This document provides a Marxist analysis of mass media in the United States using concepts from Arthur Asa Berger's work. It summarizes Berger's explanation of key Marxist concepts like materialism, alienation, and class conflict. It then analyzes how the mainstream media and political systems have consolidated power and manipulated the public through propaganda and unlimited political donations following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Alternative media voices that critique this ruling from a Marxist perspective are also discussed.

1. Running head: A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES
A Marxist Analysis of Mass Media in the United States:
Using Berger to Reframe Power Structures in the Mainstream
Derek Lough
University of San Francisco

2. A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES 1
Since the great financial collapse of 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession, a more in
depth look at the power structures as they relate to politics and the economy have become more
common throughout the United States. Though not necessarily named as such, Marxist analysis
of the media and American culture is becoming more widespread. News outlets, blogs, and mass
protests bring attention to many of the elements of a capitalist society that Marxism speaks out
against. In Media Analysis Techniques (2005), Arthur Asa Berger gives a rudimentary guide to
Marxist analysis for beginning media analysts including fundamental principles such as
materialism, advertising as a proponent of consumer culture, alienation, class conflict, and
cultural hegemony. The following pages will highlight these principles and give examples as to
how those in society are linking them to American culture in the media and my reflections on
how this analysis can be used to further the goals of humanity.
As Berger (2005) notes, it is important to recognize that one does not have to be a
communist or believe in the necessity of revolution and subsequent creation of a classless society
in order to be a Marxist, or a Marxist critic of media. Marxism is a coherently logical philosophy
that uses an overarching, all-encompassing argument to tie nearly every aspect of modern life
together. Erich Fromm, whose works Berger (2005) drew many insights from, argued that Marx
was, at his core, a humanist and that his arguments can be described as moral. Within a capitalist
society, Marx argues that there exist certain values which dehumanize and alienate people
stemming from our modern understanding of history, the way society organizes itself, and those
who actively seek to influence this organization in order to maximize their personal benefits. It is
this history of societal organization that Berger chooses to address first.

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In Marxism, the term materialism does not refer to the traditionally American institution
of desiring and possessing materials that money can buy; instead it “refers to a conception of
history and the way society organizes itself” (Berger, p. 44). Berger (2005) examines Marx’s
Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1964), giving a common
interpretation—one where the economic system affects the relationship between most everything
in a given society, including an individual’s ideas, how they interact with one another, and the
institutions they develop. Knowledge is a social construct, Berger (2005) argues via Marx, sifted
and refined through the minds and lived experiences of real men and women. He offers the
works of Friedrich Engel as an explanation on how ideas are passed from an economic
institution, a political philosophy, or religious organizations to the minds of human beings. Engel
(1972) writes, “all past history…was the history of class struggles; that these warring classes of
society are always the products of the modes of production and of exchange” (p. 621).
Oversimplifying Marxism can be troublesome, Berger (2005) argues, if one assumes that
the susperstructure, or the institutions and values in a given society, is automatically shaped by
the economic system (or base); there is a group of people with undue power influencing the
susperstructure as well. This group, referred to as the ruling class (or bourgeoisie), has the means
of material production under its control. Thus they are able to perpetuate intellectual ideas that
benefit themselves the most; those without the means of this mental production are instead
subject to it. This leads to one of the central arguments of Marxism: those which are considered
part of the masses (or proletariat) are being manipulated and exploited by the ruling class
(Berger, 2005). These exploitations are prevalent in American society, yet an escalating number
of people are becoming more aware.

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Many groups and individuals in society today try to expose this manipulation. I choose to
focus on two separate means of control the ruling class in the United States uses on the masses.
The first is mass media, particularly television channels that uses propaganda and fear to
misinform the public. The second is the
political and judicial systems, which have
been corrupted to allow undue monetary
influence on American society and law.
Berger (2005) presents evidence that the
mass media industrial complex has
consolidated power over the last few decades, with over 50 corporations owning the rights to
print, television, radio, and internet media in the 1980s to around a half dozen today. The chart
above shows some of the consolidation of power that has occurred during that time. One
example of how a mass media corporation actively works to
misinform the public is the publically traded News Corps’ Fox
News. Several studies have shown that viewers of Fox News are the
least informed consumers of news, even less informed than those
who do not consume the news at all (Fairleigh Dickinson University,
2011). As a publically traded corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the primary concerns of
Fox News is not with the public interest, but instead its interests are to generate profit and
perpetuate ideas that benefit Murdoch and those in his socio-
economic class. Although it is impossible to know which
individual generated this meme, the sixteen words in the
picture deconstruct Fox News into its strategy, core message,

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and the means by which they spread that message. This example is anonymous, but others have
attempted to publically expose the misinformation campaign Fox News has waged against
Americans, such as freelance writer Andy Daglas using Twitter to draw contrast between
Wikipedia and Fox News.
The second example the ruling class using mass media to manipulate and control the
American citizenry is the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC. In a 5-4 ruling, the
conservative majority used a small court case revolving around a group’s ability to air a political
video on television within a certain time frame leading up to a federal election as a tool to break
open federal restrictions on monetary donations to political advocacy groups. As a result, the
recent presidential election resulted in more money being funneled through the political system
than ever before, totaling over $6 billion—with some individuals giving upwards of $10 million
(NYT). Due to the Court’s decision to equate monetary donations with free speech, and thus
protected under the First Amendment, in real quantifiable terms, not everyone’s voice is equal.
This case and the subsequent avalanche of funds into the political system is an example of the
type of class conflict and ruling class manipulation that Berger (2005) discusses when explaining
Marxist analysis. He supplies a quote from the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre (1968/1984) who
argues that people living in a capitalist society are living in a state of terror. There can be no
better example than when the majority of the population lives in fear that their collective voice is
not enough to guarantee progress because of the unparalleled sums of money allowed to
influence a presidential election.
Building off of that argument, it is poignant to examine the Marxist concept of alienation,
which Berger (2005) explains is a form of false consciousness that results from the ruling class
bombarding the masses with its ideology. Fromm (1962) argues that alienation is a core principle

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of Marxism, “The majority of those involved in this debate…take a position that alienation and
the task of overcoming it is the center of Marx’s socialist humanism and the aim of socialism”
(p. 43). The 2012 form of these false consciousness (and thus alienation) was the unprecedented
number of negative advertisements that ran during the presidential election. Much like Fox
News, allowing the billions of dollars to transition into ideological messages sent through mass
media has worked to alienate citizens from each other and from their true thoughts. Others,
however, have utilized mass media to bring a critical analysis of this ruling to the people. Many
authors with a national audience have supported the constitutionality of the decision while others
have harshly criticized the opaque nature money could now enter the political system. Glen
Greenwald, one of the most popular bloggers on the internet, has cast a dark shadow on the
Court’s decision despite his support of the legal basis behind the constitutional argument that
won the case. In Marxist fashion, Greenwald (2010) effectively criticizes the “stranglehold
corporations exert on our democracy” as “one of the most serious and pressing threats we face”
but stands firmly behind the First Amendment when declaring that restricting political speech is
not a solution. Lawrence Lessig (2010), a Huffington Post author and co-founder of Change
Congress, counters Greenwald’s argument with the 1991 Supreme Court case Rust v. Sullivan,
where then Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in the opinion that there was no violation of the First
Amendment for the state to suppress the opinions of doctors concerning abortion, when they
worked in practices that received government funds. However, there is no entity that receives
more government funds and tax-breaks than corporations in the United States. Though not
directly related to campaign finance law, the example provides a Marxist context into the
selectivity that represents the masking of repression and subjugation of the American
electorate—99% of which belong to the proletariat.

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The third example that exemplifies the struggles of the masses against those of the ruling
class, and how mainstream mass media was initially able to detract focus from the true scope of
the proletariat’s frustrations was the Occupy Movement. The first true American attempt at a
social movement since the fight for racial equality in the 1960s can aptly be described in Marxist
analysis terms. It was a proletariat struggle against economic policies (representing class
conflict) that has benefited the bourgeoisie unabashedly since the 1980s and the resulting
alienation the masses felt due to an escalating emphasis on individualism perpetuated by
advertising leading to a cultural hegemony of consumer lust. In an interview with Paul Jay,
Senior Editor of The Real News Network, Vijay Prashad, Professor of International Studies at
Trinity College and author of We Are Many (a book about the Occupy Movement) provides an
astute analysis of the impact of the Occupy Movement at its one year anniversary that is worth
including nearly in full:
[T]he most important, maybe, if I was to say, two or three things that Occupy
accomplished, one, it brought to the fore issues that activists and organizers, those who
build power in communities, have been working on for years. You know. So no longer
could, you know, maybe, localities deny the existence of certain issues in a very
pronounced way.
Secondly, by using that very simple slogan of the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the
Occupy dynamic was able to raise questions of inequality. You know, in the United
States, or actually around the world, the question that is often put before people is issues
of poverty. Poverty is quite different than inequality. When you talk about poverty, the
reaction could be charity. You know, one feels bad for the poor, you want to have some

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soup kitchens, etc. But inequality doesn't really always give you the sense that the answer
is charity, because inequality tells you that whether some people are getting fabulously
wealthy, others are getting poorer and poorer or are being left behind, and inequality then
is the relationship between rich and poor. So it was to Occupy's credit that rather than just
raise the standard of there is poverty in America, they raised the standard of there is
inequality in America and the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is grotesque.
The third, I think, important thing that Occupy raised for many, many people who
participated in it was that people had become, I think, in a sense frustrated, but also
inured to the idea that we lead serial lives, parallel lives. You know, we wake up in our
houses, we watch a little bit of TV, get into our cars, go to work, sit in cubicles or sit in,
you know, offices, eat lunch at the office, perhaps, then return in the car to our homes,
three or four hours of television, you know, again, a private kind of leisure activity. So
our lives have become increasingly privatized, increasingly serial.
And I think what Occupy allowed many young people, older people as well, to really
enjoy was the sense of community, was the sense of the general assemblies, of putting
things together, you know, putting maybe a housing development together, you know,
planning the Occupy site together, figuring out food. This community activity, I think,
was quite profound for a lot of people, particularly these secular people who have begun
to lead very serial lives. So for year one of Occupy, I think these are some pretty
significant advances.
Though never explicitly referencing Marx, Marxist analysis of Prashad’s interview reveals many
of the same arguments used above.

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Further Marxist analysis can be used to deconstruct the mainstream mass media’s
reporting of the Occupy Movement. After five days Occupy Wall St. began, there was virtual
silence on the subject in the mainstream media—except for one man on Current TV, Keith
Olbermann. He readily questioned his colleagues in the media for not covering the phenomenon,
ostentatiously declaring, “Why isn't any major news outlet covering this? If that's a Tea Party
protest in front of Wall Street about Ben Bernanke putting stimulus funds into it, it's the lead
story on every network newscast” (Randall, 2011). According to Marxist analysis, the reason that
no other major networks began discussing the Occupy Movement until responding to Obermann
is that it was not in their interests to do so. The mainstream mass media profits by perpetuating
the cultural hegemony that defines them. As Berger (2005) argues, mass media carries an
ideology that manipulates and indoctrinates people with certain views, shaping “people’s very
ideas of themselves and the world; they shape people’s worldviews” (p. 62). News programs are
beholden to ratings, which in turn decide which type of advertisements are used during those
time slots, making up the vast majority of revenue for the news programs. Why would the
mainstream media want to report on a campaign against inequity that targeting the power
structures that reinforce the power of the mass media (Schiffman, 2011)?
However, as professionals with a degree of professional responsibility, many news
outlets felt the need to respond to Obermann with reasons as to why they were not covering the
protests. Some, like The Boston Globe’s Joanna Weiss cited math as the reason for non-
coverage, “organizers first declared that they would draw 20,000 protesters, but only 1,000
showed up. That's not a media conspiracy. It's math.” Others built on that argument, such as
Gordon Crovitz at The Wall Street Journal, writing in his weekly column, “The protests last
week were a bust," he wrote, "but perhaps the young protesters learned a lesson: Just because it's

10. A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES 9
on social media doesn't make it true.” Crovitz might have had a point when he wrote that in
September 2011, if he completely ignores the use of social media as an organizing tool in the
Arab Spring, but that statement does not hold true for the Occupy Movement anymore. Some
news outlets outside of the United States, such as Joanna Walters (2011) reporting for The
Guardian brought light to the “swelling wave of civil dissent” that began in the first week of
October 2011, explaining that protests by the proletariat had reached 70 major US cities and
more than 600 communities nationwide. By late October, tens of thousands of protestors in
Oakland, California gathered in the city center all day before marching on the fifth largest port in
the United States, effectively shutting down its operations by early evening (Wollan, 2011).
However, even those reports in The New York Times failed to reflect the true number of people
peacefully protesting. On October 15th
, “a global ‘Day of Rage’ was observed, and
demonstrations took place in more than 80 countries around the world” in support of the Occupy
Movement (Taylor, 2011). As Prashad (2012) mentioned in the interview quoted above, this was
a direct rebuttal of the alienation millions of people feel around the world, a chance to form
human connections while battling the power structure benefiting the bourgeoisie.
The Marxist Analysis techniques outlined by Arthur Asa Berger in his Media Analysis
Techniques (2005) give the reader a rudimentary explanation of Marxist concepts such as
materialism, advertising as a proponent of consumer culture, alienation, class conflict, and
cultural hegemony. These fundamental principles Marxism are meant to explain the power
structure and tactics that the masses must contend with against those who seek to subvert their
consciousness for their own benefit. In this essay, I have focuses on the use of the mass media by
the bourgeoisie to stifle dissent and persuade the proletariat through spreading misinformation,
inequitable laws and policies, and the diversion from national protests as a source of truth. If one

11. A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF MASS MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES 10
is willing to objectively analyze the mainstream media, which sources of information they supply
and the presentation of those ‘facts’, then one can utilize Marxist Analysis to gain a better
understanding of the world we live in.

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References
Crovitz, G. (2011, September 26). Social Media March on Wall St. The Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved from
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576588732138803702.html.
Fairleigh Dickinson University. Some News Leaves People Knowing Less. [PublicMind
Poll] http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/final.pdf.
Fox News Meme. (2012). [Rich People Paying Rich People To Tell The Middle Class To
Blame The Poor]. Retrieved from http://weknowmemes.com/2012/02/fox-news-rich-people-
paying-rich-people-to-tell-the-middle-class-to-blame-the-poor/.
Greenwald, G. (2010, January 22). What the Supreme Court got right: It’s best for the
government to stay out of the business of restricting political advocacy. Salon. Retrieved from
http://www.salon.com/2010/01/22/citizens_united/.
Daglas, Andy. (2012). [Twitter Meme Comparing Fox News & Wikipedia] Retrieved
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Jay, P. (Interviewer) & Prashad, V. (Interviewee). (2012, September 24). Retrieved from
http://truth-out.org/video/item/11744-taking-stock-of-the-occupy-movement.
Lessig, L. (2010, January 27). The Principled and Pure Court? A Reply to Glenn
Greenwald. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-
lessig/a-principled-and-pure-fir_b_439082.html.

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Media Consolidation. (2011). [Chart illustration the consolidation of media
conglomerates]. Retrieved from http://kytoh.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/media-consolidation-
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Taylor, A. (2011, October 17). Occupy Wall Street Spreads Worldwide. The Atlantic.
Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-spreads-
worldwide/100171/.
Schiffman, R. (2011, December 6). Occupy the Mainstream Media: Why the
Movement’s Next Target Should Be the Press. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-schiffman/occupy-the-mainstream-
media_b_1121360.html.
Weiss, J. (2011, September 26). The Right Way to Get Heard. The Boston Globe.
Retrieved from http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/09/26/the-right-way-get-
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