In this high tech digital age with high definition television and digital radio all we ever get is static; a veil of distortion and lies and misrepresentations and half truths that obscure reality.
Shadows of Liberty reveals the extraordinary truth behind the news media:
censorship, cover-ups and corporate control.
You are taken on an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the US media, where global conglomerates call the shots.
For decades, their overwhelming influence has distorted news journalism and compromised its values.
In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system. Controversial news reports are suppressed, people are censored for speaking out, and lives are shattered as the arena for public expression is turned into a private profit zone.
The overwhelming collective power of these firms raises troubling questions about democracy.
You get a clear picture how journalists are prevented from pursuing controversial news stories, and how people are censored for speaking out against abuses of government power.
The media conglomerates are not the only "industry" whose owners have become monopolistic in the American economy. But media products are unique in one vital respect.
 |
"They do not manufacture nuts and bolts: they manufacture a social and political world" —Ben Bagdikian, ‘The New Media Monopoly’
The overwhelming collective power of the corporate media monopoly raises the most troubling questions about democracy.
The subject remains crucial not only for the state of the media itself, but it is critical for all issues facing the U.S. and the world today. Ultimately, the media is the place where we learn about the world.
Since the 1980’s, government deregulation favoring privatization over public welfare has been the overwhelming reality in the United States. As a result, media ownership rules have been amended, giving extraordinary power to the massive media conglomerates.
Now, more than ever before, media ownership rules are under severe scrutiny from the public, and millions of people have protested against more deregulation for media conglomerates.
The journey of making Shadows Of Liberty began in 2007, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held Media Ownership Hearings across the United States. It was an opportunity for people to express how they felt about their media. Thousands attended and spoke about how the media monopoly crisis was at the core of today’s most troubling issues.
People were outraged about the corporate control producing narrow content, misrepresentations, and lies.
The issues surrounding the corporate media monopoly directly address the problems within our society.
We hope that this work will enlighten even more people towards the dangers and injustices from the corporate media monopoly.
This film was made to inspire awareness, change, to support independent media, and help promote a free Internet.
The film is dedicated to Ben Bagdikian and his outstanding lifetime achievement in journalism, as well as journalists everywhere who follow his legacy.
This film attempts to present how a handful of corporations have come to control most of the information in the United States, creating a media monopoly that manipulates our political, economical, and social world.
Media’s extraordinary influence and power in the world forces us to ask ourselves serious questions about the world we live in.
Through the stories of journalists revealing truths about our society, we learn about how the media monopoly operates and affects our society. This film is dedicated to these journalists, heroes of our time, who give their lives and freedoms for our information. Presenting these voices that are not heard or given a platform is what Shadows of Liberty is about.
It is very important to this project to present news events from another perspective, that of the independent journalist.
Their work highlights the injustices of corporations and governments. Their stories illustrate how differently the mainstream media presents news events and their far reaching effects on society.
My hope is for more people to get a sense of how the corporate control of information in our democracy came to be. People everywhere respond and demonstrate against injustices, yet their voices are either not reported or taken into account.
This film attempts to inspire change and accountability by championing the idea of an independent media where truth and integrity are the norm, and not the exception.
Unjust wars are being fought, governments are imposing radical power, and the imbalance between the corporate and public welfare is greater than ever. The media monopoly and its role in our democracy is one of the most important and topical issues of our time.
“When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”—Thomas Paine
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”—Malcolm X
“The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control; ‘indoctrination,’ we might say, exercised through the mass media.”—Noam Chomsky
“We have to do more than keep media giants from growing larger; they're already too big. We need a new set of rules that will break these huge companies to pieces.”—Ted Turner
“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.”—Noam Chomsky
“The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There’s really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It’s not healthy.”—Ted Turner
Massive corporations dominate the U.S. media landscape. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. In many cases, these companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. In the interactive charts below we reveal who owns what.
Will the Internet remain free, or be controlled by a handful of powerful, monopolistic corporations?
The media crisis has been gaining momentum throughout the years, and is at the core of today's most troubling issues.
Shadows Of Liberty poses that crucial question:
Why have we let a handful of powerful corporations write the news? [source]The film provides the enough information for you to answer the question.
<<watch in full for a limited time >>
No comments:
Post a Comment