The Mass Media as Epidemic

I could have written this several weeks ago, but I held off, just in case I was wrong.

From the first inklings of news regarding the swine flu, which soon rose to a screeching hysteria in the apparatus that specializes in same, I knew one thing: The swine flu would go the way of previous medical worscarios, which is to say nowhere. But to understand why the overarching madness, one has to understand a few things about American "culture." (This word should always be in quotation marks when preceded by the word American.)

Among the many ways one can attempt to categorize the country, one way is to see it as a composite of several major power centers, with dozens of minor power centers elbowing among themselves to affect the major ones. Three of the large power conglomerates are government, the tv/cable newsmedia and the medical-industrial complex (which is spearheaded by the pharmaceutical companies).

The nature of these and the other beasts are to draw money, prestige and leverage to themselves, i.e., power. Such a situation as a potential pandemic plays right into the wheelhouse of all three. The more scared people can be made to feel about a deathly plague at their doorsteps, the more people will look to the government for direction, the media for constant updates, and big pharma for life-saving medicines.

When the dust clears and the threat is seen to have passed (as did the bird flu, SARS and the others), the government will be seen as having acted aggressively to protect the populace, and related agencies will have been given more employees and funding. The mass media will have received higher ratings, which translates to higher revenues. The pharmaceutical companies will have gotten huge contracts to manufacture vaccines. Whether these are used or not, big pharma is paid -- in this instance $1.5 billion so far.

And don't expect the Center for Disease Control to throw cold water on the threatuation. Aside from the fact that they're closely allied with the money-machine medical-industrial complex, whenever these hyped-up disease scares come along, they get to be media stars for several weeks, with interviews and press releases.

So no, America, just be about your business, and realize that in 2008 36,000 people died of the "regular" flu in your country, none of whom warranted a headline. Hyperventilated reports of, Oh My God!, dozens dead from the swine flu are not really much of a news story except for the sad fact that pumping it up as a big news story feeds the various beasts of prey who bestride the nation.