5 Reasons Why the Media Reform Effort is the Civil Rights Movement of Our Time
Posted on January 15, 2009
By Joe Miller |
The original civil rights movement was initially greeted by the establishment with not very much interest at all. ”Separate but equal” was considered the status quo and many wondered why those who wanted to outlaw segregation couldn’t find anything better to do with their time. There are distinct parallels between that movement and the movement to regulate media, telecommunications, and the internet: Why on earth would someone want to waste their time doing media advocacy? Don’t they have anything better to do?
Further, the media refuse to cover these issues–relegating them to the “zone of deviance,” as Daniel Hallin illustrated, in his book, The Uncensored War, and as Jay Rosen pointed out yesterday.
We have come a long way since 1968. But still, the old media guard wants to maintain its own version of the status quo: the perpetuation of offensive stereotypes, stifling broadcast ownership diversity, advertising discrimination against broadcast outlets that are owned by emerging groups, and failing to recruit and promote members of emerging groups into positions both in front of and behind the camera. The media reform effort is the civil rights movement of our time.
1. Vaudeville is Dead? Vaudeville Lives.
Blackface, long associated with the Vaudeville acts in American and Canadian theatre, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is usually attributed to white actors wearing black cork make up on stage. However, some black Vaudeville performers also appeared in blackface.
Bert Williams, the first black American to take a lead role in a Broadway show, also appeared wearing blackface, as half of a two-man routine known as Williams & Walker, which was billed as a show that featured “Two Real Coons.”
Flavor of Love is a television show in which women compete to become Drayton’s fiancé. It is interesting to juxtapose the depiction of Drayton on Flavor of Love against the depiction of his counterpart, on the only other bachelor reality show on television–ABC’s “The Bachelor”– in which twenty five women vie for the affections of a single bachelor whom, in 13 seasons, has always been a presumptively desirable white male.
While we have made significant progress in increasing the number of positive portrayals of men of color, it is undeniable that the practice of casting black men as undesirable, while casting white men as the gold standard, is still with us.
2. Long Live Copyrights!
In Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig illustrates that large media companies are not solely interested in preserving the moral ideal of protecting intellectual property–they want to take it a step further. By spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying efforts, to get Congress to keep extending their copyright terms, and to allow further media consolidation, big media companies want to ensure that their content is the ONLY content, thereby preventing internet users, who are so far winning the game, from “remixing” their intellectual property.
It should be noted that these very same media companies got their start by building upon the creative works of others. As Lessig illustrates:
Early cartoons are filled with knockoffs—slight variations on winning themes; retellings of ancient stories. The key to success was the brilliance of the differences.
But now that consumers are empowered to create and remix content, Disney and other companies want to effectively put an end to the public domain. This silences individuals, in favor of corporate interests, and it is an abridgement of free speech.
This is obviously a very cursory description of the problem. In Free Culture, available here, Lessig clarifies the Constitutional issues at work (such as the unconstitutionality of Congress’ practice of extending copyrights), and the cultural implications of too little content being controlled by too few interests. It’s worth a read.
3. Black People Don’t Eat Yogurt
Advertisers have long refused to place certain types of ads on urban and Spanish-language radio stations, for fear that too many minorities in the advertiser’s establishment, or using the advertiser’s products and services, would deter white consumers. These advertisers have been known to give false reasons such as, “Our research shows that black people don’t eat yogurt,” to justify these so-called “No Urban” and “No Spanish” dictates.
In response to more than 23 years of advocacy by several civil rights groups, on July 15th, 2008, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule requiring contracts between advertisers and radio stations to contain a clause stating that no discrimination on the basis of race or gender took place in the consummation of the deal. Broadcasters are further required to certify in their FCC renewal applications that their contracts contain such a provision. This is obviously a step in the right direction, but the FCC must devise ways to enforce these provisions and stations and advertisers must work out the details of what constitutes discrimination and what defines an otherwise bona fide marketing practice, such as targeting certain demographic groups, before this new rule will have any real teeth.
4. Talking About “Wiggers” Is Worth $500 Million?
Seriously–in ANY economy, why is the Howard Stern Show worth $500 million over five years? Are these guys kidding me? The show is not worth that without the racial slurs, which put the show into negative territory.
5. “And when we come back … EEO enforcement.”
The FCC has dramatically backed away from enforcement of its Equal Opportunity mandate. According to a report issued by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), the Commission reviewed 251 EEO cases from 1994-1997 and just 10 cases from 2004-2007. Further, while minorities make up 34% of the U.S. population, MMTC, in citing an RTDNA study, reported:
“Only 3.6% of non-Hispanic television stations had minority general managers in 2007. Even more telling, minority employment in radio news declined from 14.7% to 6.2% between 1995and 2007 … It is evident that minorities have been purged from radio news – a profession that is vital to the promise of the First Amendment.”
Many seem to regard media law and policy as somewhat incidental to, and thus not as important as the issues that we normally associate with civil rights, such as school desegregation, voting rights and equal opportunity. But it will not be until the American people embrace media reform as a legitimate and urgent civil rights agenda that we will truly be able to create and promote greater equality.
Media companies are scared. They know that the internet has facilitated a culture in which media consumption has given way to participation. This participation has weakened their cash cow, spot advertising-based business model. Internet collaboration has seriously undermined the larger establishment’s ability to engage in unfettered election engineering, saber rattling, and hording of the nation’s wealth.
The question is, now that the historic election of Barack Obama has passed, what are you going to do now? Keep fighting? Or just sit through another two hours of American Idol asking, “Where did the time go?”
Next Thursday, I’ll discuss some of the groups that are advocating in this area. What do YOU think?
