Book Review: Media Capitalism: Hegemony in the Age of Mass Deception by Thomas Klikauer

This is an interesting book that emphasizes the nexus between media and capitalism. The book highlights ‘the most powerful force today’ that is public relations, and it is argued that ‘public relations serves a propaganda function [and hence has been described as] the latrine of parasitic misinformation’. Thomas Klikauer maintains that, without hesitation, people who comply with capitalism are largely encouraged by two forces: consumerism (marketing) and the manipulative power of corporate media. The book provides a generic outline of media capitalism, reaching beyond the confinements of critical media studies and the political economy of the media. It argues that media depends on capitalism as much as capitalism depends on Media. Media Capitalism (MC) combines three ingredients: consumerism (C), media (M) and Ideology (I) which is MC = MCI². MC has largely eliminated social processes, turning human beings into hyper-consumers, conditioning individuals from human beings into human resources and production of ever-more sophisticated forms of ideologies.

The book argues that MC covers four domains of society: Education, Consumerism, Work and Democracy. There is a symbiosis between media capitalism with Education, Consumerism, Work and Democracy. Klikauer highlights how media capitalism and educational corporations manufacture textbooks; this allows private schools, colleges and universities to create compliant consumers and trained workers.

The book contains 10 beautifully written chapters with an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 introduces the idea of MC and also highlights key parameters of the book such as capitalism, consumerism, the public sphere, advertising, propaganda, public relations and spin.

Chapter 2, History: Of Media Capitalism, reflects on the history of media capitalism from early tribes, slavery, feudalism to modern capitalism. It also focuses on capitalism’s role during the media’s two key transitions, the first transition which converted the public sphere into a commercial sphere, and second transition which converted commercial sphere into an ideological sphere. It also discusses the economic trajectory of media capitalism from early liberal capitalism to welfare capitalism and consumerism and finally to media capitalism.

Chapter 3, Media Capitalism and Public sphere, scrutinizes the role of the public sphere from a media standpoint rather than capitalism’s standpoint. It focuses on how the public sphere transitioned from a relatively free exchange sphere for ideas towards becoming a commercial sphere for the exchange of goods (marketing) and later, under media capitalism, a sphere that combines Public Relations with ideology. It argues that today, media capitalism simply uses its occupied sphere as a non-democratic exchange platform to broadcast its ideologies. Media capitalism has created a form of self-affirmation. Its interest symbiosis between ideological affirmation and marketing binds individuals to media capitalism. Media capitalism has created ideologically supportive consumers, employees and voters.

Chapter 4, Media Capitalism and Schools, highlights how the media capitalism is shaping children’s understanding of school and society. It also analyses how media capitalism impacts the process of schooling and education. It argues how corporate media shapes our views about the idea of schools. It further argues how formal education schools are perceived as indoctrination centres where students are trained rather than educated.

Chapter 5, Media Capitalism and Universities, elucidates the transition of universities from 19th-century elite universities to 20th-century mass universities and ultimately 21st-century ideological universities. Ideological universities combine the 20th century’s mass universities with the 19th-century user-pay system. As a result, a relatively large population of university attendees are able to reproduce itself as second- and third-generation university graduates carrying pro-capitalist ideologies. It shows how ideological education formats the minds of children through ideological schooling and young adults through ideological universities.

Chapter 6, The Society of Media Capitalism, shows how corporate media has converted individuals into formatted mass consumers and carriers of ideology. Manipulative marketing psychology is applied to achieve the ideological sustaining of media capitalism. Instead of reflecting on morality, individuals carry media capitalism’s ideological attitudes and behave supportively towards education, management, consumerism and democracy. This has been achieved through internalizing media capitalism’s ideology.

Chapter 7, Human Behaviour and Media Capitalism, focuses on how media capitalism’s global marketing/ public relations behemoth uses sophisticated psychological methods to create diligent consumers, diligent societal members and diligent voters. Media capitalism removes true human experiences derived from human contact and re-packages them into product placement, toy selling and advertisements. It also highlights behaviourism’s triple-trap that encircles individuals by engineering no choice other than supporting a structure that engages them before, during and after purchasing and voting.

Chapter 8, Media Capitalism and World of Work, argues media capitalism skilfully creates the work–consumerism–capitalism connection. The successful elimination of democracy from the important work domain marks one of capitalism’s enduring ideological triumphs. Chapter argues individual identity has become a corporate number and an ideology indicating sign.

Chapter 9, Democracy Under Media Capitalism, asserts that while democracy has been eliminated from education, schools, universities, work and consumption, people are continuously made to believe that they live in a democracy. Even in democracy’s own sphere, the democratic process is reduced to a media spectacle that is ritualistically performed by box-ticking. In people’s daily lives, it is not democracy but managerial regimes, consumption and the media’s ideological hegemony that secures media capitalism.

In conclusion, Towards a Theory of Media Capitalism, Klikauer delineates a possible emancipatory theory set against media capitalism by showing potentials for a move beyond media capitalism. Unlike many of its noteworthy predecessors, media capitalism has internalized the media as a key part of its own structure. Media and capitalism can no longer be thought of as separate entities. The media ↔ capitalism interface, or perhaps even merger, depends on an integrated media apparatus.

This book is quite captivating and can be used as a reference book for scholars of Media Studies and Social Sciences.