I haven't checked out the econometric methodology, but I think the whole
corporate media vs. government-monopoly media dichotomy is deeply flawed.
It's a libertarian fantasy that the corporations and the government are
totally separate entities. They are much more often in cahoots (as John
Locke wanted it to be). For example, Rupert Murdoch -- a classic corpo --
works hand in glove with repressive governments if it serves his bottom
line. (And when Murdoch doesn't work with the government, he pushes tabloid
"journalism." I do enjoy the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS a.k.a. NEWS OF THE
WORLD, but it doesn't pretend to be true.) The people who run state-owned
media are most often from the corporate sector or (as in China these days)
are using their status in the government to become corpos. The state-owned
news outlets are most likely to cover up government corruption. But what is
that corruption, but some government officials acting as profit-seekers
(i.e., like corporations) instead of as public servants?
If I were to point to an independent variable in this whole mess, I'd point
to the development of a grass-roots civil society (not a fake-civil society
dominated by corporations, as in most of the US). That's what makes the
state-owned media in England and elsewhere in the rich countries better
than the Murdochs of the world. A well-developed grass-roots civil society
can also humanize a corporate-owned press: the New York TIMES has a good
reputation because their readership is relatively educated, concerned,
organized, etc. It forms a civil sub-society within a larger atomized and
dominated society. (Of course it also has biases -- e.g. cheer-leading for
Israel -- that reflect that readership.) When grass-roots civil society is
weak, like in most of the U.S., then the corporate press spews pap. (For
some reason, the San Francisco CHRONICLE spews nonsense despite its
well-educated readership at Berkeley and Stanford.) In other countries
(e.g., Malaysia) the ability of state press to similarly spew crap is
stronger, because the grass-roots civil society is weak.
Of course, in this dynamic and interdependent world, there are no truly
independent variables. The best we can talk about are lagged dependent
variables (hangovers from the past). Grass-roots civil society can be
smashed by the state/corporate alliance (as the neoliberals would prefer)
or can develop in opposition to the powers that be.
At 02:59 PM 05/16/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>I'd written:
> >What makes Britain, Canada, France, New Zealand, Australia, Japan,
>and Singapore 'outliers' and China and Malaysia 'inliers', ferchrissakes?<
>
>And Brad replied:
>
> > That there are a lot more countries like China and Malaysia than like
> > the OECD countries with broadcasting monopolies: the BBC gets swamped
> > by Turkmenistan TV.
>
>Exactly, Brad! Half a billion well educated and healthy people are reduced to
>the status of 'outliers' - by way of selecting a *single* variable, presuming
>it to be an *independent* variable, and then presuming it to be a
>*decisive* variable.
>
>So "[I]t does not appear that adverse consequences of government ownership of
>the media are restricted solely to the instances of government monopoly,"
>implicitly condemns broadcasting duopolies in *all* institutional and
>economic settings. But it gets worse ...
>
> > But one of the most interesting things about the paper (not in the
> > abstract) is that it is a high government ownership share of the
> > *press*--not broadcasting--that appears to be truly poisonous...
>
>Well, in light of the professed fact that "Government ownership is more
>pervasive in broadcasting than in the printed media," the abstract should be
>clear about this, don't you think? I mean, are they tarring government
>broadcasting with the same brush, or not? The abstract certainly does.
>Public broadcasting in rich countries is wrong because people are unhealthy
>and uneducated in poor countries where governments control the presses ...
>
>Here in public-broadcasting-inflicted Australia, we're still hung up on the
>old idea that you should be clear about what your variables are before you try
>to quantify the relationship between them. Hell, some even believe that it's
>a good idea to try to fit a little validity into your categories ...
>
> > The tie-in with Sen is that I think of his democracy-famine link and
> > this government-owned media result as both being about the beneficial
> > effects of what Hirschman calls "voice."
>
>A duopoly will get you more 'voice' than any of the alternatives, mate - and
>on a lot less channels, too (and that's true in theory, too - whether you
>subscribe to the leftie position of 'control by concentrated ownership',
>Chomsky's 'filters' thesis, or Steiner's more mainstream thesis of competitive
>programming [ie. strategic emulation] - and it's not as if the three are
>particularly incompatible with each other, either - I swallow 'em all,
>myself).
>
>Cheers,
>Rob.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
