[R-G] The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform?

[Anthony Fenton]

Originally published in Global Media Journal http://stc.uws.edu.au/gmjau/vol1_2008/barker.html


The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding  
Opportunities for Radical Media Reform

by Michael Barker

Global Research, June 3, 2008
Global Media
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9167

Today in America, tens of thousands of philanthropic foundations  
finance social change and, in the year 2000 alone, these foundations  
distributed $26.7 billion worth of grants. To date, while scholarly  
attention has been paid to the role of right-wing foundations in  
promoting a neoliberal media environment, few studies have critiqued  
the role of liberal foundations in funding similar media reforms. Thus  
with next to no critical inquiry from media researchers, the Ford  
Foundation – which is arguably one of the most influencial liberal  
foundations – supplied over $292 million to American public  
broadcasting between 1951 and 1977 and continues to fund progressive  
media groups like FreePress and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.  
This article provides a much needed overview of the problematic nexus  
between liberal philanthropy and progressive media reform, and  
concludes by providing a number of recommendations for how media  
activists may begin to move away from their (arguably unsustainable)  
reliance on liberal philanthropy.

Philanthropy is a word that rarely crops up in American (or any other)  
mass communications research. This is strange because public  
broadcasting was built on the back of the financial aid provided by  
liberal philanthropic institutions like the Ford Foundation. In fact,  
only a handful of studies have critically reflected on the effect of  
liberal (i.e. progressive) philanthropy on the American media, or  
examined its historic influence on efforts to reform the mass media.  
This research void is not peculiar to media studies, instead it  
exemplifies a more general trend which extends across all academic  
disciplines. Indeed the effects of philanthropy have been thoroughly  
marginalised from scholarly discourses. One can only conclude that the  
majority of researchers ascribe no importance to the activities of the  
tens of thousands of philanthropic foundations that thrive in  
America’s uniquely charitable culture.

This media research blackout raises interesting questions, as it would  
be strange if some of the world’s most successful capitalists (turned  
philanthropists) would collectively provide tens of billions of  
dollars a year to finance social change that has little or no real  
researchable effects (the exact figure was $26.7 billion in 2000).  
Surely some of the world’s most successful business elites would want  
to see some tangible outcomes flowing from their philanthropy?  
Therefore, depending on whether philanthropic activities are  
beneficial or detrimental to democratic processes, it would seem more  
reasonable that the influence of philanthropic endeavours should be  
either happily celebrated and encouraged, or vigorously critiqued and  
discouraged – but definitely not ignored.

With the rise of global neoliberalism, which serves to alienate  
electorates (consumers) from the trappings of liberal democracy and  
openly seeks to replace social welfare with corporate welfare, some  
scholarly attention has documented the remarkable success of right  
wing foundations in forcing these changes. [1] Yet if anything, the  
response of the Left, (that is, those who oppose corporate-led  
globalisation and who are demanding more participatory forms of  
governance), has been to acknowledge the vision and ideological  
cohesion of the Right’s strategies and then to issue calls for liberal  
foundations to adopt similar tactics (e.g. see the work of the US- 
based Democracy Alliance) in order to turn back the neoliberal tide.  
This elitist answer to the neoconservatives’ organising strategies has  
been widely commended, but it is a solution that denies the  
theoretical insights that could be derived from a deeper understanding  
of the historical hegemonic role that liberal foundations have  
fulfilled within American democracy.

This article seeks to throw some light on the so far neglected  
influence of liberal foundations on media developments and reform by  
adopting a three pronged approach. First, it will briefly review the  
limited literature concerning the influence of liberal foundations on  
social change. The article will then provide a critical review of the  
role that liberal foundations have played in shaping the American  
media environment, from 1930 through to the 1970s, as well as  
examining the reliance of many progressive media reform groups on the  
Ford Foundation in the past few decades. Finally, this study will  
reiterate some of the problems associated with relying on liberal  
foundations to finance progressive social change and radical media  
reform groups and will conclude with a number of recommendations for  
generating sustainable funding sources for a form of media reform that  
is aligned with participatory principles.

[...]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9167