Running head: A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES

A Marxist Analysis of Mass Media in the United States:

Using Berger to Reframe Power Structures in the Mainstream

Derek Lough

University of San Francisco

A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES 1

Since the great financial collapse of 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession, a more in

depth look at the power structures as they relate to politics and the economy have become more

common throughout the United States. Though not necessarily named as such, Marxist analysis

of the media and American culture is becoming more widespread. News outlets, blogs, and mass

protests bring attention to many of the elements of a capitalist society that Marxism speaks out

against. In Media Analysis Techniques (2005), Arthur Asa Berger gives a rudimentary guide to

Marxist analysis for beginning media analysts including fundamental principles such as

materialism, advertising as a proponent of consumer culture, alienation, class conflict, and

cultural hegemony. The following pages will highlight these principles and give examples as to

how those in society are linking them to American culture in the media and my reflections on

how this analysis can be used to further the goals of humanity.

As Berger (2005) notes, it is important to recognize that one does not have to be a

communist or believe in the necessity of revolution and subsequent creation of a classless society

in order to be a Marxist, or a Marxist critic of media. Marxism is a coherently logical philosophy

that uses an overarching, all-encompassing argument to tie nearly every aspect of modern life

together. Erich Fromm, whose works Berger (2005) drew many insights from, argued that Marx

was, at his core, a humanist and that his arguments can be described as moral. Within a capitalist

society, Marx argues that there exist certain values which dehumanize and alienate people

stemming from our modern understanding of history, the way society organizes itself, and those

who actively seek to influence this organization in order to maximize their personal benefits. It is

this history of societal organization that Berger chooses to address first.

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In Marxism, the term materialism does not refer to the traditionally American institution

of desiring and possessing materials that money can buy; instead it “refers to a conception of

history and the way society organizes itself” (Berger, p. 44). Berger (2005) examines Marx’s

Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1964), giving a common

interpretation—one where the economic system affects the relationship between most everything

in a given society, including an individual’s ideas, how they interact with one another, and the

institutions they develop. Knowledge is a social construct, Berger (2005) argues via Marx, sifted

and refined through the minds and lived experiences of real men and women. He offers the

works of Friedrich Engel as an explanation on how ideas are passed from an economic

institution, a political philosophy, or religious organizations to the minds of human beings. Engel

(1972) writes, “all past history…was the history of class struggles; that these warring classes of

society are always the products of the modes of production and of exchange” (p. 621).

Oversimplifying Marxism can be troublesome, Berger (2005) argues, if one assumes that

the susperstructure, or the institutions and values in a given society, is automatically shaped by

the economic system (or base); there is a group of people with undue power influencing the

susperstructure as well. This group, referred to as the ruling class (or bourgeoisie), has the means

of material production under its control. Thus they are able to perpetuate intellectual ideas that

benefit themselves the most; those without the means of this mental production are instead

subject to it. This leads to one of the central arguments of Marxism: those which are considered

part of the masses (or proletariat) are being manipulated and exploited by the ruling class

(Berger, 2005). These exploitations are prevalent in American society, yet an escalating number

of people are becoming more aware.

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Many groups and individuals in society today try to expose this manipulation. I choose to

focus on two separate means of control the ruling class in the United States uses on the masses.

The first is mass media, particularly television channels that uses propaganda and fear to

misinform the public. The second is the

political and judicial systems, which have

been corrupted to allow undue monetary

influence on American society and law.

Berger (2005) presents evidence that the

mass media industrial complex has

consolidated power over the last few decades, with over 50 corporations owning the rights to

print, television, radio, and internet media in the 1980s to around a half dozen today. The chart

above shows some of the consolidation of power that has occurred during that time. One

example of how a mass media corporation actively works to

misinform the public is the publically traded News Corps’ Fox

News. Several studies have shown that viewers of Fox News are the

least informed consumers of news, even less informed than those

who do not consume the news at all (Fairleigh Dickinson University,

2011). As a publically traded corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the primary concerns of

Fox News is not with the public interest, but instead its interests are to generate profit and

perpetuate ideas that benefit Murdoch and those in his socio-

economic class. Although it is impossible to know which

individual generated this meme, the sixteen words in the

picture deconstruct Fox News into its strategy, core message,

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and the means by which they spread that message. This example is anonymous, but others have

attempted to publically expose the misinformation campaign Fox News has waged against

Americans, such as freelance writer Andy Daglas using Twitter to draw contrast between

Wikipedia and Fox News.

The second example the ruling class using mass media to manipulate and control the

American citizenry is the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC. In a 5-4 ruling, the

conservative majority used a small court case revolving around a group’s ability to air a political

video on television within a certain time frame leading up to a federal election as a tool to break

open federal restrictions on monetary donations to political advocacy groups. As a result, the

recent presidential election resulted in more money being funneled through the political system

than ever before, totaling over $6 billion—with some individuals giving upwards of $10 million

(NYT). Due to the Court’s decision to equate monetary donations with free speech, and thus

protected under the First Amendment, in real quantifiable terms, not everyone’s voice is equal.

This case and the subsequent avalanche of funds into the political system is an example of the

type of class conflict and ruling class manipulation that Berger (2005) discusses when explaining

Marxist analysis. He supplies a quote from the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre (1968/1984) who

argues that people living in a capitalist society are living in a state of terror. There can be no

better example than when the majority of the population lives in fear that their collective voice is

not enough to guarantee progress because of the unparalleled sums of money allowed to

influence a presidential election.

Building off of that argument, it is poignant to examine the Marxist concept of alienation,

which Berger (2005) explains is a form of false consciousness that results from the ruling class

bombarding the masses with its ideology. Fromm (1962) argues that alienation is a core principle

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of Marxism, “The majority of those involved in this debate…take a position that alienation and

the task of overcoming it is the center of Marx’s socialist humanism and the aim of socialism”

(p. 43). The 2012 form of these false consciousness (and thus alienation) was the unprecedented

number of negative advertisements that ran during the presidential election. Much like Fox

News, allowing the billions of dollars to transition into ideological messages sent through mass

media has worked to alienate citizens from each other and from their true thoughts. Others,

however, have utilized mass media to bring a critical analysis of this ruling to the people. Many

authors with a national audience have supported the constitutionality of the decision while others

have harshly criticized the opaque nature money could now enter the political system. Glen

Greenwald, one of the most popular bloggers on the internet, has cast a dark shadow on the

Court’s decision despite his support of the legal basis behind the constitutional argument that

won the case. In Marxist fashion, Greenwald (2010) effectively criticizes the “stranglehold

corporations exert on our democracy” as “one of the most serious and pressing threats we face”

but stands firmly behind the First Amendment when declaring that restricting political speech is

not a solution. Lawrence Lessig (2010), a Huffington Post author and co-founder of Change

Congress, counters Greenwald’s argument with the 1991 Supreme Court case Rust v. Sullivan,

where then Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in the opinion that there was no violation of the First

Amendment for the state to suppress the opinions of doctors concerning abortion, when they

worked in practices that received government funds. However, there is no entity that receives

more government funds and tax-breaks than corporations in the United States. Though not

directly related to campaign finance law, the example provides a Marxist context into the

selectivity that represents the masking of repression and subjugation of the American

electorate—99% of which belong to the proletariat.

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The third example that exemplifies the struggles of the masses against those of the ruling

class, and how mainstream mass media was initially able to detract focus from the true scope of

the proletariat’s frustrations was the Occupy Movement. The first true American attempt at a

social movement since the fight for racial equality in the 1960s can aptly be described in Marxist

analysis terms. It was a proletariat struggle against economic policies (representing class

conflict) that has benefited the bourgeoisie unabashedly since the 1980s and the resulting

alienation the masses felt due to an escalating emphasis on individualism perpetuated by

advertising leading to a cultural hegemony of consumer lust. In an interview with Paul Jay,

Senior Editor of The Real News Network, Vijay Prashad, Professor of International Studies at

Trinity College and author of We Are Many (a book about the Occupy Movement) provides an

astute analysis of the impact of the Occupy Movement at its one year anniversary that is worth

including nearly in full:

[T]he most important, maybe, if I was to say, two or three things that Occupy

accomplished, one, it brought to the fore issues that activists and organizers, those who

build power in communities, have been working on for years. You know. So no longer

could, you know, maybe, localities deny the existence of certain issues in a very

pronounced way.

Secondly, by using that very simple slogan of the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the

Occupy dynamic was able to raise questions of inequality. You know, in the United

States, or actually around the world, the question that is often put before people is issues

of poverty. Poverty is quite different than inequality. When you talk about poverty, the

reaction could be charity. You know, one feels bad for the poor, you want to have some

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soup kitchens, etc. But inequality doesn't really always give you the sense that the answer

is charity, because inequality tells you that whether some people are getting fabulously

wealthy, others are getting poorer and poorer or are being left behind, and inequality then

is the relationship between rich and poor. So it was to Occupy's credit that rather than just

raise the standard of there is poverty in America, they raised the standard of there is

inequality in America and the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is grotesque.

The third, I think, important thing that Occupy raised for many, many people who

participated in it was that people had become, I think, in a sense frustrated, but also

inured to the idea that we lead serial lives, parallel lives. You know, we wake up in our

houses, we watch a little bit of TV, get into our cars, go to work, sit in cubicles or sit in,

you know, offices, eat lunch at the office, perhaps, then return in the car to our homes,

three or four hours of television, you know, again, a private kind of leisure activity. So

our lives have become increasingly privatized, increasingly serial.

And I think what Occupy allowed many young people, older people as well, to really

enjoy was the sense of community, was the sense of the general assemblies, of putting

things together, you know, putting maybe a housing development together, you know,

planning the Occupy site together, figuring out food. This community activity, I think,

was quite profound for a lot of people, particularly these secular people who have begun

to lead very serial lives. So for year one of Occupy, I think these are some pretty

significant advances.

Though never explicitly referencing Marx, Marxist analysis of Prashad’s interview reveals many

of the same arguments used above.

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Further Marxist analysis can be used to deconstruct the mainstream mass media’s

reporting of the Occupy Movement. After five days Occupy Wall St. began, there was virtual

silence on the subject in the mainstream media—except for one man on Current TV, Keith

Olbermann. He readily questioned his colleagues in the media for not covering the phenomenon,

ostentatiously declaring, “Why isn't any major news outlet covering this? If that's a Tea Party

protest in front of Wall Street about Ben Bernanke putting stimulus funds into it, it's the lead

story on every network newscast” (Randall, 2011). According to Marxist analysis, the reason that

no other major networks began discussing the Occupy Movement until responding to Obermann

is that it was not in their interests to do so. The mainstream mass media profits by perpetuating

the cultural hegemony that defines them. As Berger (2005) argues, mass media carries an

ideology that manipulates and indoctrinates people with certain views, shaping “people’s very

ideas of themselves and the world; they shape people’s worldviews” (p. 62). News programs are

beholden to ratings, which in turn decide which type of advertisements are used during those

time slots, making up the vast majority of revenue for the news programs. Why would the

mainstream media want to report on a campaign against inequity that targeting the power

structures that reinforce the power of the mass media (Schiffman, 2011)?

However, as professionals with a degree of professional responsibility, many news

outlets felt the need to respond to Obermann with reasons as to why they were not covering the

protests. Some, like The Boston Globe’s Joanna Weiss cited math as the reason for non-

coverage, “organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000

showed up. That's not a media conspiracy. It's math.” Others built on that argument, such as

Gordon Crovitz at The Wall Street Journal, writing in his weekly column, “The protests last

week were a bust," he wrote, "but perhaps the young protesters learned a lesson: Just because it's

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on social media doesn't make it true.” Crovitz might have had a point when he wrote that in

September 2011, if he completely ignores the use of social media as an organizing tool in the

Arab Spring, but that statement does not hold true for the Occupy Movement anymore. Some

news outlets outside of the United States, such as Joanna Walters (2011) reporting for The

Guardian brought light to the “swelling wave of civil dissent” that began in the first week of

October 2011, explaining that protests by the proletariat had reached 70 major US cities and

more than 600 communities nationwide. By late October, tens of thousands of protestors in

Oakland, California gathered in the city center all day before marching on the fifth largest port in

the United States, effectively shutting down its operations by early evening (Wollan, 2011).

However, even those reports in The New York Times failed to reflect the true number of people

peacefully protesting. On October 15th

, “a global ‘Day of Rage’ was observed, and

demonstrations took place in more than 80 countries around the world” in support of the Occupy

Movement (Taylor, 2011). As Prashad (2012) mentioned in the interview quoted above, this was

a direct rebuttal of the alienation millions of people feel around the world, a chance to form

human connections while battling the power structure benefiting the bourgeoisie.

The Marxist Analysis techniques outlined by Arthur Asa Berger in his Media Analysis

Techniques (2005) give the reader a rudimentary explanation of Marxist concepts such as

materialism, advertising as a proponent of consumer culture, alienation, class conflict, and

cultural hegemony. These fundamental principles Marxism are meant to explain the power

structure and tactics that the masses must contend with against those who seek to subvert their

consciousness for their own benefit. In this essay, I have focuses on the use of the mass media by

the bourgeoisie to stifle dissent and persuade the proletariat through spreading misinformation,

inequitable laws and policies, and the diversion from national protests as a source of truth. If one

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is willing to objectively analyze the mainstream media, which sources of information they supply

and the presentation of those ‘facts’, then one can utilize Marxist Analysis to gain a better

understanding of the world we live in.

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References

Crovitz, G. (2011, September 26). Social Media March on Wall St. The Wall Street

Journal. Retrieved from

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576588732138803702.html.

Fairleigh Dickinson University. Some News Leaves People Knowing Less. [PublicMind

Poll] http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/final.pdf.

Fox News Meme. (2012). [Rich People Paying Rich People To Tell The Middle Class To

Blame The Poor]. Retrieved from http://weknowmemes.com/2012/02/fox-news-rich-people-

paying-rich-people-to-tell-the-middle-class-to-blame-the-poor/.

Greenwald, G. (2010, January 22). What the Supreme Court got right: It’s best for the

government to stay out of the business of restricting political advocacy. Salon. Retrieved from

http://www.salon.com/2010/01/22/citizens_united/.

Daglas, Andy. (2012). [Twitter Meme Comparing Fox News & Wikipedia] Retrieved

from http://www.memecenter.com/search/wikipedia.

Jay, P. (Interviewer) & Prashad, V. (Interviewee). (2012, September 24). Retrieved from

http://truth-out.org/video/item/11744-taking-stock-of-the-occupy-movement.

Lessig, L. (2010, January 27). The Principled and Pure Court? A Reply to Glenn

Greenwald. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-

lessig/a-principled-and-pure-fir_b_439082.html.

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Media Consolidation. (2011). [Chart illustration the consolidation of media

conglomerates]. Retrieved from http://kytoh.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/media-consolidation-

holds-journalism-at-knifepoint/.

New York Times. (2012). The 2012 Money Race: Comparing the Candidates. Retrieved

from http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance.

Taylor, A. (2011, October 17). Occupy Wall Street Spreads Worldwide. The Atlantic.

Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-spreads-

worldwide/100171/.

Schiffman, R. (2011, December 6). Occupy the Mainstream Media: Why the

Movement’s Next Target Should Be the Press. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-schiffman/occupy-the-mainstream-

media_b_1121360.html.

Weiss, J. (2011, September 26). The Right Way to Get Heard. The Boston Globe.

Retrieved from http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/09/26/the-right-way-get-

heard/wR3xJMIV3yRBS0wjFOO73N/story.xml .