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Social Constructionism in Environmental Sociology: The Media

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.'"
Noam Chomsky
[Extra curricular reading about U.S. media at this link why it is so...]

To paraphrase Min from class, 'where is the media in reporting all these things? Why don't they report?" Exclusively looking at the USA for a moment, I argued that the media itself is part of the political economy. Second, media consolidation in the USA has increased to make TV, radio, and advertising billboards all three very consolidated industries. This has demoted local news coverage toward more centralized news/advertizements and little investigative journalism.

Watch this short video about how FOX News in the USA got to fire their investigative reporters for looking into health risks of a Monsanto product. It is a short film excerpt that demonstrates how much censorship can be involved in the major TV media 'even in the United States.'

THE CORPORATION [17/23] Unsettling Accounts: Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) made by Monsanto
Monsanto. These investigative reporters in Florida documented potential health and safety problems of drinking milk treated with the synthetic hormone made by Monsanto, but threatened with legal action from Monsanto, their boss at Fox News wants the story killed. For refusing, journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson were fired by the Fox News television station they work for after refusing to change their investigative report on Posilac, a Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) made by Monsanto. Their research documents potential health and safety problems of drinking milk treated with the synthetic hormone....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw




This is who owns the three major TV networks in the USA right now.

NBC

The network is currently a part of the media company NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric (GE), and supplies programming to more than 200 affiliated U.S. stations. [GE is a huge military contractor. GE provided huge funding to George W. Bush's campaign in 2000.]

CBS

In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which coincidentally had begun as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself and reestablished CBS Corporation with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are controlled by [Australian-born neocon and very right-wing] Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, the parent of the two companies. [Viacom has consolidated TV stations and print media throughout the world.]

ABC

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. A separate entity named ABC Inc., formerly Capital Cities/ABC Inc., is that firm's direct parent company, and that company is owned in turn by Disney. CAP CITIES CHIEF COUNCIL WAS WILLIAM CASEY, OSS VETERAN (founding group for the American CIA), CASEY LATER THE HEAD OF THE CIA IN THE 1980s...Reputedly, "William Casey, who clung to his shares by concealing them in a blind trust even after he was appointed CIA director by Ronald Reagan in 1981." *

CORRECTIONS FROM LECTURE ON MONDAY:

1. I misspelled "Bagdikian" on the board.

The New Media Monopoly by Ben H. Bagdikian (Paperback - May 15, 2004)

Review
'Ben Bagdikian has written the first great media book of the twenty-first century. The New Media Monopoly will provide a roadmap to understanding how we got here and where we need to go to make matters better.' -Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy "No book on the media has proved as influential to our understanding of the dangers of corporate consolidation to democracy and the marketplace of ideas; this new edition builds on those works and surpasses them." -Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? Praise for the First Edition of The Media Monopoly: "A groundbreaking work that charts a historical shift in the orientation of the majority of America's communications media-further away from the needs of the individual and closer to those of big business." -Bruce Manuel, Christian Science Monitor Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ben H. Bagdikian is dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. His other books include Double Vision: Reflections on My Heritage, Life, and Profession.

Book Description
When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five. The most respected critique of modern mass media ever issued is now published in a completely updated and revised twentieth anniversary edition.

2. General Electric (not General Motors) owns NBC.

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1. Mark Whitaker
2. "Irreversible Desertification.... vs. Tree Planting"
3. A report discussing some 'ecological modernization' headway AGAINST expanding desert in North Africa. It is a rural example of ecological modernization. We aren't reading much on the massive pollution streams from 'industrial agriculture,' i.e., RURAL as opposed to urban/industrial areas. However the wider ecological rationalization of agricultural systems is very important to consider as well. There have been many examples of versions of agriculture promoted in the last 50 years that demote erosion (and even tilling), and move toward what is called permiculture or perinneal agriculture. Most agriculture institutionalizes annually-planted seeds. Other frameworks of perinneal agriculture even attempt to change that 10,000 year old pattern--by planting perinneal seeds and attempting to breed perinneal agricultural species. Many forms of societal and ecological collapse in past societies still occurred without (Schnaiberg's) 'monopoly capital'--since they were mostly agricultural populations. They led to environmental degradation as well without the 'Fortune 500.'

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Trees: The Anti-Desert

Geoff Manaugh
October 15, 2006 4:56 PM

In this year of deserts and desertification, there is finally "good news from Africa," New Scientist reports. "Farmers are reclaiming the desert, turning the barren wastelands of the Sahel region on the Sahara's southern edge into green, productive farmland."

And they're doing it with trees:

Tree planting has led to the re-greening of as much as 3 million hectares of land in Niger, enabling some 250,000 hectares to be farmed again. The land became barren in the 1970s and early 1980s through poor management and felling of trees for firewood, but since the mid-1980s farmers in parts of Niger have been protecting them instead of chopping them down.

According to one researcher quoted by New Scientist: "The results have been staggering."

This success stems from what the magazine calls a "virtuous circle of benefits" between trees and their surrounding landscapes. "Leaves and fruits provide food, fodder and organic matter to fortify the soil," for instance. "More livestock means more manure, which further enriches the soil enabling crops to be grown, and spreads tree seeds so new trees grow. The trees also provide shelter for crops and help prevent soil erosion. In times of drought, firewood can be sold and food purchased to tide families over."

Further, pro-tree land use policies – including better rainwater management practices – "are helping communities in Niger re-establish control over their fate, simultaneously halting the march of the desert and helping to prevent famines like the one that hit Niger in July 2005."

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http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005050.html

comments at link

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