bernard Madoff and Tim Blixseth to thousands more layoffs of working class people by massive corporate employers. Little is being reported about the masses of self-employed, small business people who used to be the engine that ran America’s economy until we put all our eggs in the corporate basket and ended up with a lot of yolk on our faces. To corporate culture, like the Coen Brothers’ film, we are “The People Who Aren’t There.”

That’s because the mass media, where we get most of our news, are corporations themselves. They don’t understand small or any business or economics really. They merely understand that they are a massive, amorphous entity with a product to churn out and the common good to serve. The moving parts in Hobbes’ Leviathan if you will. The money and happiness goes in here and comes out there. Anything else that happens in-between is a mystery and therefore something the editors and other “experts” believe the audience has neither the time nor intelligence to digest.

That’s why as the economic crisis deepens, everyone is more and more afraid. THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S HAPPENING. All they know is that corporations are dying, jobs are vaporizing and the government is trying to save us all. What we really need is insightful reporting. What’s working- if anything? What do we REALLY need to do to stimulate the economy. And most importantly, what can each of us do to stay afloat.

But I suppose the corporate mass media are the wrong ones to ask. Look at them. They’re in worse shape than most segments of the American economy. You want to know how to save yourself, your job, your home, your family? Don’t listen to a newspaper reporter, a corporate boss or a layoff victim. Listen to someone who runs their own business. For us, even in the good times, it’s always a matter of survival.