By W. Mlodzick and E. Spil
If we consider media to be power makers, whom do we believe Rupert Murdoch to be? This media mogul controls roughly 40% of the UK’s media and also large parts of media in countries such as Australia and the U.S. which gives him the opportunity to influence the public opinion by large. Moreover, if Murdoch selects what is present and absent in his media empire, he is basically shaping the public mind. And in case a news item is present, it can be presented in different ways. By deciding the perspective in which a news message is communicated, you decide how it is received. And since a political message is potentially a media message, politics are heavily dependent on the judgment of media. As may be believed, this judgment (Murdoch’s judgment) is not based on democracy or objectivity. To exemplify this, we provide a set of examples which show the political influence of Rupert Murdoch’s media kingdom and his influence in major, global, political decisions.
In an interview from the Observer, the British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said: “I think that we’ve got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News, I think it’s unhealthy because that amount of power in one person’s hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organization.” The cause of this discussion was the international phone hacking scandal by the English tabloid News of the World, which evoked greater response to Murdock’s broad range of activities- whereat political interest is a major one. Media ownership versus political influence, with Murdock as a case-study. Let’s explore some examples.
Who were the main players behind deciding on entering the Iraq war?
As known, presidents never execute full power of their own. They have a massive team of decision makers who influence decisions, as where presidents are mostly puppets, enacting them. So when the Iraq was part of the daily discussion, Bush was just a puppet being pulled by strings. But who was pulling those strings? Murdoch could be one of those people who have influenced the image of the Iraq war.
So how?
As previously mentioned: simply by owning an extensive and influential part of the media empire in the United States and therefore being the key decision maker on what to publish about the Iraq war in numerous newspapers and TV-channels. Fox News, one of the more controversial media outlets Murdoch owns, is such an example of a TV-channel which clearly shows a subjective point of view on the Iraq war.
The following Youtube video illustrates that.
The YouTube video shows a definite right-wing view of the situation. One of the reasons why Murdoch was supporting the war was because of the possibility to reduce the oil prices. Shouldn’t news reports be more objective? Murdoch seems not to think so. So how far can a media mogul go into pushing his own political views? Well , pretty far. Take for example a recent development; the bribing of an Australian senator.
This case just came up, although it dates back to 1996 and discusses how an executive from Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited bribed an Australian senator by saying they will positively cover him in the news if he therefore would change some media legislations that were disadvantaging Murdoch in some or other way back in the time. Again lots of criticism arose about Murdoch having too much power over Australia in this case. But not only does Murdoch bribe by the threat of posting bad or good news about someone. The speculations are that he also bribes with money.
Donations don’t necessarily have to have personal interest in mind and can be a friendly present. However, donations in the media world often stand for reciprocity; thus: “I want something from you and you want something from me”. It seems as though media power and political power cannot be separated from each other since the political players will always want to receive positive PR in order to be able to execute power in the end.
The question we therefore ask ourselves in this blog is: Who does rule countries and shouldn’t it be obvious that the elected government has to rule them? Where can we place democracy in this? Does democracy even exist when the political parties or media companies with money almost ‘sell’ their ideas to the large public?
Murdoch’s empire can almost be called a monopoly and we say almost since the definition of a monopoly is pretty vague. Nevertheless, it comes close and can definitely be described as an asymetric power distribution.Miliband has a good point about the misusage of power when it’s handed to someone in such great amounts. Changing legislations should be considered and the definition of a monopoly should be redefined more precisely.
The Murdoch story is definitely not a “and he lived happily ever after” one, now that one news report after another about Murdoch and his corrupt practices is coming to light. The phone hacking was just one domino that fell down and stood close to many others. The world is watching him now.
