Monopoly Moneys : The media environment of corporatism and the player's way out

Abstract

This is a study of corporations and the monetary system on which they operate, conducted through the lens of media ecology. By treating corporations and currencies as media, we become capable of parsing the environments they create, as well as evaluating their biases and openness to broad participation. Our analysis reveals how corporatism became naturalized and accepted as the pre-existing condition of the social and business environment. To trace this process, we explore the legal and fiscal landscape as a media environment subject to the intervention of those with power to directly change the rules by which government and other players interact. We also uncover the way communications media were utilized both intentionally and in passive reaction to the changing landscape in order to perpetuate a worldview in which these interventions came to be perceived as natural phenomena or part of the human condition. Finally, we consider the advent of interactive technology as a potential game-changer, capable of opening access to both the rules through which the corporatist monopoly is maintained as well as the ways in which it is perceived.