LUCIEN PIERCE: Whoever controls the media, controls the mind

SA’s Competition Commission will shortly launch a market inquiry into the distribution of media content on digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.   

This brought to mind a quote by The Doors’ Jim Morrison: “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” Morrison was a strong supporter of the Los Angeles Free Press, a 1960s’ underground publication that presented perspectives that differed from those of mainstream news media publications. It suffered intimidation from the US authorities because of its political position on the Vietnam War, and was even bombed three times.   

This sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Think of Vrye Weekblad, the New Nation and Weekly Mail newspapers in SA during the 1980s. These newspapers suffered crude attempts to stifle independent, factual and quality reporting, such as requiring journalists to be registered or being subjected to blatant censorship. This resulted in advertisers shunning them, reduced revenue, an inability to pay journalists, and their ultimate demise. 

The advent of digital platforms has unfortunately also become a major determinant of news media publications’ survival. This is because as most news media content has moved online so has the advertising news publications rely on for revenue. Google and Facebook, for example, play a significant role in referring news consumers to news publications, and therefore play a role in determining how much these news media businesses earn. Simply put: the more customers view content on a news media publication’s website, the more views it gets and the more money it is able to make from adverts that appear on its website. 

News media businesses are therefore faced with an important question: how do they keep news media consumers coming back so that their website views remain high enough to earn them sufficient revenue? They can either turn to yellow journalism (sensationalist, eye-catching, low value news) or try to offer quality journalism. Yellow journalism is the easier and cheaper of the two options, because it doesn't take much to produce a lot of exaggerated news reports to keep consumers coming back. Quality, original, well-researched journalism takes time, is more expensive and does not have the high turnover of content to increase the number of page views and therefore revenue.   

Good journalists who produce quality content need to be paid good salaries. If news media businesses cannot afford to pay good journalists, they are not likely to remain in the profession. To illustrate this point, Australian census data shows how between 2006 and 2016, as traditional print publishers suffered declining revenue, the number of traditional print journalists declined by 26%.   

As news media businesses become more reliant on online platforms for their revenue, and therefore their survival, they are likely to implement content production methods that lower their operating costs: rehashing content, sensationalist headlines and employing inexperienced journalists to churn out low-value content. An even scarier and real possibility is that journalists could be made obsolete, with artificial intelligence (AI) tools being used to write articles at a fraction of the cost of a journalist’s salary.   

So, what is the problem, some may ask, as it is simply the market finding the most efficient way to produce news content.  The reality is that there are big problems: 

• Without quality journalism news media businesses are likely to focus on low-value, easy-to-produce news. They will shun important, but expensive-to-produce news categories that are important to society, such as public interest news that spreads knowledge, exposes corruption and holds both government and the private sector to account.
• Misinformation, disinformation and lies will abound. With fewer resources to spend on quality journalism, thorough investigative reporting will be curtailed and reliance will be placed on second and third-hand sources of information. 
• As the Australian digital platforms inquiry emphasised, digital platforms “increasingly perform similar functions to media businesses, such as selecting and curating content, evaluating content, and ranking and arranging content online”. It has recognised “concerns that accessing news via digital platforms exposes consumers to an increased risk of ‘filter bubbles’ and ‘echo chambers’”.   

Though some of this may sound rather Orwellian and “crackpot-conspiracy-theorist-like”, we have to be wary of any situation in which a powerful few decide how and what information we receive: remember, whoever controls the media, controls the mind. 

SA’s Competition Commission recently published its media and digital platforms market inquiry terms of reference for public comment. The inquiry will take 18 months from the time public participation begins.  

• Pierce is a director at Phukubje Pierce Masithela Attorneys, specialising in information and communications technology law.