Should we boycott the corporate media?

[senseandsensibility]

I have boycotted religiously since the election, and fairly strictly for months before then. I'm calmer, more focused, and more energized because of it. But is it a good tactic?

[Warpy]

1. I'm not going to should on anybody

but I've been avoiding them since 11/2/04 and I have no plan to turn any of those bastards back on.

Jon Stewart was right. They're not simply laughably incompetent; they're hurting us.

There's no way I'm going to deliver a warm body to their sponsors, and there's no way I'm going to keep raising my blood pressure over their lies of ommission.

To hell with the lot of them.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. Same with me

Only news I get is online from here and Yahoo. For other stuff I watch the Daily show. I forgot AAR.

[givemebackmycountry]

2. Little or no difference...

Too many McGriddle eaters will miss their Micheal Jackson updates, or "Access Hollywood" minutes.

Boycotting them will do little.

Pounding them relentlessly and threatening to boycott their advertisers (and letting their advertisers know this) may do it.

[stillcool]

3. Isolated and Naive are what.....

Corporate News imbibers are. I don't have the stomach for it. I find the shrill hyperbole toxic, and see no benefit whatsoever in abusing my thought processes with garbage.

[katinmn]

4. I already am. I have no need to be lied to.

[moggie12]

5. I picked "other"

If watching it isn't good for your emotional well-being, then by all means don't. However, I hope you'll still try to influence it, by joining in efforts to boycott Fox advertisers, for example, or by writing e-mails to stations when someone here on DU requests people do so.

[senseandsensibility]

6. Absoutely

I'm dependent on others to tell me what to e-mail about, however.

[moggie12]

8. Yes, that's a problem!

I've put a few posts up over the past two weeks or so: One was asking everybody to e-mail CNN thanking them for having Boxer on and letting her talk at length. Thursday I did one asking everybody to e-mail Chris Matthews asking him to talk about the neoconservatives and how they're driving Bush's foreign policy (since Tweety is hosting tomorrow night's Iraqi election extravaganza on MSNBC).

Got a good response on the Boxer one -- about 40 people did it. Less than 10 did the Matthews one. Kinda bummed me out since I think a targeted approach might have some impact (a station getting 100 or more e-mails on one subject might take notice).

[Acryliccalico]

7. Yes! They have to "STOP HURTING AMERICA"

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[ElectroPrincess]

9. Am I the only one who does NOT care about either

the Michael Jackson or Robert Blake criminal cases?

I don't give a damn ... not at all. Yet the MSM forces this crap on us. It's a game with me for as soon as either one of these topics come on the TV, I run to change the channel or turn off my TV.

I don't want to know. :-)

[senseandsensibility]

25. It is part of their

plan to distract us from the real issues that matter to our lives, because if people did look at those issues in any kind of a logical way, they would vote Dem.

[Clark2008]

29. I don't care about them, either

I also change the channel when either one of those subjects come on.

[imenja]

10. What does that mean? No TV, radio, newspapers, or movies ever again?

and what about the internet? Most of us use ISPs owned by huge corporations. You obviously aren't boycotting that or you wouldn't be posting online.

[proudbluestater]

16. "Most of us use ISPs owned by huge corporations." We do?

Hmmm, I use a local ISP for $9.95 a month. I don't know too many people still using AOL for twice the price.

If you're referring to cable channels and their cable modems, that's a different story. The cable companies themselves don't tell each cable channel how to report.

At home I have a satellite dish. It provides me with two very progressive channels not found on most cable, so I can skip all the propaganda and watch the shows the government doesn't want me to see.

[imenja]

17. a local ISP?

Who owns it? Do you imagine the company isn't incorporated? Your satellite service, either Direct TV or Dish TV, is also corporate owned. You aren't boycotting it at all.

[NuttyFluffers]

21. life is rarely an all or nothing thing. chill.

:smoke:

i'd settle for forward progress than the false choice of perfection or apathy.

[imenja]

24. Rupert Murdoch

My point was boycotting corporate media is absurd. It is not possible unless one resolves to remain uninformed. This is a corporate run society. Those are the facts.
Direct TV is certainly no purer than your local cable company. Rupert Murdoch is chairman of the board. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=DTV

[NuttyFluffers]

28. there's dish network. and then there's basic broadcast (which is free)

and then there's those old gigantic style personal satellite dishes. there's options out there. no one twists anyone's arm to get 200+ channels to watch. (besides, i'd probably deal with my local cable company over direct tv just to avoid rupert.) are they perfect? no, but nothing ever is.

but that's the thing, why chase perfect purity? no one is advocating that here. why are you contesting the effort is useless? should we all give up and languish because perfection is unattainable? that's an absurdly strict standard -- i hope you aren't so strict with yourself in everyday life. just moving in the right direction is good enough. it isn't nearly as hard as one thinks to make a positive difference in your daily activities. you just have to be able to have perspective, need to be able to forgive lack of perfection.

honestly, it's not like you are suggesting "all options have 6 degrees of separation from corporate media, therefore are all equal, therefore equally bad, so there's no hope, might as well sit down and wallow in misery" are you? you must admit that there are degrees of good and bad choices, even when it comes to personal consumption of media.

so i repeat, chill. :smoke: this boycott idea ain't so gloom and doom as you think.

[imenja]

30. your viewing habits are your choice

Frankly I don't see what the point is or that it makes any difference. Apparently it makes you feel better, which is great. I object to the idea that there is any virtue or point is promoting this as some sort of social movement, which was the intent of the original post. You do whatever you want, but when you suggest others do the same on a discussion board, I have a right to point out what I see as a lack of coherence in the scheme.

[rman]

18. It's about content - ISP's have virtually no control over content

on the internet. But the large corporations that own most of the mainstream media outlets do have control over the content of those media.

[Pam-Moby]

11. We need to target their advertisers

and eventually we will start to bring them to their knees and then they will have to start listening to the public and start reporting the truth!!

[ragin_acadian]

12. yes, yes, yes!!!!!!!!!!!!

pam-moby, you are absolutely right!!!!!!!!!

for the rest of the people reading this thread:

television does not make a profit when you merely keep your couch cushions warm. the moment you go to get a bowl of Tostitos(TM), Coca-Cola(TM), use a Gillette(TM) nail-file, or re-lace your Nike's(TM), the television station makes their profit. Television profits by justifying their advertising fees by the size of their audience, and the manner of exploitation inherent in the demographic content of their audience.

watch as much tv as you like. watch fox news or cnn 24/7. get as pissed off as you like at their partisan coverage.

just don't put another corporate product in your fridge, pantry, medicine cabinet, or on your body. buy organic, it does exist, buy mom & pop, it does exist (actually, neither exists at mal-wart, but what the hell, don't shop there either)

that's how we will break the corporate stranglehold on our government and our news. put proctor/gamble/gillette(TM), and RJR/Nabisco in the poor house, THEN WE WILL HAVE TAKEN THIS COUNTRY BACK!

[FrenchieCat]

13. Only watch if someone on is worthwhile....otherwise,

The boycott has been on for me since end of primaries 2004.

The televised media has gotten too big for its britches...the anchornewsreaders are believing that they are more important and know more than the expert guests they are interviewing. The arrogant and sanctimonious manner in which they deliver opinion disguised as news is truly sickening!

The Presstitutes have got to go. Same can be said of the political pundits. I am tired of hearing what they have to say...cause the are always wrong.

Also need endless polls during election seasons banished. The polls are nothing but opinion creators and pushers who lead the sheeps straight for the cliff.

When I watch any news...whatever they report, I just believe the opposite. Amazing how well that works!

CNN is becoming the worse....but they are all bad. What's worse is that CNN is still called the most liberal television cable news channel. How sad is that?

And the whole stable of NewsAnchor (if you want to call it news as opposed to propaganda) at CNN? They have got to go!

[Liberty Belle]

14. This only works if you TELL the media you're boycotting--& why!

I recommend sending a copy of your letter to the Chief Financial Officer, the CEO, and the public relations/media relations person at each of the networks--and the parent companies. If anyone wants this info, I can track it down and post it. You can usually find this info by going to the parent company's website and looking for investor relations info.

Also if people would sell their stock in the parent companies-- Disney (ABC), Viacom (CBS), General Electric (NBC), Time-Warner (CNN), and News-Corp (Fox)--and inform the company why, it would make an economic impact. Don't forget about calling any mutual funds you have to see if they own stock in these companies, too.

Sinclair Broadcasting stock went down 17% as a result of the flap over the anti-Kerry program it planned to air, and it backed down.

Economic pressure CAN work.

[McKenzie]

19. The boycott of Barclays Bank 18 years ago worked

There was a student boycott as a means of protesting over the bank's involvement with the apartheid regime. It worked after Barclays saw their share of student accounts halve. So boycotts can work in some cases, particularly if they are focussed.

The same sort of approach might have an effect on television companies. They rely on advertising income so a drop in viewer numbers would make any given company less attractive for marketting purposes.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys these days in the commercial world. That's a corollary to corporate expansion where a parent company owns a load of subsidiaries. But that's another debate altogether.

I would start with boycotting virtually all television companies. First, there is the economic rationale as mentioned above. My second reason is a tad more partisan...I think television is a cancer, a view that is shared by people who are far more qualified to comment with authority on the subject than I am. Taking the idiot box tv out of daily use would allow people to develop critical thinking rather than the brainwashing that teevee actually engenders. Then we might just get critical debate on a whole range of issues.

Anyway, at least we are talking about this which is a good thing. The malign influence of the media underpins a lot of our current problems.

[ikojo]

20. The right boycotted the media and called them

liberal and that led to them becoming very conservative and pro Bush.

I think when we speak of the media we should not use the words mainstream bur rather conservative. Only when we begin using the word conservative with the same invective and disgust as the pugs use liberal will it begin to have the same reputation as something to be avoided.

There is nothing mainstream about state sponsored media and state sponsored news. That's exactly what we currently have in the US. To act as if it is not so is naive in the extreme.

[senseandsensibility]

23. You know, you have a point

I've heard Ed Shultz use the term "righties" like a swear word. I think we need to take it all the way and start using"conservative" that way, and in all contexts.

[NuttyFluffers]

22. sure, why not? spares my blood pressure.

if you are calmer, more focused, and more energized because of boycotting it then it is a fantastic tactic. not only do you feel you are doing something positive in a passive manner, it keeps you healthy and vital so that you can put creative energies in helping us survive the next four years. if doing this alleviates sullenness, hopelessness, and depression for even 10% of us progressives then it is worth doing because it improves the lives of that many people.

personally and strategically it is a great tactic. energizes the base, raises spirits, and denies more control to corporate media. there's no downside, so why not do it?

[jdots]

26. I have since dec.11th.2000

It is a sacrifice we may have to make to put an end to something that will put an end to this planet.Yes I miss a few shows on t.v.The news paper you can get free because people throw it away when they are done with it.I get my news here and from work of mouth by people I know aren't getting paid to fabricate and distort reality.Do the math if everyone that cared stopped thier cable and satalite it would stop this madness .

[dkofos]

27. It's not enough to just stop watching,

You must let them and the advertisers know that you no longer watch
their crap.

[Jack Rabbit]

31. You bet

Graphic from TurnOffYourTV.com

[senseandsensibility]

32. Decisive

answer!:)

[senseandsensibility]

33. Delete

Dupe!