Herbert
Schiller is Professor of Communication
at the University of California
in San Diego. He is the author
of a number of books, including
Information and the Crisis Economy
and Who Knows: Information in
the Age of the Fortune 500. Most
recently, he has written Culture,
Inc.: the Corporate Takeover
of Public Expression.
MULTINATIONAL
MONITOR: The subtitle for your
book Culture Inc., is "The Corporate
Takeover of Public Expression." What
does this mean?
HERBERT
SCHILLER: It means that the creation
of individual consciousness
through imagery and information
increasingly is under the auspices
of corporate cultural industries:
film, television production,
radio, book publishing, magazines,
entertainment theme parks,
even architectural structures
and shopping malls. All of
these activities constitute
the range of imagery and value
systems....
MM:
What are the underlying forces
that are leading to this corporate
expansion?
SCHILLER:
Well, I think that it's a convergence
of the customary drives of private
enterprise to control as much
of the market as possible. A
second factor is new technologies
which allow a rapid expansion
in traditional and new fields.
And a third consideration is
the globalization which comes
out of both the new technologies
and the larger size of the enterprises
that are involved in these developments
. As an example, you get a
company like the Walt Disney
Corporation ... that produces
movies, that makes television
shows, more recently has opened
up stores that sell various
kinds of merchandise which
are based on the characters
in the movies and the TV shows.
You have, as well, the largest
activity of all, the Disney
theme parks in Florida and
California and, soon to be
added, huge parks outside Paris
and in Tokyo. All this is tied
together by the internal structure
of the company seeking to move
from one medium to another,
to utilize one medium, that
is either film or TV, to promote
other activities. It's a self-contained,
although constantly expanding,
field of operations.
MM:
And Disney is a typical example?
SCHILLER:
Disney, of course, is a very
important example but by no means
unique. Last year, for example,
Disney made, I believe, something
over $700 million in profits.
That puts this kind of company
up in the higher ranks of the
major corporations in the United
States and in the world. In
this same [category], going
across media boundaries, is
the gigantic company, Time-Warner.
Time-Warner is an organization
... with assets approaching
$20 billion, and which straddles
and basically dominates publishing,
cable television, recordings,
tapes and filmmaking. And here
you have probably the prototype
of the kind of media cultural
combine that is expected to
be dominant in the world arena
in the next decade or so.
MM: What difference does it make
if there's only five or six
or seven of these huge conglomerates?
SCHILLER:
[This means] that what has customarily
been regarded as diversity, many
voices, a wide range of expression,
all these kinds of necessary
features of what we might call
a truly functioning democratic
society are threatened. We
have as an example of this
the very recent episode in
New York in which a major media
conglomerate, not the same
size as Time-Warner but still
significant, the Newhouse Group,
pulled the plug or at least
severely limited the activities
of one of its subsidiaries,
the Pantheon Press. [The] explanation
[provided to the public] was
that it was ... not making
enough money. Now this is the
very opposite of what these
large-scale corporations claim
that they are doing, and how
they are benefitting people
by being so large. They claim
that by their very great size,
they can do more things, take
more risks, be more capable
of offering a rich diversity;
that's their creed, they say.
In reality, we find that they
just use their resources to
narrow their offerings and
to quickly dispose of any activity
which, in their estimation,
is not pulling its own weight.
What do they mean by pulling
its own weight? They mean contributing
adequately to the profit ratios
that Wall Street appreciates.
MM: To what extent do you think the
media function as a tool of major
corporate interests versus operating
as their own self- interested
industry?
SCHILLER: Well, I don't really think there's
such a contradiction or such
an incompatibility [between these
two views]. I think that the
media industries are not that
apart or separate from the main
concerns of the rest of industrial,
or what remains of industrial
America. If
we come down to basic questions
such as the place of labor,
and we ask, "What is the
media industry's view of labor?" (and
you will never get the answer
to that in specific terms),
it is clear that the large-
scale media are large employers.
Accordingly, they have a view
[toward] labor that hardly
differs from that of large-scale
automobile manufacturers or
the large-scale service industries
and insurance companies. Labor
is a cost and you do your best
to hold that cost down. That's
a standard employer view. So
I regard a very large part
of the media as [having] the
same kinds of overall interests
as the rest of the corporate
community. The media frequently
find that their own profit-making
concerns cause the rest of
the corporate community some
anxiety and vexation. For example,
the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The media were very quick to
take that up and show some
very vivid imagery of the effects
of that spill. It's obvious
that the oil industry wouldn't
be too enthusiastic with that
media coverage. The media did
it not to undermine the corporate
system; the media did it because
that kind of imagery is just
very compelling, and it means
that they will attract a larger
audience to view that imagery.
Plus the fact, of course, that
the event happened and they
can't just totally turn away
from it. So there can be ...
on occasion, incompatibilities
between the media cultural
industries and the rest of
the corporate structure, but,
in general, I would say there
are probably more commonalities
than these contradictory situations.
MM: What is the sociological effect
of being bombarded with advertisements,
specifically in terms of politics
and how the citizenry views democracy
and its input into it?
SCHILLER: Well, here again, ... one has
to be somewhat tentative and
even speculative because you
can't get answers from the
citizens themselves. They will
say that there is practically
no effect. But I would say
that you get a certain kind
of a reaction, very pronounced
here in the United States;
it is that we have the highest
form of democracy because we
have choice. This is constantly
re-asserted. It is the repeated
theme and refrain of our political
leadership. One has to examine
that choice very carefully....
[T]he very idea of choice gets
confused because it gets defined
as a choice between products,
between material items. You
go into a supermarket and you
see five different kinds of
soaps. You see several brands
of coffee. You see heaven knows
how many varieties of dry cereals.
Now, in making [their] selections,
many of which are determined
or at least partly influenced
by advertisements, ... people
have come to believe that constitutes
their democratic heritage.
The fundamental process of
choosing between significant
political possibilities, these
have been almost extinguished.
They are certainly very feeble....
We no longer have a two-party
system, we have basically a
coalition party with the Democrats
in coalition with the Republicans.
Well, no one seems to think
that's so upsetting as long
as you can go into the supermarket
and make your choices. What
I am saying is the choices
you are making in the supermarket
are also largely directed,
but [in any case] they are
not the central choices of
organizing a society or a community.
Those seem to have just been
put at the margins.
MM: What's your perspective on the
U.S. relationship with UNESCO?
SCHILLER: First of all, UNESCO was very
much an American- sponsored organization
from its foundation and its early
development back at the end of
World War II. American educators
and intellectuals had a very
important role to play in its
formation. And in the first 20
years of UNESCO's history, American
policies were the dominant policies
that guided that organization.
In many other international
organizations, including the
entire United Nations system,
the United States played the
dominant role. No one ... in
our media at that time [worried]
that these organizations were "political." That
they were carrying out the
positions that were favorable
to the U.S. leadership was
taken as a matter of course.
When international organizations,
including UNESCO, changed in
terms of their constituencies
because they enlarged their
memberships as a result of
the new nations that came out
of the crumbling colonial empires,
a whole new trend in these
organizations also emerged.
Instead of just being a club
of very favored Western European
and North American states,
you had the Asian, African
and Latin American members.
And naturally their interests
were not quite the same as
those who had been running
the organization up until that
time. And it was this constant
pull and tug of these new interests
and differing claims that was
increasingly resisted by the
United States leadership. U.S.
policy was unwilling to make
the kinds of adjustments or
yield to any of what I would
regard as frequently very justified
demands of a very large part
of the rest of the world. [T]his
situation was not only characteristic
of UNESCO. It was present in
many other international organizations.
But UNESCO was the weakest
... By pulling out of UNESCO,
the U.S. has severely hampered
that organization and turned
its back on a structure that
was largely of American origin.
What I'm saying doesn't mean
that UNESCO doesn't have flaws,
didn't have problems, that
everything done in UNESCO was
beneficial and virtuous. But
this is not the point. Much
more relevant is that it continues
to be attacked by the United
States government under Reagan and
Bush and that the whole media,
with very few exceptions, have
joined in this attack, taking
up without question the general
argument of a right-wing governmental
policy.
MM: What was UNESCO's new international
information order initiative?
SCHILLER:
Again, you have to be clear that
this demand for what was called
a new international information
order was a demand that antedated
the beginning of UNESCO; you
can find instances of that demand
in an earlier period, as far
back as the beginning of the
20th century. But after World
War II, when international organizations
began to include the new nations,
this became a more active issue.
It concerned the flow of international
information, and not just news,
but the flow of all kinds of
cultural and informational
products: movies, TV programs,
magazines. This flow has been,
and to a very large extent
remains, a one-way flow from
a few highly developed centers
to the rest of the world. [T]he
demand for a new international
information order was couched
in very general terms and never
was a particular document [with]
a .. . specific list of demands.
It was rather a general conception:
... that this flow should be
broadened, that there should
be other sources that could
contribute to the flow. In
other words, other places that
should have their news, their
movies, their books circulated
in the general flow. [T]here
were also other demands. Not
all of these demands were always
agreed to by all of the people
and all of the groups that
were involved in the overall
issue. One other demand was
less commercialization of the
flow and a more public character
to some of the information.
That would be translated into
what we would call more public
interest programming rather
than exclusively a commercial
flow. But these were the main
ingredients of the international
information question. [W]hat
we have today is really a new
international information order:
... a transnational corporate
information order [in which]
the whole flow of information
is largely determined by the
large companies that I alluded
to earlier in our discussion.
That plus the information flows
that go between the large companies
in their business pursuits
constitute the largest category
of international information
flow today and is practically
invisible to the general public.
[T]hat is the real information
order as it currently operates.
MM:
What were the main ways the United
States was able to derail the
demand for a new international
information order?
SCHILLER:
[T]hrough tremendous attacks
on UNESCO, making
the whole operation sound [like]
a dictatorial initiative which
was intolerable. The use of
our entire informational machinery
and our media structures [gave]
such a dreadful interpretation
of the whole notion that the
term has itself become almost
a reprehensible concept. Of
course beyond just image-making,
no assistance was given whatsoever
to any structural changes and,
as a result, those structures
which had, at that time, dominated
the international flow of programming
... are ... more powerful today.
MM: Is the European plan to protect
its market from U.S. television
significant?
SCHILLER:
Well, again, some of that rhetoric
picked up on the same kind of
themes that I've been talking
about, that Europe was being
inundated with American programming,
that the cultural sovereignty
of the area was being threatened.
So you have a great deal of
that kind of thinking and speech
in Europe. But I would say,
in terms of hard reality, the
issue is "Can European
industries--film industry,
television production industry--be
kept alive, and can they, in
one way or another, be encouraged
to ... hold their own local
and regional markets?" So
it's a very important trade
issue or industrial issue as
well as a cultural issue. But,
in reality, the positions taken
by the European Commission
have not been very strong.
They sound much stronger on
paper than they are in reality.
The kinds of provisions are
quite porous and not very demanding,
and there's hardly likely to
be any real exclusion or limitation
of the existing heavy flows
coming in, mostly from the
United States, to Europe. In
fact, all of the changes in
Europe in terms of their broadcasting
systems, the privatization
that's been going on, the commercialization
that's been going on, have
all been part of the deregulatory
wave that began here, was pushed
there [and] which the transnationals
have been very diligently promoting.
[A]ll of that feeds the increasing
penetration by the most powerful
media, cultural industries,
which still are in the United
States.
MM: Do you anticipate an expansion
of the same sort of system
into Eastern Europe now?
SCHILLER Very much so. In the last
couple of months, Advertising
Age, the trade magazine of the
advertising industry, has been
licking its chops and gloating
at what prospects are available,
and already many things have
happened. These huge media
combines have moved into Eastern
Europe very, very actively. In
East Germany, they have already
bought up newspapers and publishing
houses. In Hungary they've
bought up newspapers. The same
thing has happened in Poland.
And we have the familiar cultural
predators: we have Murdoch;
we have Berlusconi; our
own big organizations have been
... active all across Eastern
Europe. So, I think you're
going to have a very rapid
integration of these areas
into the dominant cultural
media spheres.
MM: Do you see any significant
countervailing forces to these
media combines?
SCHILLER:
At the present moment, no.
Of course, I again qualify what
I am saying by adding that
the picture is not totally one
of unrelieved domination by these
giant forces. They are dominant;
they are moving rapidly across
the entire international field.
But, even taking our own country
as an example, ... we do have
some other voices which do
their best to express themselves.
These other voices are still
limited; these other voices
are mostly local; these other
voices are underfinanced; these
other voices have great difficulty
finding national expression;
but we shouldn't ignore the
fact that they exist, that
they are numerous, that they
are dedicated and that they do
have alternative messages. [I]n
the field of video, we have independent
filmmakers, and I would say
that, although at this stage
they still remain mostly a peripheral
force, their numbers are
not insignificant, and we may
look forward, at some point,
to some kind of larger coordination
efforts. There are already
embryonic indications of this.
There is for example an outfit
called Deep Dish Television;
this is an operation bringing
public interest, public
access television, utilizing
a satellite, buying time and
then having the programs transmitted
and picked up around the country
by public access groups.
I don't want to exaggerate how
important that is in terms
of what currently prevails, but
it is an alternative....
MM:
What about public television
and radio?
SCHILLER:
Well, public radio has done
some good things, and I think
that there we have maybe one
of the more positive examples
for us, although it has its problems
still. Public television, unfortunately,
has been largely penetrated
by the very same forces that
dominate commercial television.
[P]ublic television, when it
was established 25 or more
years ago, was supposed to be
a totally alternative channel
to commercial television; it
was supposed to prohibit advertising,
and it was supposed to be an
innovative and alternative system
of TV programming. Well, to
a very limited extent there's
been some alternative programming
and some individually fine
efforts. But, overall, public
television has, because of
its [deliberate] underfinancing,
... been forced to move ever
closer to the corporate fountain
of support. [S]o any of us
who watch public television
can't help but
note that more and more programs
are sponsored explicitly
or discreetly. And it's not
only so much that they're sponsored,
which would already be
an invasion of the commercial
presence in an area where it
was not supposed to exist.
But, more than ... its ...
visible and ... somewhat
jarring presence, is its invisible
presence where
it operates as a force to discourage
the public television
programmers from putting
on their channels materials
that might inconvenience, or
displease, or, one way or another,
vex their sponsors. So we have
the same kind of neutering
effect occurring on public television
that exists on the commercial
channels. [I]n a real
sense, we have the institutionalized
censorship by capital
of the creative process.
This is of course the
basic fact of life of
the commercial system,
and unfortunately it's
increasingly the case
on public television
as well.
MM: Ralph Nader talks about a form
of audience access based on the
idea that the public owns the
airwaves and government
could mandate each television
and radio station provide
one hour of prime-time TV and
drive-time radio to
an organization run by citizens.
What do you think of this
idea?
SCHILLER: [I] think it's certainly in line
with the whole course of American
history and even in the early
stages of broadcasting,
itself. When we first began to
get radio and the very early
days of television also, it
was regarded as an absolute,
unchallenged principle that
the public interest had
to be protected. It was also
part of this fundamental principle
that the airwaves,
the radio spectrum, were national
and natural resources and
had to be treated as such.
