Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal 21.2 (2023) ISSN: 2160-617X (online) ourj.uoregon.edu Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation: A Marxist Critique Lauren Tokos* Abstract The rise of the so-called “digital age” in the twenty-first century absorbs individuals’ livelihoods and disconnects them from the natural world. Over time, modern society has adapted to digital news and entertainment media’s unremitting chokehold on daily life. What enabled this change and how does the corporate structure of digital news and entertainment media impact the everyday worker? The contemporary American digital news and entertainment media market is almost exclusively regulated by five major corporations: AT&T, The Walt Disney Corporation, NewsCorp, Paramount Global (formerly Viacom CBS), and Comcast. Although the titles and rank of these corporations have changed over time, their ownership has stayed consistent. Through corporate conglomeration and horizontal and vertical integration, the major five media corporations vie for control over the media marketplace. Those in positions of power seldom experience the effects of their decision-making; instead, the worker, producing intellectual or material commodities, fails to truly experience the creative realization of their labor. Instead, the worker’s labor is the property of the corporation for which they work. Media workers are alienated from the product of their labor, as it belongs to the owners of the means of production. Mass media stakeholders, as owners of the means of production, maintain structural control over the dominant social ideology, reflected in the economy, government, and media. Media workers, beholden to mass media stakeholders, are unable to realize their full creative capacity, as they are confined to the restrictions set forth by the capitalist media economy. 1. Introduction five—AT&T, The Walt Disney Corporation, NewsCorp, Paramount Global (formerly Viacom The American media market has grown CBS), and Comcast—are broadly similar: to substantially over the course of the twenty-first control the dominant social ideology promoted by century. What was once dominated by print media and consumed by a public audience. Cross- media, radio, and cable television has expanded sector ownership allows for more market to a vast media landscape which makes use of dominance, and thus more leverage with digital technologies to challenge traditional forms politicians who determine media regulation. The of media. Yet, the media landscape feels eerily acclaimed journalist and media critic Ben monotonous. Between 1983 and 2004, the number Bagdikian writes, “the fewer the owning of mass media corporations at the top of the corporations, the larger each one’s share of the market fell from fifty to five.1 The aims of the big annual harvest of the billions of consumer dollars.”2 Further, Bagdikian contends, “[media 1 Bagdikian Ben H. 2004. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press, pg. 16. 2 Ibid, pg. 30. *Lauren Tokos (ltokos@uoregon.edu) is an incoming fourth-year Media Studies major pursuing a minor in Business Administration. Tokos’ interests lie at the intersection of media economics and critical theory. She is currently working on an undergraduate thesis entitled “A Peer- Review of Peer-Review: Investigating Differing Methodologies in Traditional and Oppositional Journals in Media Studies,” which she will complete by June 2024. Tokos hopes to further her education with a doctoral degree in media studies with an emphasis on media institutions and critical economic theory. In her free time, Tokos enjoys reading, baking, spending time with family and friends, and relaxing with her cat, Oliver. Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos conglomeration] is, tragically, a self-feeding requires that individuals have an income source process: the larger the media corporation, the to procure goods and services which reproduce greater its political influence, which produces a their daily life, but technological automation still larger media corporation with still greater threatens that requirement in the realm of digital political power.”3 Through vertical and horizontal media. Software tools such as artificial integration, the big five and their thousands of intelligence mimic human capabilities, thus subsidiaries capitalized on each other’s individual threatening to displace jobs in the digital media strengths to increase their combined control of market. This could be of particular interest to the media market. Media conglomerates impose media conglomerates, which seek to maximize productivity expectations and creative profit and minimize expenditures. stipulations that workers in the digital media Marx’s concept of the base-superstructure space cannot achieve without being objectified dynamic encapsulates the social stratification and alienated from the product of their work. involved in the production of media content. Zooming in from the industry at large down to the Traditionally used to describe the reciprocal individual media worker, this investigation relationship between the economic base of analyzes the current mass media structure society and its ideological superstructure, I through the lens of Classical Marxism and critical employ this concept to define the relationship theory. An examination of the history of media between money, power, and influence in the conglomeration and its impact on the media media market. “Direct knowledge workers” market is followed by a Classical Marxist critique, produce content that is disseminated and drawing on the concepts of alienation, consumed through the media, while “indirect technological automation, and the base- knowledge workers” create and reproduce the superstructure dynamic. conditions that enable this process. In other The term “alienation” refers to the levels of words, direct knowledge workers are media separation between a worker and the eventual workers (i.e., employees of media product of their work. Under capitalism, a wage conglomerates), while indirect knowledge or salaried employee creates a product for sale on workers are the owners of the means of the free market; the product no longer belongs to production (i.e., shareholders, executives, the individual who created it and is thus directorial board members) who determine the something alien to them. Alienation takes place in ideological content produced by direct knowledge all sectors of the capitalist economy, but due to workers. the high levels of competition for market Combined, the three frameworks described dominance and subjectivity of creative content, above are used as the analytical lens for media workers’ labor is more prone to considering how media workers relate to the exploitation by corporate administrators. work they produce within the confines of the Furthermore, the theory of technological corporate media structure. automation refers to the emancipatory power of technology. Technological automation is the most 2. The Big Five developed form of “fixed capital.”4 Capitalism 2.1. Historical Context 3 Ibid, pg. 17. 4 Fixed capital is defined as a type of investment which The first of the major five media corporations is generates profit. For example, a t-shirt company needs to AT&T. Currently, AT&T’s most notable subsidiary invest in a screen printer to transfer designs onto the shirts themselves. In this scenario, fixed capital is the screen printer, as it costs money to procure, but generates money once operable. Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 41 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos companies are Time Warner, CNN, and HBO.5 Marxist at university before inheriting his father’s Until the rise of mobile technology, Time Warner European media empire. Murdoch successfully was the dominant name in media ownership. In ran numerous British and Austrian mass media 2000, Time Warner and America Online (AOL) ventures before expanding to the United States. merged to combine AOL’s emerging internet Murdoch’s first American acquisition was the market with Time Warner’s traditional print and formerly left-leaning newspaper, the New York television media. This initial merger synergized Post, which now leans conservative.8 News Corp, the media industry; together their strength was under Murdoch’s direction, used horizontal greater than individually. As Bagdikian describes, integration to diversify its audience demographic “Time Warner had by this time a large quantity of and overall reach. Horizontal integration refers to media products from magazines to movies, and the lateral acquisition of disparate businesses AOL had the best pipeline through which to send within the same market segment. In 1987, News this ‘content.”6 After its initial merge with AOL, Corp took possession of Harper & Row, which AT&T acquired Time Warner in 2016, further later joined forces with the Scottish publisher developing AT&T’s cross-platform content William Collins.910 Between the procurement of creation and distribution capabilities. Harper & Row and William Collins, News Corp The second of the major five media also attained Triangle Publications Inc., which corporations is the Walt Disney Corporation. In includes Seventeen Magazine, TV Guide, and Daily 1995, Disney merged with ABC/Capital Cities. Racing Forum.11 News Corp went on to expand Disney purchased ABC/Capital Cities for internationally by obtaining Star TV from China.12 approximately 19 billion dollars; the move came It wasn’t until 1996 that News Corp officially with an interest in mitigating market launched Fox News Network as a 24-hour news competition, though the companies claim it was channel to supplement the entertainment done to enhance consumers’ access to diverse division, which they took complete ownership of content.7 In addition to news media, ABC/Capital in 2005.13 To streamline the dissemination Cities managed several other subsidiary process, News Corp took partial ownership of corporations and joint ventures, the most profitable of which was ESPN. Together, Disney 8 Bagdikian Ben H. 2004. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press, pg. 41. brings name recognition and financial prowess 9 Rosenthal, Thomas B. 1987. “Murdoch to Buy Harper & Row while ABC/Capital Cities touts a geographically for $300 Million : Media Baron’s Purchase of Book Publisher diverse network of cable television and Will Leave Few Independents in Field - Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1987. telecommunications investments. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-31-fi-1385- News Corp is the third of the five major story.html. 10 Unknown. 1989. “Murdoch Takes Over Collins for $721 media corporations, and the only one with a clear Million - Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times, January 7, political association, although it is not formally 1989. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-07-fi- 259-story.html. documented. News Corp currently owns Fox 11 The New York Times. 1988. “THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Murdoch Network, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Agrees to Buy TV Guide In a $3 Billion Sale by Annenberg - The New York Times,” August 8, 1988. Post, Harper Collins Publishing and more. The https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/08/business/media- architect of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, was a business-murdoch-agrees-buy-tv-guide-3-billion-sale- annenberg.html. 12 Shenon, Philip. 1993. “THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Star TV 5 “AT&T to Acquire Time Warner,” AT&T, October 22, 2016, Extends Murdoch’s Reach - The New York Times.” The New https://about.att.com/story/att_to_acquire_time_warner.html. York Times, August 23, 1993. 6 Bagdikian Ben H. 2004. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: 13 Mifflin, Lawrie. 1996. “Fox Presents Its Lineup for News Beacon Press, pg. 31. Channel - The New York Times.” The New York Times, 7 Fabrikant, Geraldine. “The Media Business: The Merger; September 5, 1996. Walt Disney to Acquire ABC in $19 Billion Deal to Build a Giant https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/05/arts/fox-presents-its- for Entertainment.” The New York Times. August 1, 1995. lineup-for-news-channel.html. Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 42 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos DirecTV Group (formerly controlled by Hughes after its merger with NBC Universal (also Electronics) in 2003. Bagdikian writes that affiliated with the industrial conglomerate, through this strategic move, “Murdoch realized General Electric) in 2011. The conglomerate has he could use DirecTV to put himself on both sides since attained DreamWorks Animation as an of bargaining tables. He is a tough and patient additional subsidiary investment. Comcast negotiator and can use earlier acquisitions of his maintains control over numerous own cluster of Fox sports channels plus DirecTV telecommunications channels through cable to get his own price for carrying schedules of big infrastructure (with the help of General Electric), sports teams and special events.”14 news, entertainment, digital streaming, and film The fourth of the five major media production. corporations is Viacom CBS, which has recently rebranded as Paramount Global.15 Columbia 2.2. Impact on Industry Broadcasting System (CBS) was initially nothing more than a disorganized set of television and One of the primary critiques of media radio stations. Just before CBS went bankrupt conglomeration is the impact it has on content prior to WWII, it was picked up by father-son duo relevancy, which translates to matters of market William and Sam Paley. Sam Paley revolutionized production and consumption through CBS’ reach by extending the network overseas advertising. Maintaining a diverse portfolio during WWII which earned CBS a reputation for provides media conglomerates a chance to reliable and relevant news. Viacom purchased advertise across their platforms, creating a CBS in the 1990s, rebranding as ‘Viacom CBS’ and cohesive brand image. Media scholar David diverting its focus on the film distribution Croteau describes how “broadcast networks now industry. Viacom CBS hoped the addition of CBS routinely [incorporate] entertainment, would diversify the company’s portfolio. The celebrities, human interest, and other light fare 17 company has now rebranded for a third time, into their broadcasts.” Media conglomeration changing its name to “Paramount Global.” has blurred the line between fact and fiction. The Paramount Global has a stake in broadcast news, popularity of entertainment media is financially television entertainment, and digital streaming advantageous for media conglomerates because it with their new platform, Paramount+. provides a larger audience for commercial The fifth and final major media corporation is advertisements. Consequently, the majority of the Comcast, which also owns NBC Universal, big five media conglomerates possess subsidiary Telemundo, and Universal Studios.16 Comcast has ventures in digital streaming, where they can been the dominant cable and internet service charge consumers extra to eliminate ads, provider since the turn of the century, but it has benefiting the conglomerates’ bottom line by since expanded into the digital streaming market encouraging greater consumer investment. Media conglomerates expand their influence 14 Bagdikian, Ben H. 2004. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: through vertical and horizontal integration. As Beacon Press. Pg. 37 defined in reference to News Corp’s acquisitions, 15 ViacomCBS Staff, “Viacomcbs Unveils New Company Name, Global Content Slate and International Expansion horizontal integration “refers to the process by Plans for Paramount+ at Investor Event: Paramount,” which one company buys different forms of Paramount (Paramount/Viacom CBS, February 15, 2022), media.”18 Alternatively, vertical integration in the https://www.paramount.com/press/viacomcbs-unveils-new- company-name-global-content-slate-and-international- expansion-plans-for-paramount-at-investor-event. 16 “Comcast Company Timeline.” Comcast. Comcast / 17 Croteau, David and William. Hoynes. 2014. Media/society: NBCUniversal, July 11, 2022. Industries, Images, and Audiences. Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE https://corporate.comcast.com/press/timeline#:~:text=2011,tr Publications, pg. 44. ansaction%20to%20form%20NBCUniversal%2C%20LLC. 18 Ibid, pg. 42. Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 43 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos media industry refers to when “one owner the factory worker produced a commodity for its acquires all aspects of production and exchange-value in a capitalist economy. Formerly distribution.”19 In the context of media independent media corporations generated conglomeration, horizontal integration provides content for the sake of graphic and technological media companies with greater reach over innovation, while the current structure does so separate industries while vertical integration for the sole purpose of increasing corporate allows for the monopolization of specific media profit margins. Factory workers received a wage products. as compensation for their productive power, which did not reflect the exchange-value of the 3. Marxist Critique product when sold in the free market. Today, employees of corporate media conglomerates 3.1. Alienation of the Worker likewise receive a wage or salary which pales in comparison to the overall profit their work When media companies conglomerate, they strip generates. previously independent media corporations, and Under a capitalist structure, media workers subsequently the employees carrying out media are alienated from the product of their labor creation, of individuality in favor of the acquiring through various degrees of separation produced company’s creative ideals. The act of by the capitalist market, ultimately stripping conglomeration is “alienating” in the terms them of creative fulfilment that would otherwise devised by Karl Marx. Marx contends that a be attained if the media artifact were produced worker is alienated from the product of their independent of a corporation. For example, labor because they are not producing it for their interns often work similar or longer hours than individual consumption. Rather, their labor is an their superiors, but due to lack of experience, instrument in the greater process of commodity they are paid far less—if at all. This rationale is production, with the goal of capital often accepted within the confines of a capitalist accumulation.20 Marx developed his notion of economy. But when considering this dynamic labor alienation and objectification in the context within Marx’s conception of the product to labor of the Industrial Revolution, though it can now be relationship, interns (a low-tier media worker) used as a framework for analyzing the are never compensated for the full value of their relationship between media ownership, media work. Imagine that an intern working at an workers, and media products. animation studio produces a short promotional In Marx’s time, the introduction of factory video. That video is then used to market the production, which sought to meet increasing animation company’s new children’s movie. consumer demands, separated factory workers Instead of being paid directly for the level of from the product of their labor. Similarly, as audience engagement with the promotional video demand for media increased with the (either through cable television views, digital introduction of new technology, the need for streaming views, or social media engagement) market variation resulted in the corporate media the intern is paid an hourly wage. During their conglomerates we see today. Instead of tenure with the media corporation, the sum of producing a good for their own consumption, this hourly wage amounts to a small percentage observational enjoyment, or creative expression, of the overall profit the intern generated through their work on the video. The degrees of 19 Ibid, pg. 40. separation generated through the hierarchical 20 Marx, Karl. 2007. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of compensation structure of large media 1844. Translated by Martin Milligan. Dover Books on Western Philosophy. New York, NY: Dover Publications. conglomerates alienates the media worker from Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 44 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos the product of their work and disincentivizes change in the social structure (i.e., from genuine creativity. capitalism towards socialism) that automation The individual alienation of media workers is reproduces daily life. compounded by the mutual relationship between The transition from print media towards media conglomerates and the American political digital media enabled the rise of information and system. Media conglomerates benefit from communications technology (ICTs), reducing the lenient corporate legislation, allowing for further desirability of print media. Corporate cross-sector dominance. Cross-sector dominance conglomeration in the media, whether through and the accumulation of subsidiaries increases vertical or horizontal integration (or both), opportunities for the exploitation of media labor. streamlines the production process of digital media. At the same time, these strategies allow 3.2. Production Automation corporations to reduce their labor force and lay off non-essential and duplicate workers. Production automation, as Marx conceives of it, is Production efficiency is financially beneficial for a consequence of machine technology replacing the media corporation, but not for the media innate human exertion. As Marx describes in the worker. Conglomeration is another means of Grundrisse, “in machinery as an automatic production automation. In the media sphere, system, the means of labour is transformed as automation refers to the application of IT regards its use value, i.e. as regards its material software to replace repetitive and generative existence, into an existence suitable for fixed tasks, resulting in increasingly less human labor capital in general; and the form in which it was to achieve the same output. Conglomeration assimilated as a direct means of labor into the increases media automation by combining two production process of capital is transformed into separate labor forces from the merging media one imposed by capital and in accordance with corporations, thus putting more responsibility on it.”21 Under capitalist conditions, machinery the remaining media workers to produce the exists because of capital and for the regenerative desired good or service in optimal time. use of capital. The machine possesses many of According to Kumar Thangavelsamy, an the same characteristics as humans, replacing the expert in management science at XIM University media worker’s skill and labor power. Marx in Bhubaneswar, India, “in the information age, associated automated machinery with “fixed the effect of automation on the relationship capital” in its most developed form. Fixed capital between capital and labor is such that there is a has the capacity to emancipate the media worker danger of many low-end information workers from the confines of wage labor so long as it losing their jobs and even if they have jobs, those reproduces daily life for the worker. Under jobs will be ones that foster alienation.”22 As capitalist conditions, daily life is solely Thangavelsamy describes, media automation reproduced by the wages earned through labor. results in the loss of low-wage media jobs, thus Technological automation alienates the media increasing the gap between the owners of the worker because automation replaces the need for means of production (shareholders) and the human labor. Alternatively, under socialist knowledge workers carrying out the owners’ conditions, automation frees the worker from the labor (low and mid-level employees). When confines of work because workers’ subsistence is utilizing media automation, the owners of the produced by machinery. It is only through a 22 Kumar, T., & Jena, L. K. (2020). Capital vs. Digital Labor in 21 Marx, Karl, and David McLellan. The Grundrisse. First U.S. the Post-industrial Information Age: A Marxist Analysis. edition. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971. Print. pg. Emerging Economy Studies, 6(1), 50–60. 132-133 https://doi.org/10.1177/2394901520907707 Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 45 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos means of production redirect the capital that 3.3. Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model would have been used for wages towards business operations, infrastructural In the text Manufacturing Consent by Noam development, or as dividends for the owners of Chomsky and Edward Herman, these authors the means of production. describe how the United States government uses Additionally, media conglomeration furthers media as a propaganda machine. The the employment hierarchy by establishing one relationship between the big five media single authoritative body for what was once two corporations and the United States government separate media corporations. In the information informs the regulatory structure of the media and age, the hierarchy created by media delineates its importance within the globalized conglomeration and automation creates two economy. There are five primary components to separate types of information workers: the Chomsky and Herman’s model: “routine worker” and the “creative worker.” The routine worker facilitates the back-end software (1) [T]he size, concentrated ownership, development while the creative worker cultivates owner wealth, and profit orientation of the the desired set of knowledge for the routine dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising worker to engage with.23 Management theorist as the primary income source of the mass Peter Drucker writes: media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, Knowledge itself has become a means of business, and “experts” funded and approved production. Hence, workers who work with by these primary sources and agents of their knowledge will own the means of power; (4) “flak” as a means of disciplining production, namely their own knowledge… the media; and (5) “anticommunism” as a though on an overall basis, all labor force national religion and control mechanism.25 faces insecurity in the information age, a minority of information professionals are Media is the conduit connecting the ruler to the able to relatively benefit more from ruled. The government and stock market are both capitalism of the information age while the “rulers” in this dynamic, working together to majority finds that their position has become maintain control over the means of media very vulnerable.24 production and its eventual products. The big five media conglomerates are all publicly traded on Only the creative worker benefits from the the securities market, while the largest automation and conglomeration process because stockholders of each company remain the they have a sense of self-direction and agency originating families that once maintained full over the product of their labor. Alternatively, the control of the business. This stronghold is routine worker—whose position is most increasingly challenged by “improving market vulnerable to automized outsourcing—does not opportunities for selling media properties,”26 choose what product they produce. The routine spurred by the deregulation of legislation that workers’ skillset is enlisted as an instrumental formerly limited the concentration and tool for producing the product. Their labor is thus conglomeration of media entities. objectified, and they become alienated from the Outside of ownership itself, the media product of said labor. conglomerates maintain directorial boards that 25 Herman, Edward S and Noam. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York, 23 Ibid. Pantheon Books, 1988. Pg. 1 24 Ibid. 26 Ibid. pg. 8 Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 46 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos contribute to corporate decision-making. return, these financial institutions remain some Chomsky and Herman note that: of the largest stockholders of media conglomerates outside of the originating families. active corporate executives and bankers The stock market is the great binding factor, together account for a little over half the total incentivized by the prospect of financial gain, of the outside directors of ten media giants; which unites the government and media and the lawyers and corporate-banker decision-makers. The government and stock retirees (who account for nine of the thirteen market both maintain a vested interest in the under “Retired”) push the corporate total to content disseminated through media channels about two-thirds of the outside-director and recognize it as a financial asset. aggregate.27 3.4. The Ruling Class Ideology Figure 1 below highlights the link between market stakeholders and media manipulators. In One of the focuses of Marxist theory is social 1986, directorial board membership also included stratification. Marx asserts that “the ideas of the former politicians and members of the council on ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, foreign relations, further demonstrating the i.e., the class, which is the ruling material force of connections between mass media and the United society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual States government. force.”29 Marx maintains that the values of the ruling class are the dominant ideological values of all classes in a given society. The ruling class has the most access to the means of material (and thus intellectual) production, which provide them the power to decide what knowledge to distribute to the masses and how to distribute it. The ruling class is beholden to nothing and nobody; they sit at the top of the social ladder, exercising hegemonic control over all other classes by manipulating the means of production. It is evident that the mechanisms of economic control over the media in a capitalist society (vertical and horizontal integration, corporate conglomeration, directorial board membership, stock block ownership, etc.) are the primary tools enabling the dissemination of ruling class ideology. The overlap between media Figure 1. Table 1–3: “Affiliations of the outside directors of ten stakeholders, the government, and the primary large media companies (or their parents) in 1986.”28 distributors of wealth within the economy (banks, Additionally, Chomsky and Herman describe owners of large corporations) make up the ruling the fact that media giants procure much of their elite. financing through commercial banks and The class dynamic between the ruling class investors, who also advise on stock ventures. In 29 Marx Karl Friedrich Engels and C. J Arthur. 1972. The German Ideology. Art One : With Selections from Parts Two and 27 Ibid. pg. 10 Three Together with Marx's "Introduction to a Critique of Political 28 Ibid. pg. 11 Economy". New York: International. Pg. 64-66. Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 47 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos and the ruled is defined through their social roles contribute to decision-making across each sector as direct and indirect knowledge workers; as one of the superstructure. An example of this is the writer notes, “there are direct knowledge workers directorial board membership of mass media (either employed as wage labour in firms or corporations. Mass media corporations have outsourced, self-employed labour) that produce boards of directors who oversee business knowledge goods and services that are sold as decision making. These boards are made up of commodities on the market (…) and indirect members of the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, knowledge workers that produce and reproduce representing the ideological interests of the the social conditions of the existence of capital owners of the means of production. Under a and wage labour.”30 In this sense, the ruling class capitalist structure, the interests of the media are indirect knowledge workers and the ruled (or then become the interests of the bourgeoisie. working class) are direct knowledge workers.31 Those who work for the media then reiterate bourgeois values because the superstructure reflects them. 3.5. Repression & The Illusion of Choice Within the Superstructure In the text The Containment of Social Change in Industrial Society, Marxist social theorist Herbert Marcuse describes the falsity of our supposed “technological society.” According to Marcuse, a true “technological society” efficiently and rationally utilizes its available resources while producing the minimum amount of tangible and intangible waste. Conversely, modern capitalist society is the opposite of a “technological society”; it subverts civilian autonomy “by the blocking, by the arrest, and by the perversion of technological rationality—or, in one word, by the use of technology as an instrument of repression, an Figure 2. Marxist superstructure and base within mass instrument of domination.”33 Outside of the media.32 traditional psychoanalytic definition of Direct knowledge workers reify the ideals set repression, Marcuse contends that repression by indirect knowledge workers, who, as owners must consider past, present, and potential of the means of production, are stakeholders in repression of the individual, as represented by decisions pertaining to the regulation of the the labor opportunities available to them. superstructure. Indirect knowledge workers Citizens of the twenty-first century who utilize digital media are repressed through the 30 Fuchs, Christian. “Class, Knowledge and New Media.” technological domination of media Media, Culture & Society 32, no. 1 (2010): 141–150. Pg. 141. conglomerates and the ruling elites who 31 Tokos, Lauren. “Marxist Superstructure & Base within Mass Media.” Media Conglomeration and Automation: A Marxist ideologically inform the beliefs disseminated Critique. The Ethics of Enterprise and Exchange. Fall 2022. 32 This diagram specifically leaves out aspects of the original superstructure/base diagram to emphasize the media’s role 33 Marcuse, Herbert, and Douglas Kellner. Towards a Critical within the traditional model. Theory of Society. New York: Routledge, 2001. Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 48 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos through the superstructure, thus enabling media efforts. Political influences on the media industry conglomeration. Individuals utilize media impact the corporate structure, and more platforms, which are predominantly owned by specifically, employees within media the same five companies, who compete with one corporations who carry out media labor. another—and buy one another out—to Using Marx’s framework of labor alienation, ideologically manipulate the masses. To media employees of media conglomerates are alienated conglomerates, individuals are merely from the creative work they do—whether it be consumers who, by using their platform, videography, animation, copy writing, etc.—as generate tangible and intangible capital for the their work is produced for a media conglomerate. company. In turn, the individual “[a]ppears to be Marxist theory contends that for a worker to increasingly powerless, confronted with the realize their full human capacity, they must technological and political apparatus which this create a product for their own consumption, society has built up.”34 creative expression, or observational enjoyment. Technological developments enabled the rise When employees of media conglomerates of industrial society which promoted produce content for public consumption, they do consumerism through the capitalist economic so for the sake of compensation. This structure. Consumerism is thus promoted compensation is ultimately disproportionate to through the media via advertising, providing the profit margin generated by the content’s individuals with the illusion of choice and dissemination within a capitalist economy. Media opportunity. As Marcuse describes, “[t]he conglomeration strips individual employees of irrational in this society appears as rational their capacity to create by defining success by because people indeed have more comforts, and what sells rather than what is most creatively more fun. Domination appears as freedom fulfilling. because people indeed have the choice of Media conglomeration perpetuates social prefabricated goods and prefabricated stratification through corporate hierarchy, candidates.”35 directorial board membership, and the need to increase shareholder value. The hierarchical 4. Concluding Remarks corporate structure enables wage disparity between creative producers and the true value of The digital media landscape we navigate today is the content they produce. Although corporate primarily dominated by five media media employees generate value for their conglomerates: AT&T, The Walt Disney employer, they are paid a wage or salary that is Corporation, NewsCorp, Paramount Global disproportionate to the profit gained by the (formerly Viacom CBS), and Comcast. Although product of their labor. Shareholders, as owners of they once operated as a few amongst many, these the means of production, profit from the labor of conglomerates and their thousands of subsidiary low and mid-level employees and ideologically companies own and operate much of the digital control the type of content that the company— news media, television entertainment, and and by proxy, the low and mid-level employees streaming services we use daily. American media carrying out this work—produces. The owners of legislation enabled the rise of these the means of production unilaterally control the conglomerates through lenient legislation dissemination of ideas across media towards horizontal and vertical integration conglomerates through directorial board ownership. As Chomsky and Hermann identify, directorial boards are tasked with aiding in long- 34 Ibid. pg. 84. 35 Ibid. pg. 86. term decision making at media conglomerates; Media Conglomeration, Automation, and Alienation 49 Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal Tokos the decision-making body is comprised of owners The Merger; Walt Disney to Acquire ABC in of the means of production in other market $19 Billion Deal to Build a Giant for sectors, and sometimes the same market sector. Entertainment.” The New York Times, August Together, media executives and directorial board 1, 1995. members control the dominant ideology that is https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/01/busines circulated through the media. s/media-business-merger-walt-disney- Despite the overarching structural acquire-abc-19-billion-deal-build-giant- domination of media conglomeration, consumers for.html. have the choice to decide the type of content they Fuchs, Christian. 2010. “Class, Knowledge and consume and the source of content they support. New Media.” Media, Culture and Society 32 (1): Consumers are changemakers. With enough 141–50. pushback against corporate conglomeration in https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443709350375/ASS the media industry, consumers can change the ET/0163443709350375.FP.PNG_V03. structure of the market. Although the scope of Herman, Edward S., and Noam. 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