The way some people use the term “mainstream media,” you would think it has only four letters.
The opposite of this MSM is, of course, the underground, iconoclastic, revolutionary side-stream media that is struggling to make its voice heard above the roar of the mighty river that is the mainstream.
The demonization of the mainstream media is a particularly cherished past-time of right-wing talking heads like Sean O’Limbeck.
But who is really the mainstream?
What is the most listened-to radio show in America? Rush Limbaugh’s. Estimates range between 14 and 30 million listeners. In July of 2008 Limbaugh signed an eight-year, $400 million contract—hardly the kind of money a revolutionary gets for speaking truth to power.
What is the most-watched cable news channel? Fox News Channel, which regularly has 50% more than, and often twice as many, viewers as #2 CNN.
What is the most-watched cable news show? Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor, with its anything-but-journalistic host, regularly pulls in 3.5 to 4 million viewers. Granted, his viewers are about half of the number watching a broadcast evening news program, but broadcast news viewership has declined by about a million viewers a year since 1980, while FOX News continues to grow.
Moreover, the broadcast channels feature 2-4 hours of news each day while the cable news channels broadcast “news” 24/7.
And let’s not forget that Fox’s broadcast channel shares a lot of personnel and an obvious conservative bent with the cable Fox News Channel.
So they’re huge. So what?
In a recent Pew Research Center survey on perceptions about President Obama’s religious life, they found that seven percent more people in August 2010 (18%) think Obama is a Muslim than did in March of 2009 (11%).
And not coincidentally,
“When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media.”
This is why it’s important.
People are outsourcing their thinking to ideologically driven pseudo-journalists—on both sides of the spectrum. Sean O’Limbeck is more heard than Keith Mahrtthews, but only more problematic because of the size of the audience.
Defining the Debate
The right wing is also very adept at defining the language of the debate. Terms like “death tax,” “socialized medicine,” “death panels,” “welfare queens,” etc. have no counterpart from the left.
The left wing finds itself in the unappealing position of some of our founding fathers who were, by default, labeled the Anti-Federalists because they didn’t define the language of the debate first.
So why does the right wing continue to claim oppression by the “mainstream” media? The right wing obviously has a very large—and very malleable—audience.
Whence the stance of victimhood? Because if you’re going to spur a revolution,
“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.” -Eric Hoffer
The mainstream media is among many devils the right-wing uses to generate fear, anger, and dependency in their faithful listeners.
The left wing also sets up devils for the same purpose, but I can’t identify one that is as delusional and self-contradictory as the MSM when the right wing is such a media juggernaut (comments to the contrary are welcome).
It’s common knowledge that people tend to seek out media that reflect their own values; but the right-wing continues to claim both that 1) America is a center-right nation, and 2) the MSM has a liberal bias.
This is a non-sequitur. Either the MSM doesn’t have a liberal bias or America is a center-left nation.
Why does the right-wing choose the MSM as a target?
“[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.” -Eric Hoffer
The MSM is so large and omnipresent, with so much fallibility that it makes an easy target as a menace, and one that’s not going away soon.
If one is looking for bias, the MSM is so huge that one can find bias of any kind—and vilify the whole for the bias of the part.
The right wing, like the left wing, must be in revolution mode at all times for self-preservation.
Once people become comfortable with the present, they stop listening to dogma, ideology, and fearmongering. If Limbaugh’s listeners think life’s okay, they’ll stop listening to him.
Americans love an underdog and a revolution.
As long as the right-wing media juggernaut can convince enough people that they are indeed a revolutionary underdog, they will set much of the agenda in American politics.
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Dave Wilson never attended kindergarten and therefore never learned everything he needs to know, so he’s trying to catch up for not getting his education right the first time.
He thinks, changes his mind a lot and blogs at Not Quite Center and Fearless Path.
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The question that needs answering then is where do we get our information? All media is biased, politicians are out to get re-elected and therefore only tell you what you want to hear. How does one pull the truth out of any of the propaganda out there?
Thought provoking. The only thing is that you can’t judge media by the number of people tuning in, necessarily, but by the cultural influence. I don’t know that that changes anything, but when people say MSM, they generally mean the broadcast networks that even those of us who refuse to put up the 80 bucks a month can access daily. That is where the “liberal bias” charge comes from. The cable networks are still not as influential as the broadcast networks, or are they?
@Dan, I try to get info from a variety of sources that I trust to be honest, even in their bias. I listen to NPR and read a conservative newspaper. I also love David Brooks of the NYT. He’s a moderate conservative who really seems to be trying to find truth, no matter what side of the spectrum he finds it on.
@ Steve, I think the right-wing cable news is at least as influential as the MSM. If Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric called for a rally on the National Mall, they wouldn’t get the turn-out Beck did. Because of the mass movement aspect of right and left wing media, it is more influential on the thinking and behavior of consumers. I think consumers of MSM are just after news and info, not ideological validation.