[R-G] Corporate Media Greens

[Anthony Fenton]

Corporate Media Greens
by Michael Barker
	
October 09, 2007
Griffith Journal of the Environment

It is taken for granted by all political actors that the mass media  
is an essential resource for communicating (or in most cases,  
propagandising too) the wider public. Progressive voices, like those  
of Green politicians however seem to have accepted that they must  
endure the seemingly never-ending assaults that the corporate media  
wages on their demands for more participatory forms of democracy.  
Even the labour movement – the largest, most credentialed and well  
resourced social organisation prior to the 1980s – has historically,  
been consistently treated with hostility by the media; with the media  
consistently equating conservative values with common sense and  
identifying wage increases as the main cause of economic problems.  
Current research also shows how the labour movement is still  
systematically misrepresented in the media despite its financial  
strength, application of professional public relations techniques and  
democratic ideals. It is not surprising then, that Green electoral  
candidates and parties are regularly marginalised from the mainstream  
media. Although there have been some improvements in the media’s  
coverage of Green issues in recent decades, the question remains: how  
beneficial is this media coverage to the Greens’ political agenda?  
This article seeks to answer this question by initially examining the  
Greens’ relations with the mass media, and then secondly by reviewing  
Green party policy responses to media reform in Australia, Canada,  
the United Kingdom and the United States.

[Continued...]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=14000