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The corporate media realm expanded dramatically over the 1980s and 1990s and what had been separate companies dealing with say newspapers, or radio, or television, or film, or books were reworked as multimedia conglomerates. In commercial matters, one strand of the business could repeat and resell work from another strand with expressive consumption celebrated, arguably fine in the commercial consumer marketplace. However, cross-platform holdings also developed in the news arena and this was potentially disastrous in the realms of politics for media concentration and cross-platform holdings could allow companies to garner extensive influence over the realms of formal political life either through running a line in the media or suborning politicians with flattery, or offers of support or contrariwise threats. The era of neo-liberal excess enfolded within its moral envelope much of the media world. In the consumer realm, expressive consumption was celebrated, with critics of such practices routinely denigrated. Bullshit industries burgeoned and their messages were broadcast indiscriminately, variously addressed to all social groups: "because you"re worth it" justified an open-ended indulgent consumerism. In the news realm, where politics and media met, just as in the world of investment banking where operatives were enjoined to "eat what they killed", so in the realms of journalism. One simple characterization of the styles of the political media in this period would be to note its aggression: aggression in popular tabloids, aggression in popular television, aggression in films (and later the burgeoning games industry) and such aggression was turned towards unfavoured politicians or parties or ideas or countries or ordinary people.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137023834_9

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