Who are we?

Cut the Strings is an awareness campaign started by students at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. It began with the realization that most of the media outlets in our country are owned by six (6) major media conglomerates. While, upon first glance, this may not seem to too deviant from the norm in our country, we believed that this was the cause of several key problems in our society.

First is the issue of access to information. As a media dominated society, we form our opinions based on their media representation. This means that our primary sources of information are all mediated; our information comes from what we hear on the radio, watch on television, or read online or in newspapers. Those who seek to gain a fair and balanced view of current events may even go so far as to check multiple sources, but if these sources are all owned by the same company, how broad of a perspective can we really achieve? Whose voice is being heard and whose opinions are are being shared? Also, who is not being represented? Thus, our first assumption was that the current ownership patterns of media interfere with our ability to be truly well-informed citizens.

This led to another problem. As citizens of a democracy, it is our duty to hold our government accountable and to participate in government by voting. Our vote is our way of representing our own personal needs, beliefs, and opinions, and this vote is rooted in our perceptions of the issues that affect our lives. If our perception is limited because of the information we receive from the media, are we truly able to participate in government? Can we keep the government accountable to us as citizens?

The local community is also overlooked by these ownership patterns. As more and more of our local news becomes recycled between syndications, the issues that affect local communities lose representation to the stories that will gain a higher viewership, and more advertising revenue.

Media conglomerations are also bad for diversity. As these corporations are primarily owned by white, upper-class men, the voices of women and minorities become harder and harder to be heard. This means that their concerns and needs are also being overlooked and that the media does not truly represent the diversity in our country.

Finally, corporate media makes it increasingly difficult for independent artists to become successful. Stars are created rather than discovered, and in doing so our entertainment becomes more hemogenous and we lose sight of the creativity that once characterized us.

Recognizing all of this, we decided that it was time to let someone know about it. The purpose of our campaign is the spread the word, initially with fellow PSU students, about how the "Big Six" are affecting them and to provide sources of information so they can learn more as well as alternatives to the media choices they are bombarded with.

Cut the Strings of corporate media ownership.