Search Results

Chapter 6 presents two cases of billionaires whose pursuit of wealth in the global economy has broader political consequences. It looks at how Charles and David Koch have tried to limit climate change mitigation in order to protect the fossil fuel–based business interests of their conglomerate Koch Industries. The Koch brothers spread climate change skepticism via the funding of think tanks and public advocacy, and they finance campaigns boosting politicians that oppose climate change mitigation. In Rupert Murdoch’s case, his News Corporation has been his main political resource. He has used the opinion-shaping power of his media empire to extract favors from politicians abroad, especially in the UK, but also in Australia, by offering support (or threatening hostility) during election times.

This chapter looks at films about public relations. It specifically investigates the ways in which cinema has represented the journalistic king-makers, and also the changing nature of media power in the age of the internet. Sweet Smell of Success is revered as a powerful and prescient exploration of the rising power of the journalist in democratic societies, and a warning against the abuse of that power. As in films about journalism, cinematic representations of public relations professionals often combine grime with glamour, and positive with negative images. As a film about journalism, Citizen Kane formulates both the normative liberal ideal. Rupert Murdoch may turn out to have been the last media baron. The structures of media power are being radically transformed, with uncertain consequences for democratic and authoritarian societies alike.

There is no more respected educational thinker than Joel Klein and no more visionary media mogul than Rupert Murdoch, but their collaboration to upend the failed educational status quo produced an incoherent business plan that cost News Corp. shareholders over $1 billion by the time the plug was pulled.

This chapter explores the institution of scandal by focusing on the phone-hacking affair in the United Kingdom, which seriously rattled Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in 2011. The chapter addresses two questions: What are the conditions that make scandals propagate? And what role do scandals play in societies in crisis, especially financial crisis? By drawing on Michel Foucault’s analysis of sexuality and sexual scandals in the Victorian age, the chapter underscores the stabilizing effects of scandals on existing power relations and gender hierarchies.

This study considers the position of the individual worker who engages in a strike or industrial action, described as one of the fundamental human liberties protected by international law. This chapter gives a background of the study by presenting an account of the strike at Wapping on 24 January 1984. The employers there responded to the strike by dismissing some 5,500 workers. The Wapping dispute clearly demonstrated the powerlessness of workers faced with an aggressive management determined to introduce change into the workplace. It highlighted a central weakness of British labour law where a strike or other forms of industrial action is a breach of contract by the workers involved.

This chapter describes media ownership and concentration in the United Kingdom. After summarizing the British media landscape, the chapter focuses on print media (newspapers, book publishing, magazine publishing), audiovisual media (radio, broadcast television, multichannel TV platforms, film), telecommunications media (wireline and wireless telecom), and Internet media (Internet Service Providers, search engines, online news market). A major concentration issue is Rupert Murdoch’s hold over various media properties. The public service BBC has been traditionally a powerful player in broadcasting, and has moved into digital and online services. Commercial operators have called for the government to curb BBC’s expansion efforts in the online market. The existing law is ineffective in preventing concentration and opened the door for more concentration and cross-ownership in the traditional industries like newspapers and broadcasting. In telecom, the major firms are BT and Vodafone. Cable TV is dominated by Liberty Global, while satellite TV is controlled by the Murdoch group. In print media, the major firms are Bertelsmann, Pearson, Bauer, Trinity Mirror, Daily Mail and General Trust, and The Guardian.

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies.