Rich Media, Poor Democracy
By Dr Arvind Kumar
Huge expenses incurred on elections in modern democracies in terms of advertising make the media owners fill their coffers and democracies face deficit syndrome. According to broad estimates, the recent midterm elections in the United States have costed close to $4 billion, $3 billion of which went to advertising. This reminds us of the 1999 book by media scholar Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy. McChesney has opined, “Broadcasters have little incentive to cover candidates, because it is in their interest to force them to publicize their campaigns.” Election campaigns have become multibillion dollar business and media owners make a moolah. Bulk of media in modern democracies is privately-owned but using public airwaves.
Ralph Nader, former US presidential candidate, has aptly observed: “The elections have become
a commodity, a profit center for these radio and TV stations. The public airwaves, as we know, belong to the people, and they’re the landlords, and the radio and TV stations are the licensees. They’re the tenants, so to speak. They pay no money to the FCC for their annual license. And therefore, it’s really quite persuasive, were we to have a public policy to condition modestly the license to this enormously lucrative control of the public airwaves 24 hours a day by these TV and radio stations and say, as part of the reciprocity for controlling this commons, so to speak, you have to allow a certain amount of time, free time, on radio and TV for ballot-qualified candidates.” There is a need to regulate the airwaves to better serve the public during elections.
