Captalism and Competition in a Laissez Faire Economy

I was inspired to write this post after reading Science, Science Fiction, Paranoia and Politics" on the Blog Notes from Freyashawk and manipulation on the blog hypgnosys.

The War on Terrorism and specifically the occupation of Iraq has been a great distraction from other important changes in our society that have resulted from policies instituted by the Bush Administration.

Several years of de-regulation and new policies have thrown the advantage to corporate executives vs. rank and file employees and consumers. The way that companies compete and the products we see in the market place have undergone great change.

The media began an evolution even before this administration came into office. However, the differences today are so drastically different than what I had been used to growing up, that I can barely recognize it anymore.

The major difference is in the area of competition and the methods used by networks to keep your eyes and ears glued to their media stream. This has had many effects on not only the way the message is conveyed, but also, the content of the message as well.

Remote controls, Tivo, DVR, Cable, Satellite, HD, On Demand, podcasting, mobile TV, and alternate media from the Internet have changed the mechanics of delivering and consuming media.

The challenge for media producers and those who have develop and maintain the delivery channels is to retain a consistent profit margin that supports the infrastructure, salaries, and benefits for all their employees as well as the massive compensation for corporate executives.

They have eliminated much of the competition, by corporate takeovers, consolidation and syndication of content.

Well enough history, let's dig into the end product.

The result is competition for our attention. They understand that they need to be quick and that we will turn away if we are not immediately curious about what the rest of the story is.

The more compelling they can make the story the better. Thoughtful, slow build up of a story, even if the message is important, is not likely to capture our interest quickly enough to keep us with them.

So, they often exaggerate the importance or even mislead us as to the true nature of the story in order to generate interest. So often the opening of a story will indicate that some fearful event has taken place, only to find out later that it was all a misunderstanding or that no danger is immanent.

And yet, we often remember the initial fear more than we do the final result of the story. And our minds collect the frequent scares as a sign of immanent danger, rather than a collection of false alarms.

Another technique is to stretch out the story of the course of a program, by telling it in small snippets or previews. Sometimes this is done in such a way that by the time the actual story is told in it's entirety, you have heard all of it. This can be quite frustrating as you are led to believe there is more to it and it is worth waiting to hear the whole thing.

There was a time when news anchors always wrote the stories they told, and news reporters sought out stories through in depth investigations. Stories may have been researched for a long time before they were told on air. This resulted in a wide variety of topics for news. You could expect variations in news reporting across networks. Today, the same stories are told with little variation in the depth of the investigation into the facts of the stories.

I could go on and on with examples, but you all know what I am talking about.

I often wonder what would happen if a network was started that contained nothing but thoughtful, well researched programming. They do exist, but they are not mainstream. The History channel, and C-SPAN are good examples. However, they are not the norm.

We need to have media outlets that don't preach to the lowest common denominator in terms of an audience. We are not all sheep, or dolts. We have hungry brains that need a diet that provides good nutrition. Lately, we are more likely to get junk food.