Politico-media complex

While the term politico-media complex (PMC) has not yet been officially defined in any dictionaries, a working definition can be derived from its use in contemporary political discourse. The term has come to refer to a close and symbiotic relationship between a state's political classes, particularly any ruling class, its media industry, and any interactions with or dependencies upon an analogous interest group, such as the so-called military-industrial complex (MIC).

As a pejorative term, PMC refers to a form of institutionalized collusion primarily between mainstream media (MSM) news distribution organizations and the current government under which they labor. Critics have pointed out such a relationship may have an adverse effect on democracy and be used to distort public opinion.

Print

National Print Media

The West

Newspapers and magazines are in decline in the Western world. Print media has been going out of style. For reasons of expense, and declining audience interest, print press has taken a major hit. Today a little more than half of Americans read a newspaper every day. An exception to the hit taken by newspapers in the United States is the national papers. National newspapers have been doing well in the last twenty years.

Newspapers and magazines do have a back and forth between readers and journalists. Most studies show that the print media are more likely to reinforce existing political attitudes of the masses than change them. This makes it seem like print news is a mouthpiece for citizens, rather than a tool to oppress them. Of course, the media can only be a reflection of the masses if the masses are allowed to express their views. For this, freedom of the press is necessary.

“It is disturbing to see European democracies such as France, Italy and Slovakia fall steadily in the rankings year after year,” Julliard said. “Europe should be setting an example as regards civil liberties. How can you condemn human rights violations abroad if you do not behave irreproachably at home? The Obama effect, which has enabled the United States to recover 16 places in the index, is not enough to reassure us."

Asia

China has claimed that Western freedom of press is illusory because it is controlled by a small wealthy minority. Although, Reporters Without Borders ranks China's press situation as "very serious", the worst ranking on their five-point scale. The Chinese government has the legal authority to censor just about anything, despite their claims that the Communist party has the most freedom of press, since there is no wealthy minority to control it.

The Middle East and North Africa

Middle Eastern print media is mainly paid for by private funders, either a specific family or specific government party. These newspapers and magazines are rather obvious in their political ties, and display the politico-media complex nicely.

Israel has experienced a media control crackdown as the government censors the military action coverage.

According to Reporters Without Boarders for 2009, Eritrea in Northern Africa is the worst ranked country for journalism freedom.

Global Print Media

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers".

Most of the International papers present in the world today are national papers re-edited for a wider audience.

Struggles

Print media has struggled with the rising cost of producing and distributing paper and ink, and the increasing popularity of online news sources. For most advertisers, online ads are cheaper and allow for a better tailored audience.

Newspapers and magazines have been struggling not only with financial issues, but also with loosing their reader’s trust. Surveys have found that people tend to trust newspapers less than other news mediums because they believe commercial issues motivate journalists. Most people believe their local and national news television stations more than their local and national newspapers. The only news medium that people trust less than newspapers is print magazines. This accounts for some of decline in readership in both newspapers and magazines, for people won’t read what they don’t believe.

However, although print media is struggling in the West, newspapers and magazines in second and third world countries are doing well. For these countries that do not have ready access to the Internet or television, newspapers and magazines are the only way to get the news.

The Internets impact on political media

The internet has given the world a tool for education, communication, and negotiation in political information and political roles. The use of the internet has greatly increasing giving more communication and education to individuals and organizations. The increase in usage can be compared to the boom of the television and its impact on politics through the media. The internet also opens up a world commentary and criticism which in turn allows for new and better ideas many people. The internet gives multidirectional communication, which allows people to stay in connection with organizations or people associated with politics a little easier. There are many controversies of the politico-media complex being short bits of information or biased information leading to public cynicism toward the media. Then there is also a positive spin on politics and the media in that; it gives us the ability to uses multiple forms of deliberation and decision making structures. The advancements of the internet’s impact on politics are outstanding. The internet has more current information since it is being constantly updated. Another advancement is the ability to have all information in one place, like voting records, periodicals, press releases, opinion polls, policy statements, speeches, etc. This information was all in a library at one time, and it would take longer to look information up. Political Information available on the internet covers every major activity of American politics.

The boom of e-mail hit the internet in the mid 1990s as a way to keep in touch with family and friends. Different governments got a hold of this technology, and in 1993 Congress and the White House were using this as communication for the general public. During the Clinton administration a director for e-mail and electronic publishing was appointed. By the summer of 1993, the White House was receiving 800 e-mails per day. In order to deal with the influx of e-mail a more sophisticated system was put in. When an e-mail is sent there is a standard form and is easily categorized. In a six month period, at one point, there were half a million e-mails sent to the president and vice president.

The Internet and Global Elections

The internet had given people a great resource for information about elections like: candidates, issues, and a place to give and receive opinions and ideas about elections. Since the use of the internet increases, so do the relationship with candidates and their issues. The ability of the candidates to reach as many people as they can through the internet is becoming a terrific resource in their campaigns. The presidential campaign in 1996 between President Clinton and Robert Dole was one of the first campaigns to utilize the Internet on a national level.

With so many campaigns using the Internet it raises a significant amount of money in a shorter period of time then with any other method. The web sites are set up like advertising sites. There are links to click on to watch ads, information and background on the candidate, photos from the campaign trail, schedules, donation links, etc. E-mail gives a great low-cost way of connecting with the campaign trail and voters.

In this last Presidential election of Obama verses McCain, the internet was extensively utilized by both candidates. Facebook, an internet social network, was used heavily to give people the ability to support their views and share information with their friends. Both sent out messages daily to promote themselves and the issues at hand, for leverage against the other candidate.

Discussion Forums

The internet sets up an area where people can voice their opinions and discuss political issues in an anonymous way. Some discussion forums are groups or organizations set up for a specific purpose about one issue or person in politics.

Some problems with discussion forums are the lack of personal contact, so there are people who do not take responsibility for posts. Many times online discussions lead to name calling and rude comments. Another issue of online discussion forums is the lack of an opposite view since many websites attract like minded individuals.

Blogging is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blogging started to become popular at the start of the millennium, and was used mostly by highly educated, highly paid, males. Around 2004 blogging became more main stream and was typically used for political interaction. Many political campaigns use this as a stake in monitoring blogs talks and actively using blogs to spread information about their candidate.

Film

Pre-classical Period

• Early film and politics before classical narrative...

Classical Period

• Frank Capra: American Politics and the Individual

Overtly political films have never been popular in the U.S. despite the strong patriotism and nationalism of Americas (Hjort and Mackenzie 32). Besides Frank Capra, no other major American film-maker has seriously presented central themes of citizenship, participation, and responsibility in civic life. Lindholm and Hall, in "Frank Capra Meets John Doe," connect the failure of his project to "develop a positive American cinematic vocabulary for political action" with what they argue are "fundamental contradictions in American national identity" (32). After a period of depression, Capra resolved to inspire Americans "by reaffirming and updating national myths in his films" (33).

Capra's films from that point on were characterized by the same basic formula according to which the fundamental American values of fairness and honesty are challenged by the corruption and cruelty of the city and government. During his presidential campaign Ronald Reagan later extensively quoted the speech made by Mr. Deeds in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) when he makes a passionate speech that wins everyone over at the trial in which he is accused of insanity. He calls for "charity and individual goodness -- combined with a distaste for the complexities of political life" (34). His next film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) reinforced these values as well as the American faith in the legal system the integrity and decency of the everyman versus the power and the crookedness of special interest groups, hence constructing a myth of the American everyman hero who is able to defeat corporate evil (34-35). John Doe (1941), which ads went to great pains to market as the true everyman representative of the American public conformed again to Capra's formula, but without the strong family roots and initially amoral, a reflection on America's ambivalence toward social life (36). The ideal of the power of individualism and the fluidity of social mobility abound. Capra promotes the free man's ability to take up the responsibilities and obligations that come with a social conscience the community and state. After Joe realizes his need for others, he discovers and attempts to expose a fascist bidder for presidency planning to take advantage of his club support, but he fails in the midst of a violent mob with the depressing conclusion that the American public is a credulous crowd susceptible to manipulation until the John Doe club members come begging his forgiveness and convince him to return to lead them.

The unsuccessful ending discouraged any more political films for Capra and no films of merit after It's a Wonderful Life and he said in old age that all American film-makers should forget politics if they don't want to cut themselves in half (40). Alexis de Tocqueville elaborates on what Capra apparently assumed as well: "[T]he egalitarian individualist is inevitably disconnected from the world of society and politics" and the "major theme of American social thought...is how to relate the isolated individual to the larger social whole" (41). Tocqueville, however, argued that without some kind of religious faith, the institutions responsible for instilling civic virtue in citizens, as Capra was attempting to do through the media of film, would be ultimately ineffective.

Lindholm and Hall conclude with the observation that "the problems that defeated Capra have also undercut later attempts by American film-makers to portray the complex relationship between individualism and citizenship in the United States" and say that Hollywood has instead adopted the paranoia of politics that Capra had tried to overcome (42). Consequently, political films in the U.S. have followed a trend of focusing on the flawed character of leaders, such as Citizen Kane (1940) and Nixon (1995), or otherwise show the corruption of power, such as in The Candidate (1972) and Primary Colors (1998). Other films like A Face in a Crowd (1957) and All the King's Men (1949) follow John Doe's warning. JFK (1991) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962), on the other hand, are based on the premise that democracy is an illusion and Americans are the ignorant pawns of various conspiracies.

Post-modern Period

• The United States: Hollywood

"...the complexity and dynamics of class struggle, have been treated by mass culture in terms that both depoliticize and flatten the contradictions inherent in such relationships. In other words, the concept of class has been reduced to predictable formulas that represent forms of ideological shorthand. Needless to say, Hollywood has played no small role in dealing with class-based issues in such a way as to strip them of any critical social meaning" (Giroux 19).

"It might be more fruitful to view Hollywood ideology less as a result of conscious lies than as a worldview so closely related to the dominant structures of production that the relationship is not a conscious matter of reflection" (Giroux 20). Giroux argues that prevailing ideology is so powerful and ubiquitous that it is going unquestioned by those in power, although he also admits that there are some exceptions. One of these exceptions is Norma Rae (1979), a film that presents a truer representation of the complexities and politics of the working-class struggle and culture at the level of everyday life.

Even just 30 years after Dachau and Auschwitz, the thinly disguised fascist propaganda Italian film The Night Porter (1974) sought to legitimize the Nazis' genocide, while glorifying sadism, brutality, and machismo (Giroux 29). What amazes Giroux is that such blatant ideological messages were ignored by critics and the general public. That society may be incapable of testing the present against the past has implications for post-industrial oppression in the West and the strategies for resisting it. Despite the writings of Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, and Paulo Freire, the majority of Americans (at least) do not recognize the how important "class hegemony" (cultural domination) is in nations where populations are kept obedient through ideological means (Giroux 31). He argues, "We are not only victims in the political and material sense, but are also tied emotionally and intellectually to the prevailing ruling-class norms and values" (31).

Actors Turned Politicians

• For a more thorough list of actor-politicians, refer to List of actor-politicians.

See also

• Prison-industrial complex (PIC)

Further reading

• Chandler, D. Positioning Of The Subject. Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0-415-36375-6. pp. 186-190. (Weblink information found in 'External links.' [WFE])
• Ibid. Postructuralist Semiotics. pp. 217-221.
• Herman, E.S., Chomsky, N. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Vintage, 1994, ISBN 0-375-71449-9.
• Oborne, P. Part III The Capturing of the Media. The Triumph of the Political Class. Simon & Schuster, 2007 ISBN 978-0-7432-9527-7. pp. 233-293.
• Smail, D. The Language of Anxiety. Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety. Dent, 1984 ISBN 0-094-77440-4. pp.81-98. (WFE)

External links

• A Very Special Relationship
• Blair's message for the media, Martin Kettle, Tuesday June 12, 2007. (Journalist Kettle finds outgoing Prime Minister Blair's attack on the 'ferality' of the media 'interesting.')
• David Smail's website
• How Murdoch plans to win friends and influence people, Paul Murphy, Thursday February 2, 2006. (Journalist Murphy refers to a memorandum: Project proposals and tools to communicate public affairs messages)
• Manufacturing Consent video documentary
• Revealed: Blair's talks with Murdoch on eve of war
• Semiotics: The Basics web version. For Positioning of the Subject, select Modes of Address and 'Find (on This Page)' [twice]
• The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective, Edward S. Herman, December 9, 2003
• "Trust Me, I'm Gordon - Not Tony". BBC News. 2007-06-25. Retrieved 2008-08-05., John Ware, Panorama, BBC One at 2030 GMT on Monday 25 June, 2007