Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
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the increasingly open and business-orientated services that have come on stream
(see pp. 139–43).
Another way in which the information arena has been developed to further
the goals and interests of transnational capitalist enterprise, while it has in turn
become essential to sustain capitalism’s health, is as a mechanism for selling.
Herbert Schiller attests that the vast bulk of media imagery produced is made
available only on market terms and is simultaneously intended to assist in the
marketing of, primarily, American products. Thus the television productions,
Hollywood movies, satellite broadcasting – the entertainment industry tout court
in which the United States plays the leading part (cf. Tunstall, 1977, 2006) – is
organised on a commercial basis and functions to facilitate the marketing of
goods and services. On the one hand, this is manifested in the construction
of television channels only where there is a viable commercial opportunity and
in the supply of television programming on the basis of commercial criteria –
most commonly a sufficiency of advertising revenue. This leaves its impress
on content, resulting in a preponderance of sensationalist and action-packed
adventures, soaps and serialisations, sports and more sports, intellectually undemanding
and politically unthreatening programming, all of which is aimed to
command the largest-possible audience ratings of the sort that most appeals
to advertisers and corporate sponsors.
On the other hand, the global marketing of, say, Levi’s jeans, Coca-Cola
drinks, Ford cars or Marlboro cigarettes would be hard to imagine without the
informational support of the mass media system (Janus, 1984). As far as Herbert
Schiller is concerned, this is of the deepest consequence (cf. Mattelart, 1991).
Indeed, it is the starting point of any serious understanding that American media,
themselves a part of the spread of corporate capitalism, should be expected to
laud the capitalist way of life – hence the beautiful homes depicted in so many
programmes, the plethora of celebrities, the desirable clothing, drinks, leisure
pursuits, the enviable lifestyles and opportunities. To be sure, some popular
programming does suggest a seamier side to contemporary America, notably the
underbelly of the inner cities, but it retains a glamour and excitement that demonstrate
something profoundly admirable to watchers in Seoul, Manila or São Paulo.
That is, a primary aim of US media is not to educate the Indonesian, Italian or
Indian in the mysteries of Dallas, ER, The Sopranos, Bonanza or Friends; rather it
is ‘to open up markets and to get as large a chunk of the world market as possible’
(Herbert Schiller, 1992, p. 1).
From this point of view, the question ought not to be the lament, ‘Why can’t
all television programming reach the standard of, say, the splendid documentaries
on the Vietnam War or the legacies of slavery we have seen?’ The really central
issue is rather that, given the imperatives, preordained by structural features of
contemporary capitalism, to sell and assist in selling, we are only to expect the sort
of information – entertainment – which predominates in the mass media. Indeed,
given the role of mass media to extend and perpetuate the market system, a key
question might be: Why is any programming of minority interest, of difficulty or
of critique made available?
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