MARY WHITEHOUSE ON CRACK

On commercial television, advertisers are key. The Parents' Television Council (PTC) is using this fact to clean up television.

This November Mediaweek reported that the PTC had succeeded in convincing Toyota to pull its adverts from the US programme Nip/Tuck.

For two years, the PTC has sent all companies who advertise on Nip/Tuck info-packs, trying to convincen them to boycott what it calls 'one of the most sexually explicit, profane and violent television programs in the history of American television'.[1]

In 2004 the PTC was responsible for over 99.8% of the 240,000 complaints about 'indecency' to the FCC, the US media regulator[2]. This impressive lobbying ability indicates that the PTC is not simply some pressure group made up of concerned parents. In fact, the PTC is an active part of the US conservative political machine, as a subsidiary of the 'Media Research Center (MRC), an organisation with a $6m budget and 60 staff. Funders of the PTC include the Castle Rock Foundation, set up by the founders of the Coors brewing corporation, and the Carthage Foundation, set up by the founders of Gulf Oil.[3] The aim of the MRC is to counter what they see as the 'strident liberal bias' in the US media.[4] The founder and president of the MRC and PTC is Brent Bozell, a lynchpin of the christian right, a former National Finance Chairman for Pat Buchannan in 1992, when the televangelist made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

WAR, GAMES

Who's going to save the world? The US army, with a little help from the entertainment industry. With the development of high tech communications the overlap between the entertainment industry and the military is becoming closer. And potential recruits can download 'America's Army', a game that introduces them to the world of army life, that was developed and promoted in parnership with a number of computer games companies, including Epic (developers of Unreal), GameSpy (which review games) and THX, a special effects division of Lucasfilms.[5] While the 'training ' that players of America's Army receive may only be training in using a mouse and keyboard, such skills are themselves now part of soldiering. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV): pilotless drones, are becming increasingly common in modern war. During the invasion of Afghanistan, UAVs made by Northropp Grumman were among the most used items[6], and in 2003, Northrop earned a record $11.1bn from US defence contracts.[7] The UAV 'Predator' is equiped with a Hellfire missile, and has been used to kill suspected terrorists in Iraq. However, the Predator can be controlled by a US army soldier thousdans of miles away, over a satellite link, making its use very much like firing a missile... in a video game.[8]

CASTING A WEB

Spiderman is helping The US to government to reach the, overwhelmingly young and male, audence of computer-game and comic book fans. These potential keyboard-warriors are being played to by specialist comic books as part of 'America Supports You', a programme designed to offer civilian and corporate backing for US troops. Marvel Comics is one of the corporate partners of this scheme, and printed a millon copies of special issue of 'The New Avengers', featuring the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and other Marvel characters. Other corporate partners of America Supports You include McDonalds and Wal-Mart as well as AT&T;, and entertainment events such as the GrandOleOpry, Indianapolis 500 and Professional Golf Association.

References
[1] www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001477909

[2] www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Parents_Television_Council

[3] www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Media_Research_Center

[4] www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Media_Research_Center

[5] www.americasarmy.com/army/partners.php

[6] www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n10arms.html

[7] http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1EEBDE26-37EE-4DEF-88DB-515D114A2132.htm

[8] www.airforce-technology.com/projects/predator/