Who is Talking?
One of the defining characteristics of mass communication is that, unlike interpersonal communication in which one person speaks with another person, the person speaking in a mass communication situation is not speaking as an individual. In his news program, for example, Peter Jennings is speaking as a paid professional representative of a profit-making corporation. He is not speaking as an individual as he would be if, for example, he phoned an old personal friend to wish him a happy birthday.

We could say, then, that when we watch ABC’s Evening News, the who is the American Broadcasting Corporation. That would be a good start, but it is much more complicated.

One of the reasons it’s more complicated is that the American Broadcasting Corporation really doesn’t exist anymore. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Company and this could mean that when words come out of Jenning’s mouth the who which is speaking is Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO. And more, of course, because the Walt Disney Company is simply a corporation --  an economic and legal fiction -- and so the who which is speaking are its owners. Since there is no one owner, but rather stockholders with very little sense of what goes on at Disney on a daily basis (perhaps no idea at all, which is very likely the case), then the who which is speaking is more plausibly considered as a class of people consisting of current and potential stockholders.  [For an overview of media ownership, click here.]

And this, as may be obvious to you, leads in two different directions: Marxism, on the one hand, and Conspiracy Theories on the other.  Marxism is on the left hand.

It leads to Marxism because I have just suggested that the media represent a social class interest and so are very likely to present information in a context that is favorable to the social class that is being represented.  This will be discussed in a separate section on Marxism.

It leads to Conspiracy Theories because conspiracies are the "vulgar" version of Marxism. In conspiracy theories, social class interests are reified and anthropomorphized. Thus, in Vulgar Marxism it is not that the interests of the wealthy shape media content, but rather that rich people themselves shape the content, preferably over cigars and scotch on huge country estates.