Material and Immaterial Resistance: The Role of Collective Struggle in Media Reform

1978: Ratio of CEO to worker salary : Ratio of CEO to worker salary Wage Gap

Pay of top 100 CEO’s to average worker in early 1970s 39 : 1 Pay of top 100 CEO’s to average worker in : 1

New York Times  The U.P.S. story illustrates how, in the current economy, even a company where all executives once carried teamster union cards and still eat in the employee cafeteria can be torn apart. For U.P.S. is only one of the many companies that, saying that their customers would rebel at higher costs, have made this economic expansion one of the stingiest, least forgiving on record.

Newsweek  the strike will affect millions of Americans, even those who have never shipped a package or joined a local, for it goes to the heart of large national questions. Will wages finally begin to go up, as the Dow and productivity have risen?

Business Week  More important than the union victory is the way the Teamsters’ campaign captured what seems to be a new mood in America. For the first time in nearly two decades, the public sided with a union, even though its walkout caused major inconveniences. Polls showed the public supported the 185,000 striking workers by a 2-to-1 margin over management. The message: After a six year economic expansion that has created record corporate profits and vast wealth for investors, Americans are questioning why so many of their countrymen aren’t getting a bigger piece of the pie.

CNNfn  VARNEY (host): There is a strong feeling in the country at the moment, is there not, that capital has been well rewarded for 15 years; labor has taken second place in the pecking order, but now it's time for a reversal--and a justified reversal? That is the feeling in America, isn't it?  VALLIERE (guest): I think one of the--yes--I think one of the biggest surprises coming out of the strike is public opinion polls showing overwhelmingly the public supported the workers. They sure didn't support the baseball players, and they didn't support the air traffic controllers, but this was really different.

Mechanisms of Dominance  economic power wielded by media owners/corporate parents, the government, and advertisers who have the ability to censor media content.  practical constraints that flow from how news gathering practices are organized in a for-profit media system. To maximize profits the media industry has laid off reporters, slashed budgets for investigative reporting, and has thus become more dependent on free or cheap sources of information. These include corporate PR departments, government sources, and corporate-sponsored think tanks, which have enormous power to determine the content of the news.  ideological limitations of professional journalism and its reliance on official news sources, event-oriented reporting, and taken-for- granted storytelling mechanisms, which reinforce the status quo.

Dissent  there is disagreement among elites  the pressures of circulation or ratings force the media to reflect, in however distorted a manner, the problems faced by their consumer base  the credibility of the media is at stake  journalistic ethics contradict the interests of ruling groups