Number 2, in an incidental series.
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"the 'media' is left-wing" and/or
"the media persecutes the right-wing"
this claim is predominantly used to cast doubt on any information that undermines a conservative position. the notional "media" in this construct can expand and contract at will according to the needs of the poster. for example, if a Google search highlights evidence counter to a right-wing claim, the response will be that Google is part of the left-wing media. if another Google search foregrounds a position aligned to a right-wing poster's views, no mention will be made of Google's supposed left-wing bias. similar dynamics play out with links to Twitter.
the claim also serves to provide a sense of victimhood - vocal right-wing proponents have an emotional commitment to being perceived as victims of an unjust series of attacks, usually by a faceless juggernaut of some or other description. (this trope is common across the spectrum of right-wing politics and leads to the mildly funny sight of some of the richest and most powerful men who have ever existed in history publicly claiming to be oppressed.)
the emergence of this trope, in my experience, tracks closely to the wide-spread viewing of Star Wars and the creation of a whole number of spin-off movies wherein a plucky band of steelworkers etc have to start an army against an invading force of communists/robots/aliens/Nicaraguans/etc. right-wingers seem to love those movies, as can be seen in the exponential growth in sales of outdoor gear amongst white people living in suburbs.
www.gsb.stanford.edu
"...the study focused on the impact of one conglomerate in particular: Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns 191 stations that reach almost 40% of the U.S. population. Since 1990, Sinclair has been on a buying binge that took it from being a bit player to the nation’s biggest owner of local stations. It also has attracted attention for its conservative political leaning. During the 2016 election campaign, for example, Sinclair stations aired 15 “exclusive” interviews with Donald Trump. In 2017, it hired a former Trump White House official as its chief political analyst and made his commentaries must-run on all stations. Last year, all of its anchors were ordered to read an identical script that echoed Trump’s rhetoric about “fake news”. "
Sinclair is the largest broadcast company in America. But its partisan politics – and connections to the White House – are raising concerns
www.theguardian.com
"Sinclair’s size, rightwing politics and close connections to Donald Trump’s White House are starting to attract attention. Democrats are wading into the fray and demanding answers over Sinclair’s close ties to the Trump administration, which, they say, could mean the group is getting preferential treatment... Already the biggest broadcaster in the country, Sinclair is poised to make its biggest move yet. If the FCC approves Sinclair’s $3.9bn purchase of an additional 42 stations, it would reach into the homes of almost three-quarters of Americans.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has an extensive global reach, with a presence in most countries and an annual revenue of more than $31bn (£19bn).
www.bbc.com
" News Corp owns several high profile US newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Community Newspaper Group; a range of financial papers including Barons and MarketWatch; and operates seven news information services. The company has extensive ownership in US television through the Fox network and the National Geographic channels. It owns 27 local Fox TV stations and Mr Murdoch has described the hugely influential Fox News as "simply unstoppable". "
The SGI is a platform built on a cross-national survey of governance that identifies reform needs in 41 EU and OECD countries. The SGI brings together a broad network of experts and practitioners aiming to understand what works best in sustainable governance. Advocating the exchange of best...
www.sgi-network.org
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The Clear Channel case
Clear Channel and IHeartMedia is a particularly instructive case since radio is an extremely active medium in the US. Clear Channel was conservative-first from its very inception, was intimately associated with the W. Bush administration, and pursued an aggressive acquisitions drive, driving independent stations out of business and buying them up. (Clear Channel spent upwards of $30 billion doing so, and owned 1200 radio stations at that point.)
in 2008, Bain Capital of Mitt Romney fame organised an LBO and took ownership, rebranding Clear Channel as IHeartMedia. from 2010 to 2019, the private equity ownership struggled to service the debt that had been taken out, and in 2019, they finally received a bankruptcy ruling that allowed them to write off 60% of their outstanding debt. oddly, during the decade when they battled "bankruptcy", IHM managed to continue their growth and acquisitions.
as it stands:
"With 855 stations, iHeartMedia is the largest radio station group owner in the United States,[61] both by number of stations and by revenue. The 855 stations reach more than 110 million listeners every week, and 245 million every month. According to BIA Financial Network, iHeartMedia recorded more than $3.5 billion in revenues as of 2005, $1 billion more than the number-two group owner, CBS Radio.[62]"
IHeartMedia was brought into the public eye a number of times, including for refusing to allow Democratic candidates to have air-time on their platform while providing free air time to their opponents. This is unsurprising as the central offering emerging from IHM's basket of news programmes consists of the triumvirate of
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity. IHM is largely responsible for their reach. it was also caught repeatedly using paid actors to call in to various radio shows.
the impact of both radio and television is critical, as the vast majority of Americans receive their information from those sources, and, unlike the internet, are exposed to them constantly in daily life. the rise of podcasting is beginning to make inroads though, and right-wing media is aware of that.
The other side of the Pod Save America coin is turning up.
www.vulture.com
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so, not only is the media
not left-wing - it much more nuanced and concerning than that - but the reality is that the American electorate has decamped to its own preferred sources anyway, as the links below show. this makes the issue immaterial since constituencies are already filtering news according to their preferences.
To a large degree, the pattern of partisan polarization that emerges in attitudes about the credibility of news sources is also evident in the sources
www.journalism.org
this study in the Annual Review of Economics in 2015 (?) found similar results, with a twist, namely that the balkanization of media appeared to have little or no effect on either policy or electoral outcomes.
what it actually means when the right-wing claims to be victimised by "the left-wing media" come down to 3 things.
1. they are simply saying that they do not get their views represented on all media, in the same way that their views are represented on their own partisan outlets.
2. they are also saying that "the left's" failure to present them
only in the ways they want to be represented is an assault on their freedom of speech. this is an authoritarian view, which sits poorly with their claims of authoritarianism on the part of anyone they designate an enemy. basically, they would like to force all media to cover their insane conspiracies at face value, with no investigation of them, which highlights their fundamental misunderstanding of "free speech".
3. they are ignoring that their preferred channels and outlets regularly present "the left" in terms that are both outright false and often defamatory. if challenged on this point, they revert to point 2, above.
like most right-wing tropes, it's an entirely self-sealing world view, especially since any evidence to the contrary of their claims can be classed as deriving from "the media" and is, therefore, proof of the supposed conspiracy against them. anyone engaging with these kinds of claims should take into consideration that they are seldom, if ever in good faith.
edit: the reflexive objection to all of this that is guaranteed to come is "Facebook! Twitter! the platforms!" looking into that will have to wait for the next edition. suffice it to say for now that none of the platforms create content - they have, however, allowed a rapid expansion of membership amongst communities of all persuasions who were otherwise isolated. the right-wing has capitalised on that to a very high degree and should be grateful.
btw, none of this should be read to mean that there
isn't media demonisation and misrepresentation of the right-wing. there regularly is. my points are that this is consistent behaviour across the political spectrum and that the "right-wing" has an extraordinary media infrastructure of its own that suffers from very few scruples and rejects any similar attempt to hold it to account.
jacobinmag.com
newrepublic.com
www.forbes.com
www.statista.com
