media watch Global : an answer to the media manipulation

Media Watch Gobal is an international association which aims at producing and communicating information in order to guarantee the right to information of all citizens around the world. MWG is supporting fairness in the world of media.

Where information is concentrated in fewer hands, Media Watch Global has emerged as an opposition to this new "superpower. The media are becoming increasingly subject to manipulations and conditions from two fronts:
-traditional political power
-and more insidious the market.

It is obvious that the media exist because they are commercially viable, but more and more they are beholden to economic pressures and editorial advertisement. Two basic rights are being eroded:
-journalists'rights to perform their duties without political or economical constrictions.
-and citizens'rights to acess to an accurate information.

MWG does not aim to exercise censorship, but to educate on better values of information. The media is known as the fourth power, the power to oppose government decisions that would have harmful effects on people. The media no longer have this power and therefore MWG intends to be the "fifth power", and to oppose the superpower of global media. They say : "Information and communication will belong to the people. This is the century when citizenry will regain ownership of the truth." The association encourages the creation of national chapters to whom the name “Media Watch Global” will be granted.

You can find some on this website, and find some articles about media manipulation :
http://mwglobal.org/

The largest US media firms

The U.S. media landscape is dominated by massive corporations that, through a history of mergers and acquisitions, have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. In many cases, these giant companies are vertically intergrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. Here is information about the largest U.S. media firms.

General Electric media-related holdings include television networks NBC and Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Focus Features, 26 television stations in the United States, and cable networks MSNBC, Bravo and the Sci Fi Channel. GE also owns 80% of NBC Universal.
2007 revenues: $173 billion


Time Warner is the largest media conglomerate in the world, with holdings including: CNN, the CW (a joint venture with CBS), HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, America Online, MapQuest, Moviefone, Netscape, Warner Bros. Pictures, Castle Rock, and New Line Cinema, over 150 magazines such as Time, Cooking Light, Marie Claire and People.
2007 revenues: $46.5 billion

The Walt Disney Company owns the ABC Television Network, cable networks including ESPN, the Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime, 277 radio stations, music and book publishing companies, production companies Touchstone, Miramax and Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, the cellular service Disney Mobile, and theme parks around the world.
2007 revenues: $35.5 billion

What is your favorite one ???

A lot of colors like in paradise... A lot of products to consum like in paradise... A lot of beautiful slogans like in paradise...and two faties! Oh no! It's not so much the paradise! And falses promotions? No, no, it's really not the paradise! And these colors? Just to absorb you in a beautifull spirale! So disappointed, it's not My paradise but the paradise of the Manipulation...


Two metaphors for one subject: the manipulation. Mixed beetween a jumping jack and a beautiful magazine woman, this picture represents for me the worship of the beauty, everyday imposed by media. Mannequins are they really beautifuls or are they into the convention of the beauty? The beauty should be built-up by his own opinion but it's not the case, we know it! Who has never appreciated the body of people in the first page of magazine? Have you never restrict one's food or do body-building? We can't pell of the idea than we must have a beautifull body appeal: the manipulation still has long days in front of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U&feature=PlayList&p=E00CB8EBF2510041&index=0&playnext=1

Propaganda

Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda often presents information primarily in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional.

"The logic is clear -- propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state and that's wise and good because again the common interests elude the bewildered herd, they cant figure them out. The public relations industry not only took this ideology on very explicitly but also acted on it, that's a huge industry, spending hundreds of..by now probably on the order of a billion dollars a year on it or something and its committment all along was to controlling the public mind" Noam CHOMSKY.

The American presidential election

This week-end I was reading a french magazine and I've seen the following ad. We are now 2days before the American presidential election, and if we should make a conclusion about the election campaign, we can see that Barack Obama has been much more favour over John Mac Cain.

The proof on this ad. The capital letters of Obama are bigger than Mac Cain , but if this magazine was impartial, should not it write the names in the same way ... ?

What are we gonna talk about ?

-MEDIA comes from the Latin "medium" :
it means that it is a way to transmit informations. They don't have to judge, it's this who makes them credible. (actually who should make them credible...)
-MANIPULATION comes from the Latin "manus" : the hand.
it is the effect of turning the conduct of somebody in the sense you want, and without he realizes it...