The Power of Media

I’d like us to look at this article from a media news reporting point of view rather than media advertising point of view, there’s relevance in a sense that it’s two hands washing each other not one hand feeding off the other. Having studied media for many moons at an institution of higher learning, I think I’m qualified to make a two cent worth comment about media reporting and the power of media. If used strategically media reporting has the power to influence opinions and brainwash and/or change the “world view” of the masses. In the world the most powerful are not politicians but rather the media moguls who owns conglomerate media empires that broadcast to the masses the “opinion” of these politicians.

Some may refer to it as propaganda, some as freedom-of-speech but mind you that these two words are interchangeable depending on which side your bread is buttered on. For example, when the corruption scandal about a certain political figure in the ruling party broke, those on his camp saw that as propaganda and an attempted political character assassination, whereas those reporting the news saw it as freedom of expression and they were attempting to show the mass that no one is untouchable.

But hang on a second!!! Let’s look at the process of reporting the so called news. The 7pm news bulletin run for approximately 30 minute and 5 minutes of those 30 minutes is adverts; in essence it’s actually a 25 minutes bulletin. In the news bulleting they report about issues or events they claim is of importance for the masses to be informed about as outlined by what is known as an editor, but isn’t that brainwashing? One person or a group of people deciding on what the masses has to be informed about, that sounds like brainwashing to me.

So in that 25 minute bulletin, they’ll dedicate 5 minute to attacking a certain party, 10 on natural disasters or “terrorists attacks”, 5 minutes on praising some sports heroes, the rest is what they call fillers, which could be anything from a hippo roaming on the freeway to Michael Jackson dangling his son on a balcony. So in essence it’s 25 minute of news on issues they want the people to be informed about not 25 minutes of the reality in the world. The same goes for the radio stations and 24 hours news channels, the only different is that they recycle the 25 minute bulleting every top of hour and in between it’s the so called analysts claiming to “unpack” what a politician has just said no so long ago.

Another example is the COPE situation and on how it was formed. When I saw Primedia broadcasting giving Lekota an exclusive press conference on a possibility of forming a break away party from ANC I knew it was in some cartel’s interest to do so. The reason is that the very same broadcasting power that comprises of “liberal” stations such as 702 and/or Cape Talk didn’t give Lekota such preferential treatment when he was still chairing the ANC but their argument will probably be that they were reporting news that was of interest to the nation, I say they were reporting news that is of interest to a certain cartel, they could have used that airtime to broadcast good news about NGO’s and other relief organisation but they opted to lay down a red carpet for Terror Lekota, isn’t that brainwashing??

The media thrive on the fact that people prefer to look at things rather than looking into things. I remember a while back I asked a friend of mine - now that they not reporting about cash heists, do you think that law enforcement has 100% control of the cash heist robberies? The answer is a big NO, it’s just that they’ve decided to informed the masses about something they want people to focus on. Media is a powerful tool, to a certain extent even more powerful than a well co-ordinated army. Media can catapult an ordinary man into cult status, look at Mandela for example. Media can turn a people’s hero into a villain, look at Louis Farrakhan for example. Media made products such as Eskamel and Cuticura look like iconic brands.

Do the math!!!

Captive audience? What captive audience? There’s no such thing…..

Is there such a thing as captive audience? That still remains a subject of much needed debate but in my humble opinion, there’s no such thing. It is a well known fact that media representatives will say anything to advance their chances of selling their media type, I don’t blame them though – we all want the dead presidents, don’t we? In an industry where certain mediums sell themselves and others have to graft hard to get a piece of the pie, the situation has degraded to the lowest point where the hard grafting media representatives will come up with all sorts of feeble mechanisms to convince advertisers to spend money on their medium.

For the fringe media types that don’t have AMPS backing their medium, they find themselves in a position where they have to use gut feel and personal opinion to advance their own interests. However, gut feel and opinion don’t count much in this industry, media practitioners are still chaperoned by the inaccurate statistics spewed by Telmar. I’m of the opinion that if gut feel and opinion are used correctly, they can sell any medium better than AMPS data. The short-fall is that most media representatives haven’t mastered the art of using gut feel and personal opinion to sell their medium’s interest. The art of using gut feel and personal opinion to sell media type can only be mastered if the individual selling a specific medium knows and understands the psychographic behaviour of the audience in question. But again expecting someone who resides in Sandhurst and has never been to a taxi rank to sell a medium that operates in the taxi rank environment is more like expecting Obama to be a key note speaker at the next KKK AGM – it’s not going to work out right.

So for all you people selling Rank TV, Star Radio, Taxi TV, rural Cinema advertising etc, there’s no such thing as a captive audience. Let’s take Star Radio for, example, if you know Bree taxi rank, you’ll understand and acknowledge that Radio in that environment is like a fart in a desert storm, completely ineffectual. There are 101 taxis coming in and out of the rank, hooting and noise loitering all over the rank, so why tell me that the masses that uses the taxi rank on a daily basis are a captive audience? Captive to the depressing environment, perhaps yes but captive to the medium on offer, a definite no no.

If I was a client and someone was trying to sell me a particular medium and their argument was that they offer a captive audience, I’ll tell them THANK YOU VERY MUCH BUT NO THANKS I’LL PASS. I’d rather buy into a self captivated audience instead; henceforth I think digital is the future. People spend endless hours captivated on YouTube and it’s because they want to not because it’s forced down their throat, pity we can’t say the same thing about Star Radio, Rank TV etc.