Undiluted Cordial.
This piece was written in 2014 as part of my Learning Portfolio for Communications/Media Studies at the University of Wollongong in Australia. The topic of the week was The Concentration of Media Ownership. This piece was originally published at doyouevenbcm.wordpress.com on March 28, 2014 — Enjoy guys (:
Has anyone ever been faced with this situation?
You’re thirsty. VERY THIRSTY. And you’ll drink whatever is available. The plumbing is shot, so there’s no chance of water.
You go to the fridge, there’s no water. No juice. Nothing. Hmmm. The pantry? Nothing. Oh, wait. Well, there’s some cordial. Undiluted though. You could drink it. You probably shouldn’t. But, you really need something to drink! Ugh. You take a look at it. On the bottle it says “Highly Concentrated”. It’s supposed to be diluted, but THE PLUMBING IS SHOT! ARGH.
Dilemma.
Do you drink it? No.
Is there any other option? No.
Do you drink it? Yes.
Well, Australia’s plumbing isn’t quite shot. And there’s some water, chilled in the fridge in two bottles — One labelled ABC, and the other labelled SBS. There’s cordial. Lot’s of cordial. 7 bottles of it! Various colours, all appetising to look at! These are labelled Seven West Media, Fairfax Media, News Corp Australia, Nine Entertainment Co., Southern Cross Media Group, Win Corporation and Network Ten.
So, two basic options. Water and Cordial.
We know the water is better for us. Preservative free. Additive free. All nat-u-raleeeeeee. And we know the cordial isn’t great for us. But man, those colours. . . .
Most Australian’s end up drinking too much cordial, and with that, they ingest lots of additives. These take the form of ideas, values & opinion. All valuable nutrients, when part of a balanced diet, WHICH INCLUDES BORING, PLAIN, UN-FLAVOURED WATER.
Okay, enough of the symbolism and metaphorical language.
Most of Australia’s media is controlled by just 7 corporations! Highly Concentrated (just like undiluted cordial (; LAST ONE FOR A WHILE I PROMISE)
Now, that is an interesting situation. But what does it mean?
Well, the Media is trusted to be a reliable source of information — It serves a specific purpose within a democratic society, which is to facilitate the decision making of the constituency through information communication which is efficient, accurate and reliable — Most importantly, it must do all of this free of bias.
When Media ownership is concentrated like it is in Australia, interests begin to compete against each other. So much to the point that journalistic standards drop, and bias is apparent and perceived by the audience — Evident through the 2013 Election Bias Scandal. As a result of this some publications can leverage the poor journalistic standards and perceived bias of their opposition as a competitive advantage. A prime example is The Sydney Morning Herald through it’s masthead statement “Independent. Always.”
A clear strike at The Daily Telegraph and it’s 2013 Election coverage. Hmmmm.
I think this means I’m getting close to an answer. Who owns The Tele? News Corp Australia. Who owns News Corp Australia? News Corp. Who/What is News Corp? Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch. (James Bond reference, anyone?)
If you were to only read The Tele for your daily news digestion, you’d be exposed to only the school of thought that Murdoch’s company chooses to press through that particular publication. Many are of the opinion that if this were the case, you’d vote, 1. Liberal.
Of course our own political standpoint and opinions come into the equation, but the media is certainly powerful. When we let the media get too concentrated, we lose diversity of ideas. When a convergence of ideas saturates the society, it isn’t difficult to envisage the end result — A lack of personalisation in the way we think. A set ideology. Australia is a multicultural, diverse nation — One set of ideas is not supposed to define us. We are by definition, diverse.
So, we have Seven. Seven commercial broadcasters pushing their values. Is that healthy? Yes and No. Australia’s public broadcasters — the ABC and SBS — have tremendous engagement. But do they balance out the equation? To some extent.
There are positives to the current setup — Production values can be quite high, and we certainly get some quality entertainment from our seven media corporations.
But, news is the important thing here. The delivery of information. In a democratic society, the delivery of factual, accurate and unbiased news is a must. But competing commercial interests brought about through cross media ownership as concentrated as undiluted cordial doesn’t allow this to always eventuate. Defeating the purpose of a democracy.
Cordial is great. As part of a balanced diet.
So it’s probably time to get some of that chilled water out of the fridge.
Oh, and to save ourselves from having to drink undiluted cordial in the future, let’s dilute it while we still can.
