Education and the Death of a Free SocietyEducation is cornerstone for both the development and maintenance of the psychological well-being of any free society. Our society in the West is one which we prize highly, and which most of us still consider to be a free one. It is through education that we are able to form opinions about the world around us. Education shapes our belief structures and directs all decisions we make in life, and it is thus education that enables us to preserve and defend our freedom.
We receive education from many sources. We learn much from our parents, and from those people close to us in our lives. In the West, most people learn via a school education, with many being fortunate enough to benefit from higher education. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we are educated all our life through our experiences and observations of the world around us and the people who reside in it (ie. our family, friends and through school etc.). It is this understanding we form of the world around us that we use to guide our daily decisions and actions, and it is this that largely defines our individuality. We subsequently impart this knowledge to our children, and most of us attempt to influence the decisions and actions of family and friends based on our own understanding of the 'ways of the world'. A worrying trend, visible for at least a generation now, is that many North Americans receive a significant portion of their information on the way the world does and does not work, what is and is not important, what is and is not acceptable behavior, and the ways in which people should and should not interact with eachother and the world around them from their television sets.
Television is now sadly a central component of the modern American life. It claims to inform us of what is going on in the world, and often advises us of ways in which to think and behave. But are the television media companies providing a balanced view, is their information sound and reliable, and can their advice be trusted? Once upon a time, the media was regarded as the 'Fifth Estate' of a democratic society. It provided an independent objective view of the other four estates (government, business, academia and the judiciary) in order to ensure their honesty through the constant threat of exposure. It was also once held that the television airwaves were public - in that anybody had the right to put their message on television, provided that they were able to fund this process themselves (now done through the selling of commercial air time).
Today, reality could not be much farther from this. So far in fact, that the real possibility exists that the media, who have such a powerful influence in the shaping of modern society and its values, may now be completely out of reach as a medium by which individuals can air their own points of view and bring attention to issues which matter to them. It also seems almost completely inaccessible as a subsequent forum for the free and independent discussion and debate of any and all such issues.
The television networks are now mostly run as parts of large conglomerates with a myriad of other corporate partners, either direct (eg. ABC and Disney etc.) or indirect through the other corporate holdings of their owners (eg. Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, Ted Turner etc.). Then there's the issue of corporate sponsorship. With the millions of dollars that are spent each day on advertising (GM alone spends over $5 million per day), the most wealthy companies (eg. Coca-Cola, McDonalds, GM, Nike, Proctor and Gamble, Philip Morris, to name but a few) have tremendous influence over the actual content of the television broadcasts being soaked up by the viewers. - Thus they are able to participate significantly in the process of shaping the value systems and decision-making processes of anyone who will watch (and that's most of us).
Naturally, such corporations have their own vested interests, and are quite understandably keen to protect them, whether or not we believe that in doing so that they have our best interests at heart. The question which should be of very great concern to the American public today is: how far does this influence go, how much independence to the broadcast companies still demonstrate, and how much influence do we, the people, actually have over the actual content of the broadcast?
The influence of the big advertising budgets of the few is clear in all aspects of today's television in America. The average prime-time show does not very accurately portray the average American. Look at the characters in 'Friends' for instance. What proportion of twenty-somethings actually live that way? The people that are portrayed as examples for us all to emulate live in nice houses or apartments, have nice (new) clothes, and own nice cars. We see them eat at nice restaurants, and go to expensive stores to buy nice stuff - this is the model modern American that we're all supposed to emulate. And just to make sure we didn't miss the point, we get 15 minutes of ads to each hour of this stuff, telling us exactly where and when we can buy into this great lifestyle we've just seen, reminding us why we need it, and making it easy as possible to pat for it. We are being convinced by repetition (aka brainwashed) into wanting to spend all our available cash on owning the necessary stuff that will qualify us for the status of 'better person'. If we cannot quite afford it, then we're sold credit. If you're less well off, then McDonalds, Philip Morris and Coca-Cola will provide cheaper, yet still 'fulfilling' products to make you feel better about yourself (there's always Coca-Cola, after all). If you have trouble affording these, then, quite frankly, America just doesn't want to know.
So what if you disagree with this message. What if you don't subscribe to wearing Calvin Klein, shopping at the Gap, drinking Coke, driving a new Geo or RAV4, seeing the new Disney movie and listening to the latest release by Sheryl Crow? What if you're so radical that you chose, say, to not eat meat, or prefer to walk, bike and bus whenever possible rather than drive and pollute the environment? Well, you're entitled to your own opinion - right?
Right - but can you share that view. Can you, just like GM, buy TV air time to put your ideas to people about how you think they should be spending their time and/or money? What if you were to make a TV commercial extolling the virtues of public transport over the pollution and traffic congestion of the automobile. What if you were to make an artsy black and white 30 second montage of images to highlight the male, and especially the female stereotypes constantly being portrayed in the media and by the fashion industry (you don't see many overweight characters hanging out at the 'Friends' apartment now, do you - except maybe to get a cheap laugh or two). Now it's not like you'd be promoting Neo-Nazism, racial hatred or murder, so if you went to a major TV network with commercial and cash in hand - you could have it aired, right?
Wrong. Exactly this has been and is being attempted by a Vancouver-based group called The Media Foundation. Several years ago, they had their anti-car, pro-public transit ad screened during a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation driving show. The ad was not screened again after a major sponsor (who happened to sell cars) threatened to pull their advertising if the offending ad was shown again. The Media Foundation went to the British Columbia Supreme Court and won a partial victory, though not enough to get their ad back on the air. They are now taking their case to the Canadian Supreme Court. This story is especially worrying since the CBC is a public corporation (ie. they are funded by taxpayers money). Yet it would appear that at least for now in Canada, the people do not have a right to air time on a television network that they own, even if they can afford to buy it at the going rate.
The Media Foundation have also tried to get their messages (or uncommercials as they prefer to call them) onto the US networks. While ABC, NBC and CBS all declined their ads, at last they were honest about it. Richard Gitter (Advertising Standards VP, NBC) told them "We don't want to take any advertising that's inimical to our legitimate business interests, and to our clients who purchase time on the network." In short: you have as many rights as you can afford. The Media Foundation aattempted to get CNN to run the 'Obsession Fetish' ad during their fashion show, 'Style with Elsa Klensch'. They were similarly told by Steve Mizer (Director of Commercial Clearance at CNN Headquarters, Atlanta), "We have decided that this particular spot is not appropriate for our network...such a specific attack on an industry is not appropriate for our network."Thus they are also launching court challenges in the US based on first amendment rights to try and force the major networks to accept any and all reasonable paid advertising.
Corporate power and vision now has an total stranglehold on Western communication networks - they control the TV, newspaper and magazine media. They also control the movie companies and home video companies, the music industry and the major publishing houses. So when someone tells you that's it's a free country and that you can always watch something else if you don't like it, remember - you can change the station, or go to a movie, or read a newspaper instead - but the message will be the same. While they may not yet control what you say and do, they sure as hell are trying their best to do so. Once we remind ourselves of the way in which the children of today and tomorrow will receive much of their education, we can see that the success of these court cases could have profound effects on our future. If The Media Foundation (and other groups fighting similar battles) succeed, some semblance of public debate at least would be possible. If they fail, then the future looks bleak for our children, and worse still for theirs.
The powerful corporations, however, do not seem to be content with total control of the media. They are now beginning to extend their influence into our schools. Companies such as McDonalds, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are not only providing food and drink at many schools across America, but are also helping fund high school education itself. It would be foolish to believe that this is done through a genuine care for children. It is just another source of advertising - a way of increasing their influence over our education. They simply want us all to drink more Coke and Pepsi, eat more Big Macs, and more often, that's all. Whether this is good for us is not an issue, and they certainly don't encourage too much debate along such lines. Of course, hard-up schools are left little choice but to take the help (often against their better judgment) with it being so hard to get money out of increasingly cash-strapped State and Federal Governments, elected by a money greedy public that religiously oppose almost all forms of tax increase, however small, even if it is to help protect the future for our children. And what do Coca-Cola expect in return for their corporate sponsorship of education? A little influence over school teaching practices? But of course! They provide 'educational' packages for high school kids extolling the wonders of a healthy consumer economy and efficient mass production etc., managing to take Coca-Cola as an fine example of a company that is 'good for America'. Worried yet?
Our corporate benefactors are also moving onto the higher education campus, providing catering services, sponsoring sports teams, societies, fraternities and sororities etc. They also have supporters in high places. President Clinton, for example, has taken to saying at every opportunity when he thinks that a microphone might be turned on somewhere, that he wants every child in America to be able to log onto the internet (since its so educational). Well I'm sure Bill Gates wouldn't mind - that's a lot of computers and a lot of software - and over 60% of internet sites now are corporate. Yet more advertising. Yet more education. Still not worried? You should be.
So if it all works out for the worst - if these court case are lost - if these struggles for free speech are denied - the only thing left standing in the way of today's children becoming tomorrow's responsible consumers that Corporate America wants them to be and, more dangerously, individuals so blindingly naive that they're unable and unwilling to question the nature of the society in which they live, will be their parents. There will no longer be any information out there that in any significant way challenges the corporate view of the world. No-one will be able to publicly air any other view points without it first being passed through the corporate InfoMassager machine, which as can already be seen today, results in grotesque editorialization and trivialization of the subject matter.
The solution is not the abolishment of all big companies in the world - far from it. The solution, whatever it maybe, should simply recognize that it is right and healthy for individuals in a free society to question all aspects of their society in order to ensure that it is ultimately structured with the best interests of the majority of its citizens at heart. It should also acknowledge that people should have free and open access to any and all relevant information that might enable them to educate themselves, and thus form a balanced impression of the structure of the society in which they live, enabling them to ask fair and balanced questions of those responsible for structuring it. It seems only natural that an independent and free media would play an important role in this process of education.
The ever increasing restriction on public debate and pervasiveness of the corporate 'ideal' within every aspect of our society, will ensure that it will be only a matter of time before unquestioning parents are teaching their kids that it is wrong to ask questions. Unless we try and stop this process now, we will be doomed as a free society.
Copyright: Julian Watts, March 1997
