There
is no denying it, unless you are like Patrick Star from Sponge-bob Square-pants
and live under a rock, we are a consumerist country. On one end of the spectrum
of consumerism there is of course us, the consumer. On the other are the
corporations that provide the products and services we consume. But
Corporations do much more than provide products and services. Stan Deetz,
professor at University of Colorado at Boulder, explains this in his critical
theory of communication in organizations. This theory began as an interpersonal
perspective (critical theory) and was molded and moved to be used on a bigger scale
of communications in organizations. This theory essentially states that
corporations have control over employees, media, governments, and society.
For the purpose of this blog entry I will be going into more detail about the
theory, explaining aspects such as corporate colonization, managerial control,
consent, systematic distorted communication and discursive closure. I will
conclude by discussing potential solutions that Deetz identifies. Of course, as
this is a sports blog, I will be relating the role of corporations not only to
our daily lives, but how they impact sports as well.
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| This is a web of corporate control |
Firstly,
let’s define the evil word of corporation. A corporation according to
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is, “A company or group of people authorized to
act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law”. This
can be a business, company, organization, agency, etc. As aforementioned
this theory looks at how corporations hold almost all the power over their
employees, the media, government, and society in general. If we look at this in
terms of sports we can see examples with the big corporate giants of ESPN
(owned by ABC). ESPN controls its employees, what sporting events are aired
(media), government (recent influence in performance enhancing drug scandal),
and society (determining sports trends in society). One important aspect of
this theory is that it is a critical theory. This means that it seeks
to confront social, historical, and ideological structures that cause
constraints. This relates to the main problem caused by corporations, and
that is the unfair balance of power they have. Organizations are also typically
undemocratic in power and decision making procedures. Critical theory of
communication in organizations seeks to confront the issue of organizational/corporate
power imbalance. A personal example of this power imbalance occurs almost daily
with ESPN and me. I am a huge Portland Trailblazer’s fan. They are currently
15-3 which is the best record in their conference, but they are never on
national television because the corporation has decided their games are not
that important. So if I want to watch them, I have to buy a special package
they provide just to see them play. This is an example of an unfair power
balance where I am a slave to what the corporation wants.
Another
key aspect of the theory is corporate colonization. Corporate colonization is the
idea that capitalist ideals and values have permeated their way into society
which has resulted in big corporations being the dominant force in society. We
see examples of corporate colonization in many aspects of life, especially in
sports. Michael Lavalette provides a prime example of this in his book “Capitalism
and Sports”. The example he provides is the sport of cycling as a capitalist
product. Bicycles were a product picked up by business men sold in an industry,
in turn the sport of cycling was created to promote the product of that
industry. Then bicycle and bicycle equipment manufactures sponsored races such
as the tour de France. They then involve to media to cover these events which ultimately
promote their product. So when we are watching sports we may think we are
simply watching an entertaining event but we don’t realize is the capitalistic
premise behind the whole event. This logic can be applied to any sporting event
we watch from Nascar with the Pepsi 500, to the Super Bowl (brought to you by
Coke Zero). I've attached a video that exemplifies the relationships between sports, corporations and the media I have been discussing.
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| Example of the Pepsi corporation sponsoring a sporting event |
Some people
would argue that this is how society should be, that capitalism is a necessity.
One of the negatives of this system is what Deetz calls managerial control. Managerial
control excludes the voices of many people who are affected by decisions. This
is essentially the idea of top down decision making. We can relate
this back to sports in my example of viewing. Sports fans are those affected by
which programs and games are aired on national television. But those making the
decisions at the top or who have managerial control are often worried more
about the bottom line than those the decision affects. For example on Monday
evening the Blazers who were 14-3 were playing the Pacers who were 16-1. These
were the best two teams in the NBA and the game wasn’t nationally televised
because it would be competing with Monday Night Football. Instead the NBA
decided to leave its usual national TV off air. Decisions like this are
constantly occurring in sports and affecting the everyday fan. This problem is
more of a systematic problem rather than individual managers. Individual
managers are often only following orders from the system or those above them in
order to keep their jobs. For example we can call the cable company and explain
about not enough blazer games being aired, but if the NBA or Corporate bosses
don’t want more aired there is nothing they can do.
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| A picture here of NBA corporate heads |
Quickly,
a few other key terms we should at least address before going into possible
solutions to these problems are consent, systematic distorted communication,
and discursive closure.
Consent is
why managerial control exists. It is the employees or societies willingness to
participate in undemocratic processes that perpetuate a system of corporate
control. We are often unaware of this process.
Systematic
distorted communication looks at language and processes of society in a way
that only certain options are viable. It says the status quo is legitimate as
is hierarchy. It ignores other options of decision making such as lower level
employees being involved.
Discursive
closure then is a method of systematic distorted communication and centers
around the suppression of any opposition to the system. This will often involve
ignoring or disqualifying certain employees or people speaking or making
decisions.
Now
that I have been on negative over-haul let’s look at a few potential solutions
that Deetz proposes. Deetz states that we need initiate change through involvement
and integration into democratic processes. For a sporting event this may be voting on which game is
aired for example on espn.com. He says we need to encourage participation and
decision making at all levels of the corporation. This is a great
idea as often those lower-level employees may connect with more of the average viewer
who is not only focused on the bottom line. Although these are great ideas they
are simply not realistic until we as a society have an ideological shift. As of
now profit, money, and the bottom line are what is most important and until we
change this I don’t foresee a change in how corporations communicate or operate
happening. I will try to not end on such a dark note, so remember these points
when you are a big shot corporate leader, and get everyone involved in decision
making. On that note I will end. Until next time!
Stay
cool,
Zach
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