56

The image "Who controls your mind? 2013" below claims that a very large proportion of the US media companies have Presidents, CEOs, Founders, Owners, Vice Presidents and Chairs that are Jewish.

It can be found on many antisemitic sites such as Stormfront Forums, WatchDogWire, and White Man March. [Note: These links are NSFW, and contain material that may be disturbing.]

Is it accurate and representative? Is it true that American media is mostly (i.e. more than 50%) controlled by people of Jewish origin?

Who controls your mind

Oddthinking
  • 140,378
  • 46
  • 548
  • 638
valodzka
  • 1,305
  • 1
  • 12
  • 15
  • 15
    I don't really understand the categorization there. Why would you pull together color of skin, religion and sexual attitude (aside from a stale attempt to racism)? Why not adding "people who have a dog" in there? – nico Mar 23 '14 at 09:08
  • 40
    @nico, it's not Gay, it's [Goy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goy), as in "non Jew". And the reason they put Religion and skin color, is because they are racist A-Holes. Also, they regard Jews as a separate race. – SIMEL Mar 23 '14 at 09:28
  • 7
    @IlyaMelamed I mis-read it as "Gay" as well! Thanks for pointing that out. – Andrew Grimm Mar 23 '14 at 10:55
  • 3
    @IlyaMelamed: ok, now it makes slightly more sense, in a disturbing way. – nico Mar 23 '14 at 11:46
  • 3
    When I saw all the red and blue, I thought it was reflecting the political spectrum (liberal/conservative/neutral). At least that would have been interesting. Even if this chart were both complete and accurate, and it's pretty clear that it's not, are we supposed to infer some kind of bias or agenda here? Does Mark Zuckerberg have the same beliefs as Larry Kramer? We're talking about *genetics* here, which means that in terms of the media's impact on society the categorization of "Jew/Goy/Nonwhite" is about as useful as "left handed/right handed/ambidextrous". – Aaronaught Mar 23 '14 at 15:38
  • 1
    Define "Control". Sometimes I watch "the Smurfs".. but I don't think that the Smurfs are "*controlling*" my mind. – RBarryYoung Mar 23 '14 at 18:46
  • @RBarryYoung In question by "control" I mean only that key people (president, CEO, owner and so on) are jews, not broad term "control minds". – valodzka Mar 23 '14 at 21:02
  • Cleaned up heated discussion. If you want to discuss whether repeating such claims in an attempt to subject them to scrutiny is appropriate, please join the [meta-discussion on this question](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2694/anti-semitic-question-in-hot-questions-list). – Oddthinking Mar 25 '14 at 00:46
  • 7
    The Gay/Goy thing is weird - pretty much only Jews would *understand* that phrase. Makes me think this list could have possibly been written *by* a Jew (as a sort of "look how awesome this is") and picked up by other groups for a different agenda – Jamiec Mar 25 '14 at 12:28
  • 10
    @Jamiec - nope. Using "goy" word as a slur against "Jews setting themselves apart" is typical of antisemitic discourse; from my experience. – user5341 Apr 02 '14 at 02:27
  • 1
    This kind of correlation can also be the *result* of anti-semitism. If Jews (or any other ethnic group) find it difficult to get jobs in some industries they will naturally gravitate to others where they are allowed to succeed. Starting your own business is a common solution, and back in the (strongly anti-semitic) 20s when cinema was just starting nobody thought it important, so naturally a high proportion of cinema start-ups were Jewish. So now the racists complain about a situation they created. – Paul Johnson Mar 17 '21 at 10:56
  • I'm glad we allowed this question. It seems sometimes that questions dealing with Jews get closed or censored for being insensitive when a good clear answer could clear up any hate, as was done so well in this Q&A. – Jimmy G. Feb 17 '23 at 17:32

2 Answers2

86

The methodology of the supposed table is wrong.

The table cherry picks its data points.

The table has factual errors.

At first, we need to address the main question, "Do Jews control American Media?". This is a problematic statement, as it's conspiratorial by nature. The problem with such claims is, as Larian LeQuella put in his answer on Can HAARP affect weather or earthquakes?:

The "beauty" of a conspiracy theory is that no matter what evidence is presented, there is a "talk around" for the believer. No matter what answer is given, they will have a more conspiratorial rebuttal for that.

The table tries to "prove" the claim that the American media is controlled by Jews by showing the supposed large number of Jewish executives in media companies. Before we go over the factual errors and the misrepresentation, we need to address the faulty logic behind this attempt at proof. The table shows us the executives of the companies, while executives have power over the content generated by their company, it is arguably lesser than the influence held by people actually creating the content itself - the writers, reporters, directors, actors, producers, editors and other people involved with the creative process. The table doesn't try to explain why does the Steven Spielberg, as the founder of Dreamworks animation, has more influence on the American media and culture than Steven Spielberg, as the director who won two Oscars on WWII films, one depicting the life of a German businessman who saved Jews during the Holocaust, and one depicting the exploits of a squad of American soldiers looking for another soldier on the western front of WWII.

The table also puts Vice Presidents of a company as having the same influence as CEOs, Presidents and Chairpersons of the board, which is not true for all VPs. One example is the Associated Press; their site, shows they have eight VPs. Of those, the author of the table chose to put Jessica Bruce, the director of HR, and Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor. Surely the head of HR doesn't have the same influence as the executive editor. Moreover the VPs who control the financial aspects didn't made the list. Surely if a CEO controls content because they control the money, the Chief Financial Officer of AP should make the list of influential figures together with (if not instead of) the head of HR. AP is not the only company with more executives that the table claims. NBC entertainment has 28 executives listed on their site. Google has 6 executive officers and another 7 senior leaders. The same goes to Fox News, The New York Times and many others.

The table includes the founders of a company, many of whom - like Walt Disney, Carl Laemmle, Albert Warner and others - have been dead for decades, and could no longer have direct influence on the American media and culture.

The table doesn't differentiate between media that generates independent content and media which is merely a platform for user generated content. For example, the News channels and film companies create their own content, while the content that appears on Facebook, Google and YouTube is not generated by the owners or employees but by the users. Nine of the ten most subscribed YouTube channels by days are operated by private non-Jewish people, and one is the official channel of YouTube.

It also doesn't differentiate between demographics. Disney appeals to younger demographic than News companies. The demographic a company appeals to can be very influential on its effect on the media as the susceptibility of people changes with age.

It is misrepresentative as there are many people who appear several times in the table, people like Mark Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch, Marissa Mayer and others. So a person like Mark Zuckerberg, who is the President, CEO, Founder, owner and chairman of Facebook appears more times on the table than the President and CEO of a major news network (Roger Ailes from Fox News).

The table is cherry-pickeded. Not every company has been put on the table. e.g. Facebook is on, but not Instagram, Twitter and other social platforms. The table includes MTV but not VH1, Marvel but not DC comics. I'm sure that there are other major media companies which are absent from the table.

The question of whether a person is Jewish or not can be complicated, as there is a duality of religion and nationality. According to Jewish religious law, everyone who is born to a Jewish mother is a Jew. The only other way to become a Jew is through a conversion process. But once a person is a Jew (whether by birth or otherwise), in the eyes of the religious law that person will always stay a Jew, even if they convert to another religion. A person born to a Jewish father and a non Jewish mother is, at the eyes of the religious law and tradition, isn't a Jew.

Many people are atheist, but see their Jewish heritage as a cultural heritage, in a way familiar to Americans with Irish, German, Italian and other ancestors in the USA. A good example for this is Jon Stewart, who isn't a religious person, yet on his show he constantly talks about his Jewish heritage, about the Jewish traditions and identifies with Jewish stereotypes.

Finally, for the sake of this answer we must accept the criteria that is put by the claim. The claim is made by a racist society that tries to convince us that there is a Jewish conspiracy to take over the media/banks/world. They are not very interested in the religious and cultural identity of each individual, so for the sake of this answer, I take the broadest definition possible: who ever has Jewish ancestry from either side of their family or is a converted Jew. So under this definition, everyone who is a Jew according to the Jewish religion is counted, as well as whoever has Jewish ancestry only from their father's side. It will include atheist and non practicing Jews, as well as Jews who converted to another religion (if there are any who are relevant). This is a very broad definition and it will also include people like Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx. If there are any people who were Jews but latter converted, I'll note that.

More on who is a Jew can be read in the Wikipedia article, and on other sources online (The Economist, JewFAQ.com...).

Some of the sources for showing that a person is not Jewish, are racist blogs with no sources. This is only used when no other better sources are found, and under the assumption that a racist blog will not let a Jew or even a suspected Jew to "escape".

This is still a work in progress, as going over all the names takes time.

From now on the specific claims of the table will be checked, I only check the ethnicity of the people mentioned, not whether they hold the position claimed in the table.

People in the table, and whether they are in fact Jewish:

Incorrect

  • Deb Finan - Jew in table but not really Jewish, source: racist blog
  • Phil Griffin - Jew in table, but not really Jewish, only married to one. source: racist blog
  • Marissa Mayer - Jew in table but not really Jewish. source: Wikipedia
  • Steve Jobs - Jew in table but not really Jewish. source: Wikipedia
  • Eric Schmidt - Not a Jew in reality. source: theAlgemeiner.com, but appears in the table several times, and in one of the times (as the chairman of CNN) he appears as a Jew, while in all other he isn't.
  • Arianna Huffington - Not a Jew in reality. source: Wikipedia but appears in the table several times, and in one of the times (as the co-founder of Huff post) she appears as a Jew, while in all other he isn't.

Correct

  • Vivian Schiller - Jew in Table and reality. source: Tabletmag.com
  • Mark Zuckerberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Larry Page - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Sergey Brin - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Jeffrey Katzenberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Steven Spielberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • David Geffen - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Rupert Murdoch - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Hutch Parker - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: racist blog
  • Ronald Meyer - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Thomas Rothman - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • William Fox - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Joseph Schenck - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • James Schamus - Jew in Table and reality. sources: some blog and The New York Times
  • Carl Laemmle - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Ted Turner - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Leslie Moonves - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Dana Walden - Jew in Table and reality. source: abbanibi.com
  • Sheryl Sandberg - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Nikesh Arora - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: racist blog
  • Robert Iger - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Sumner Redstone (Rothstein) - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Roger Ailes - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: TheJewishWeek.com
  • Brian Lewis - Not a Jew in the table, I couldn't find any confirmation of his religion or ethnicity, but since the table puts his as a non-Jew, I'm applying the "racist blog" rule here and accept this with the disputed claim as the source.
  • Stacey Snider - Jew in Table and reality. source: Jewish Women's Archive
  • The Warner Brothers - Jews in the Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Paul Reuter - Jew in Table and reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Wikipedia
  • Henry Longfellow - Not a Jew in the table and in reality. source: Unitarian Church of Quincy

Undetermined

  • Kathy Keller-Brown - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way.
  • Patricia Fili-Krushel - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way. She did chair an event of the UJA-Federation of New York.
  • Tom Rogers - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way.
  • John Nicol - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way.
  • alvy ray smith - Jew in table, couldn't verify either way.
  • Lew Coleman - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way.
  • Adam Fogelson - Jew in Table, couldn't verify ether way. His last name is Jewish
  • Jennifer Salke - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way.
  • Robert Merrick - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way.
  • John Lasseter - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way.
  • Holly Bario - Jew in table, couldn't verify ether way.

The table also puts NBC Universal as the owner of MSNBC, Time Warner as the owner of HBO and The Woodbridge Company as the owners of Reuters, and puts them as half jewish and half not. It also puts Hearst Corporation as the owner of Cosmopolitan and puts it as non Jew. Corporations don't have religion, race or ethnicity.

Community
  • 1
SIMEL
  • 29,037
  • 14
  • 123
  • 139
  • 2
    The concept of Jewishness is an ill-defined blurring of religious belief, ethnicity and culture, making the question largely impossible to answer unless you accept self-identification as the rule. Mark Zuckerberg, as my first random example to spot-check, [identifies as an atheist](http://hollowverse.com/mark-zuckerberg/). – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 12:44
  • 1
    @Oddthinking, but he is of Jewish descent, and as such is defined as a Jew by many, not only racist. There is a duality of nationality and religion with Judaism, and so, when I check for "Jewishness" I take the broader definition of ether. I'll add this information in the next edit. – SIMEL Mar 23 '14 at 12:53
  • 7
    People who were raised without religion (e.g. Larry Page) or identify with another major religion should on a site like this not be considered jewish. I am aware that technically this is a complex subject, but nearly everyone visiting this site or looking at the table in the Q will think of jews as followers of Judaism. – David Mulder Mar 23 '14 at 13:15
  • 10
    If the paranoid motivation behind the chart is that some cabal of religious extremists are controlling the media to affect what you hear, then surely the issue is not their genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs Disease, or whether they enjoy lox bagels, but what their religious beliefs are. Hence, someone renouncing an Abrahamic God is the most important factor (assuming they are being honest, which adds another level of meaninglessness to the question.) – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 13:26
  • 3
    @Oddthinking, John Stewart is not a religious person, yet on his show he constantly talks about his Jewish heritage. Judaism can be expressed by a person in several ways, for some it's a religious identity, for some it's only a cultural heritage, in a way similar to people of Irish or Italian decent in America. Larry Page maybe an atheist, but he can't deny the fact that he is of Jewish decent, he can't decide "No, my grandparent didn't speak Yiddish", since we are talking here about a conspiratorial racist claim, and not a poll of religious views, both definitions should be counted. – SIMEL Mar 23 '14 at 13:40
  • 11
    So poor Page and Zuckerberg are forced to conspire against the American people for a cause they don't believe in because their genes force them to? I think our mistake here is to accept the premise that the claim even makes sense as it stands, and try to fight in the mud with the racists. – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 13:45
  • 12
    @Oddthinking, yes, we are. We poor god hating Jews aren't differentiated from the god loving Jews by the racists. And we don't even get invited to the take over the world meetings. – SIMEL Mar 23 '14 at 13:51
  • 2
    @DavidMulder : Arguing against straw man is not what this website is about. If you want to check at what Joe Smith is saying is true, than it makes sense to use Joe Smiths definitions of the terms. | Orthodox Jewish people themselves also see being Jewish as something that inherited from the mother ( http://www.economist.com/news/international/21593507-competing-answers-increasingly-pressing-question-who-jew ). – Christian Mar 23 '14 at 14:40
  • 3
    @Christian: If we get mired by that definition (which probably implies a majority of the Western World is Jewish), it undermines the title of chart which implies they are controlling your mind for nefarious ends. The answer shouldn't be about the religious beliefs of Murdoch's grandmother, but about how they claim relies on shifting definitions to reach its conclusion. – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 15:13
  • 4
    @Oddthinking, I would guess that if they rose to the top of a non Jewish industry they worked on the Sabbath (and probably still do). None of them is probably a practicing Jew. I'm also sure that that the people who wrote that table don't really care about the religious views of the people in question. – SIMEL Mar 23 '14 at 16:00
  • 2
    @Oddthinking : (1) Most people only have one mother, so the problem you are suggesting simply doesn't exist. Secondly orthodox Jewish people don't consider the majority of the Western World Jewish. The used that definition of being Jewish to prevent some children who are not born to Jewish mothers from entering Jewish kindergardens in the UK. Do you think it's alright to declare that orthodox Jewish people are wrong about what their religion is about? – Christian Mar 23 '14 at 18:41
  • 1
    @Oddthinking : (2) Would you suggest that someone's grandmother dying in a concentration camp as Jewish, wouldn't effect his political actions? I think there are plenty of people who fall into that category who see themselves as supporting the Zionist project but otherwise don't actively practice Judaism. The implicit suggestion that nobody respects their ancestors and has any loyalty to them, doesn't bring you far. Then there are a lot of cultural assumptions passed down from parents to children that aren't about which God one believes in. – Christian Mar 23 '14 at 19:00
  • 2
    @Christian: I happily reject many of the claims of Orthodox Jews, including about their definitions of God and Jews. If one claims that [anyone born to a Jewish mother](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F) is a Jew, and one claims we are all descended from Noah's Jewish wife, then logically one is arguing every person in the world is Jewish. I find it far more offensive to accept the claims of a religious body (including Mormons and Jews) over the religion of an individual OVER that individual's self-identification. – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 22:43
  • @Christian: I personally *reject* the culture of my great grandparents. I find many aspects of it abhorrent. I doubt I am alone in rejecting the views of the early 19th Century. If you tell me that they were in a conspiracy and therefore I am, I would laugh at you. – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 22:47
  • Whoops, this is getting off-topic, and I am supposed to set a good example. We should take it to chat. – Oddthinking Mar 23 '14 at 22:49
  • 5
    @oddthinking being pedantic here, but Noah and his wife weren't Jews. Hence the term "noachide law", for those basic laws (don't steal, don't murder, etc.) that even non-Jews are expected to follow. Jews are specifically and exclusively, the descendants of *Abraham.* – LessPop_MoreFizz Mar 24 '14 at 02:07
  • @LessPop_MoreFizz: Noah is pre-Abraham? Ouch. Back to Bible-study class for me. That undermines my point there completely. – Oddthinking Mar 24 '14 at 02:11
  • 2
    @LessPop_MoreFizz, a more precise definition is that Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the san of Abraham. As both Isaac and Abraham had other sons. And Jews, are the descendants of Judah (and Simeon, Levi and Aaron). – SIMEL Mar 24 '14 at 06:04
  • 1
    "duality of religion and nationality" -- wouldn't that be duality of religion and ethnicity? What does nationality have to do with it? – tcrosley Mar 24 '14 at 06:54
  • 1
    From the [Jew or Not Jew FAQ](http://www.jewornotjew.com/faq.jsp): "*Q:* **So you guys are the experts on who's Jewish and who isn't?** *A:* Nope. Most of the time we don't even do research. We're just making this up as we go along and then exhibiting it in a venue that allows anyone to see it. G-d Bless the Internet." So, yeah, not a reliable source. – eykanal Mar 24 '14 at 11:17
  • @Oddthinking : Quite a few American talk around the value of the Founding Fathers. It might very well by true that loyality to ancestors isn't important to yourself, but that already puts you in the category of people that the kind of people who made such a chart don't want to have in control of public opinion. – Christian Mar 24 '14 at 11:35
  • @Oddthinking : If you hold the position that your ancestors don't matter and everything that matters is your self professed religion, do you go to the logical conclusion to say that the Jewish have no special claim to the land of Israel? That all those Jewish who argue that position are deluded? – Christian Mar 24 '14 at 11:40
  • @tcrosley, you are right, feel free to correct this. – SIMEL Mar 24 '14 at 11:43
  • @eykanal, I'll not use them anymore, but all the people for whom I used this site as a source are extremely famous, and the source can be easily change to their wiki pages. I'll fix that on the next edit. – SIMEL Mar 24 '14 at 11:45
  • With regard to Phil Griffin: The image posted in the OP already notes that he's got "Jewish connection, spouse" rather than being Jewish himself. Admittedly, the tiny footnote isn't easy to see. – Brian S Mar 24 '14 at 20:38
  • @BrianS, he is marked in red which means that he's jewish according to the table. – SIMEL Mar 24 '14 at 22:46
  • Note too that NPR is not included in this table. I pretty much exclusively get my non-internet news from that source. – CramerTV Mar 25 '14 at 00:26
  • @IlyaMelamed, Check the asterisk by his name – Brian S Mar 25 '14 at 13:48
  • @BrianS, I saw it, but that doesn't make that the person Jewish. I put forth the criteria for who is a Jew, and being married to a Jew (without conversion) is not there. – SIMEL Mar 25 '14 at 13:56
  • @IlyaMelamed, Sorry, I don't mean to imply that Mr. Griffin is Jewish, but rather that this is another way in which the image is specifically misleading the viewer. – Brian S Mar 25 '14 at 13:59
  • 1
    Seeing lots of addressing of the table, but not much about the underlying question here. Are Jews a disproportionately large percentage of members of the media? I ask this as an Atheist of Jewish decent. Considering how small a percentage of the population Jews make up, it seems that the answer is yes. But I'd love to know the answer to that, regardless of how "in control" we/they are. – DampeS8N Mar 31 '14 at 16:59
  • @DampeS8N, Do you get royalties from the supreme Jewish leadership, or get invited to the "take over the world planning meetings"? Probably not, neither am I, as an Ethnic Jew living in Israel, nor anyone else I know. So Jews don't control the media. As the answer states the table doesn't look over all the companies, and not even on all the executives of those companies, the table also gives disproportional representation for certain individuals like Mark Zuckerberg or Executives of large corporations that control several media channels. So the table doesn't give you the correct depiction. – SIMEL Mar 31 '14 at 18:04
  • @IlyaMelamed If Jews represent a disproportionate membership in the ranks of the media (or any group) they have control that is greater than their proportional value in society alone. If that control is centralized, organized, or utilized isn't really important. If there is something that Jews care dis-proportionally about, like the tastiness of Bagels with Lox, that collective belief would manifest in the media because people focus on what effects them. It would be control by cultural bias, but that's still control. No? – DampeS8N Mar 31 '14 at 18:09
  • @DampeS8N, also, the table disregards of the creative people. If would be very hard to examine the percentage of Jews among media executives, as there are a lot more media companies than the table puts, they have large numbers of executives, and most of them are not notable enough to have their ethnicity and/or religion on public record. But even if this was the case, there are more reasonable explanations than "Jewish world domination plot". Just like the (supposed) high percentage of Gays among show business workers doesn't mean there is a Gay agenda to take over the world. – SIMEL Mar 31 '14 at 18:10
  • Also, high percentage of Jews, doesn't mean a coordinated agenda, it just means that there are a lot of Jews there. Jews don't have the same political beliefs, values, etc, they just have different family names. As I said in the previous comment, it maybe interesting to study why it's, but I have the feeling that it's more related to the fact they most Jews in the US are more recent immigrants than other ethnicities, the fact that the Jewish culture does put empathize on learning, and the tradition of Jews in Europe working in the Banking industry (not from choice). And not a conspiracy. – SIMEL Mar 31 '14 at 18:19
  • @IlyaMelamed I agree with you. I don't believe there is a conspiracy. There doesn't need to be one for there to be a bias due to over-representation. There isn't a conspiracy to promote rich white men from congress, but there is a bias because congress is mostly rich white men. – DampeS8N Apr 01 '14 at 00:00
  • Nice answer although i disagree with the "*LeQuella quote*". This implies that it is **not possible** in any way to get data/evidence/measurements etc.. e.g on HAARP, on who influnced what article, etc., which is simply not true. Actually the whole point or "beauty" of conspiracy theories is that they are fed (and maintained) by inaccessibily of people to data/(other)people/methodologies/circumstances etc.. And this **can** indeed be changed. Belief is a basic ingredient of conspiracy theories (and others of course). The solution is to avoid blind belief and verify in practice. – Nikos M. Jul 01 '14 at 23:12
  • @PaulDraper: There are plenty of sites where low-grade trolling can evoke emotional reactions. Skeptics Stack Exchange is a moderated site, where they are simply deleted and forgotten with a single button, in less time than it takes to post them. – Oddthinking Mar 21 '21 at 02:58
10

No. This Table is very much a distortion a truth. I will take them point by point.

  1. Concept. The Title 'Who controls your mind' starts from a faulty assumption. I don't care what is under the at title, the answer will always be 'Me'. Just because a person or company creates a product, is does not mean that I am forced to consume that product. And supposing that I actually consume an entertainment/information product that they produce does it mean that they control my mind. No. The makers of this table lack a fundamental understanding of individual free agency. Freedom of thought is one of the ultimate freedoms, because it can never be taken from you*. Unfortunately so many give it up so freely. See account from Natan Sharansky, a Jew imprisoned by the Soviets for 'Zionist' activities below for example:

    I remember how I loved to tell to my interrogators anti-Soviet jokes, because there were many anti-Soviet jokes, which, of course, were all underground, and telling them openly. And they're so funny that you are laughing. They would almost explode from desire to laugh, but they could not, they had to be angry. They had to show one another how loyal they were. And you're laughing, and so you say, "You see, you are saying to me that you are free and I am a prisoner. You can't even afford to laugh when you want to laugh! So you're the real prisoner." And all the time, it was giving you the opportunity to enjoy the absurdity of this KGB world, and of course it helped a lot to survive in that world.

  2. Market Share - A select group of companies are shown across various markets, but the complete market is not shown. For example Google is shown to apparently represent search engines, but absent is Microsoft (Bing), Yahoo, or any other competitors. Google Search Engine Market Share is approximately 71%. This seems to be the sector that most supports the question, if we look at cable news, of course, it is the opposite, with about 48% of the market being represented by Companies with officers that are Jewish or of Jewish descent. These two are the easiest to estimate from the chart, since it is incomplete and the market breakdown is not really specified.

  3. Assuming Jews or Individuals with Jewish Heritage/Culture were officers in News and Entertainment companies, does that mean they control the American media? The answer is also no. Similar in part 1, the question derives from a misunderstanding of freedom and capitalism. Under this system, neither the producer or the consumer completely controls the market, if the producer tries to produce something that does not meet the demands of the consumers, they are quickly replaced by one that does. Perhaps one could argue that Radio or Cable television are hardly free markets due to FCC regulations, but this list also contains movie, internet, newspaper and magazine companies, which hold no such regulations. Holding a position of power in a company does not allow you to change the market demands, just to influence business decisions in the company. These decisions may have an impact on market share, but as long as the market is free, that impact on market share is the result of meeting or not meeting the customers demands. A famous example of this is the Decline of Schlitz beer from a market leader in the 50s and 60s to a cautionary tale in the late 70s as a result of cutting quality to increase profitability. This Excerpt from page 89 of The U.S. Brewing Industry Data exemplifies how efficiently the market can react to changes in a product

    The Company's strategy of cutting brewing costs at the expense of quality and product image also appears in the handling of it's Primo brand in Hawaii. In the early 1970's Schlitz discontinued brewing Primo in Hawaii and began brewing wort for Primo in Los Angeles, the wort was then dehydrated, fermented, aged, and packaged. Islanders claimed that Primo's taste had been altered, and its market share in the state of Hawaii plunged from 70 percent to 20 percent between 1971 and 1975.

F.A. Hayek, a Nobel Economist who studied self Organization in Economic Systems, had an observation in his book, The Fatal Conceit that I think explains why Nazis have a tenancy to find Jewish Conspiracies like these.

The result is that such persons (intellectuals hostile to market self organization) are tempted to interpret more complex structures animistically as the result of design, and to suspect some secret and dishonest manipulation - some conspiracy, as of a dominant class' – behind designs' whose designers are nowhere to be found. This in turn helps to reinforce their initial reluctance to relinquish control of their own products in a market order. For intellectuals generally, the feeling of being mere tools of concealed, even if impersonal, market forces appears almost as a personal humiliation.

*This argument does not require belief in the existence of Free Agency (I do, but apparently discussions of free agency are outside the scope of the skeptics SE). Consider this. Even if some external force is controlling Natan Sharansky thoughts (as suggested by Christian, Daniel Dannett, and perhaps many others), the fact that he believes he is in control of his thoughts allows him considerable freedom from the attempts of the Soviets at controlling his thoughts by wielding their physical power and controlling the consequences of his choices to the extent they are able. This is evidenced by the provided reference. I don't think that I will ever be able to prove the existence of free agency to someone that does not believe it, and is unwilling to experiment with it, but there are plenty of cases, such as this one, that demonstrate that at a minimum a belief in free agency and exercise of such agency can protect oneself from external attempts at control.

Mauser
  • 674
  • 4
  • 10
  • 4
    (1) The existence of free will is no general accepted phenomena. There are plenty of philosophers like Daniel Dannett who doubt it's existence. Making an argument on those grounds has no place on this site without citing specific studies. – Christian Mar 25 '14 at 11:42
  • 2
    (3) You don't provide any sources for your claims about the amount of power of media ownership. If facebook decides to show links to a certain website the dislike 30% less on newsfeeds, nobody will know that they prevent that website from getting traffic. There are lot of subtle ways to exert power that don't produce public backslash. – Christian Mar 25 '14 at 11:43
  • Christian. Addressed (3) in response. Hopefully this will make clear to you the costs of exerting such power. Such manipulation would be considered by users as an adulteration, and will be treated accordingly. There are even things going on quite similar to this today, specifically backlash against their (Facebook, Google) collaboration with the NSA (http://www.newsday.com/business/technology/nsa-backlash-risks-35b-in-facebook-apple-cisco-and-more-u-s-technology-sales-1.6505589) (1) will take a little more time to address, as it is a large, fundamental question. – Mauser Mar 25 '14 at 16:12
  • Christian, Addressed (1). – Mauser Mar 27 '14 at 15:51
  • 2
    Your ideas are illogical. If individuals were free-agents, as you claim, why would media companies spend so much money on advertising & propaganda & why would they be so successful in making money & influencing public opinion? The majority of people are not free-agents. – Dhammadhatu May 08 '16 at 09:50
  • @Dhammadhatu: to inform potential customers of products they are offering. – nomen Apr 07 '21 at 23:07