Media Capture
Media can play an important role in creating intangible assets, as is detailed in the leaked communication plan for TransCanada Corp. It can play a direct role in lobbying and policymaking, as it provides a capacity to connect with public and elite opinion, and it can help to target and destroy industry critics (Miller & Harkins, 2010). Literature on media institutions and processes accounts for the different mechanisms by which media are influenced and captured by corporate interests. Such mechanisms include advertising, public relations, influence of media ownership, attacks on critics, etc. (McChesney, 2008).
Total pharmaceutical media advertising expenditures in the US (excluding social media) amounted to $6.5 billion in 2018 (Snyder Bulik, 2019), which represents more than 4% of the $152 billion spent in advertising for all sectors (Mandese, 2019). Experts in corporate public relations (PR) are becoming more and more active in shaping the news concerning corporate interests. It is estimated that for every working journalist in the US, there are now 4.6 PR people, up from 3.2 in the previous decade (Edgecliff-Johnson, 2014). A report from the United Kingdom estimated that 41% of press articles and 52% of broadcast news items contain PR materials that play an agenda-setting role or make up the bulk of the story (Lewis et al., 2008).
Miller and Dinan (2009) emphasized a neglected dimension of media capture by analyzing the use and role of media in securing regulatory capture through the sophisticated use of seemingly independent organizations as echo chambers for corporate messages or through direct attempts to take over the means of communication. Many think tanks presenting themselves as independent non-profit organizations act as lobbying organizations for their corporate funders. Miller and Harkins (2010) describes the example of the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), an “independent non-profit organization” producing “balanced” research on lifestyle issues such as drinking, diet and pharmaceuticals. The “social scientists” staffing the SIRC also work for the market research company MCM research. Removing all doubt of their intentions and purpose, the MCM website used to state up-front: ‘Do your PR initiatives sometimes look too much like PR initiatives? MCM conducts social/psychological research on the positive aspects of your business. The results do not read like PR literature, or like market research data. Our reports are credible, interesting and entertaining in their own right. This is why they capture the imagination of the media and your customers’ (cited in Ferriman (1999)).
The line is getting blurred between journalism and lobbying, especially in the era of internet and social media. Confessore (2003) calls this massive lobbying influence disguised as journalism “journo-lobbying”, and describes it in this way:
Lobbying firms that once specialized in gaining person-to-person access to key decision-makers have branched out. The new game is to dominate the entire intellectual environment in which officials make policy decisions, which means funding everything from think tanks to issue ads to phony grassroots pressure groups. But the institution that most affects the intellectual atmosphere in Washington, the media, has also proven the hardest for K Street to influence – until now.
References
Confessore, N. (2003, December 2). Meet the Press. Washington Monthly, December 2003. http://washingtonmonthly.com/2003/12/02/meet-the-press/
Edgecliff-Johnson, A. (2014, September 19). The invasion of corporate news. Financial Times.
Ferriman, A. (1999). An end to health scares? British Medical Journal, 319(7211), 716–716.
Lewis, J., Williams, A., Franklin, B., Thomas, J., & Mosdell, N. (2008). Quality & Independence of British Journalism: Tracking Changes Over 20 Years. Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies; Cardiff University. https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/18439/1/Quality%20&%20Independence%20of%20British%20Journalism.pdf
Mandese, J. (2019, January 24). U.S. Ad Spending Climbs 4.1%, Essentially Matching GDP Growth In 2018. MediaPost. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330992/us-ad-spending-climbs-41-essentially-matching.html
McChesney, R. W. (2008). The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas. Monthly Review Press.
Miller, D., & Dinan, W. (2009). Journalism, Public Relations and Spin. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), Handbook of Journalism Studies. Routledge. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780805863437/
Miller, D., & Harkins, C. (2010). Corporate strategy, corporate capture: Food and alcohol industry lobbying and public health. Critical Social Policy, 30(4), 564–589. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018310376805
Snyder Bulik, B. (2019, April 16). Big Spending from Abbvie, Pfizer Pushes Pharma’s 2018 Ad Spend to $6.5b. Fierce Pharma. https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/kantar-tallies-6-5-billion-for-pharma-ad-spending-2018-abbvie-humira-ranks-as-top