Monday, March 07, 2005

What's missing from News in the United States is the news

Considering that there are only 6 major corporations that own the vast majority of the media in the USA, it is no surprise that censorship is occurring http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/chart.shtml.

Americans are in deep trouble. In 1983, there were 50 corporations that controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. However, by 2004, there were 5 major corporations that controlled all the media http://www.corporations.org/media/. In 21 years, 45 media corporations have been eliminated - so much for the antitrust laws that were suppose to prevent these kinds of conglomerates.

Whoever controls the media, controls the minds of the people. These corporations are controlling pop culture since they are the ones responsible for all the images/music/movies that people are seeing and hearing. Many African American rap artists are perpetrating. The artists have convinced many youths that they own their own recording labels. Younger people belive that studios such as Def Jam, Murder Inc., etc, are owned by African American artists. Unfortunately, they are all subsidiaries of the major corporations in the U.S. For instance, Vivendi Universal owns many of these so-called Black independent recording labels. African Americans do not control any of the images, messages, or the people that are hired for their own so call videos. The major media conglomerates dictate every image/facet of pop culture including the shades of Black or lack thereof of people that are being portrayed in music videos and movies.

Recently, I went to a talk at the Caruthers Center for Inner City Studies - the presenter stated that a French company used to be the majority owner of Vivendi Universal. Since the French didn't support the Iraq war with America, as a punishment, GE through a hostile takeover, purchased over 80% of Vivendi. He went on to say, the owners of the media conglomerates said that this is a unique club and it is closed to the public and they said the youths are like Africa, a group that is ripe to be exploited. We can dictate to them what we want them to think, act, and believe. What is this saying about Africa as well?

It is interesting to note that GE is also a major owner of private correctional facilities (jails) in the U.S. The “gangtaisms” image that’s being portrayed in the media is there because the corporations are perpetuating these types of behavior to elicit a certain type of response. Many African American see this as a huge problem or probably “The problem” facing the African American community in this century. These images are a way that major corporation assures that they will have a continuous supply of young Black males who will enter the correctional facilities, a revolving door so to speak.

It is apparent to the casual observer that there are only certain types of images being bombarded in the African American community and its not a coincidence that all of these messages/images happen to portray the dark skinned Black person as negative (outright immoral and criminal in many instances). The industry is trying once again to accentuate differences such as revitalizing the light vs. dark skin syndrome as well as drive a wedge between the youth and their parents (old vs. new school) in the same way that some African communities have been expoloited such as Rwanda and the Sudan that led to a certain outcome. The consequences of this manipualtion is manifested in evil that is uncomprehensible to the rational mind and has proven to be more destructive than any world war that have ever been fought. Will this manipulation eventually work with African Americans like it has with other African people? We all know this is not a new phenomenon that is used by the so called dominant group to debase and destroy any group that is different.

Although slavery has been officially abolished in the U.S., the U.S. Constitution does indeed sanction slavery for people who have been incarcerated. Since the correctional facilities are own by major corporations, they have access to free labor and are now exploiting a market (the youth) using images that have been created by themselves to bring about a desired outcome.
posted by Cynthia   Permalink| Comments(0)|

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