Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND THE MARKET
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It is difficult to dissent from the view that, as public subsidy is replaced by
private interests (or not replaced at all) which seek to develop information for
the market, or, less dramatically, where public funds are so reduced that the institutions
themselves are driven towards private sources of funds to remain viable,
there are major effects on what information is created and on what terms it is
made available. At the least it leads to price increases for access and the favouring
of exhibitions and programming which can either or both enjoy popular appeal
(sufficient to induce a wide public to pay admission prices) or attract sponsors
(generally from the corporate sector). It beggars belief to be told that this does
not influence either access to information or that which gets produced in the
first place. Where people have to pay for admission to a museum or art gallery
the upshot is that, minimally, certain sectors of the public are discouraged from
attendance and, in turn, the institutions themselves must respond by making their
exhibits appealing to paying customers. Of course, one may argue that these are
no bad things, leading as they do to visitors better appreciating that which they
pay for and to exhibits being responsive to the public. This does not, however,
negate the fact that the information access and supply is shaped in particular
directions. Further, while market practices may also encourage imagination and
innovation, the emphasis on attractive cafés, museum shops and exotic displays
scarcely improves or deepens the quality of information made available. And
where sponsors enter the situation – as they do increasingly in universities,
libraries, theatres and television – there clearly are consequences simply because,
however enlightened the paymasters, sponsors are not involved for charitable
purposes, but to further their own agendas and interests. As such it is unlikely to
mean support for the imaginative and challenging in, for example, art (Agatha
Christie yes, but Dario Fo no) and education (Business Management yes, Race
Relations no).
Graham Murdock (1990), endorsing Schiller’s interpretation, contends that
the consequences of this market-orientation are especially serious in view of the
concentration of most mass communications in large corporate hands. In his
view the ‘public cultural institutions’ such as the BBC and free libraries had a
‘countervailing power’ that balanced the likes of the tabloid press and ratingsdominated
commercial television. Indeed, ‘at their best’ these institutions
‘embod[ied] a genuine commitment to diversity and open argument, and at their
minimum they filled a number of important gaps in commercially organised
provision’ (Murdock, 1990, pp. 6–7). I consider these issues at length in Chapter
7. Here, however, it is enough to say that changes in the organisation and funding
of ‘cultural institutions’ in favour of the market do have manifest consequences
on the information that is developed and how it is made available.
Commodification
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A recurrent concern of Herbert Schiller and thinkers like him is that information
is increasingly being commodified. Because it is developed and made available
in a market society, so must it be treated like most other things within a capitalist
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