Silvia Álvarez Barrio (Group 80)

Mass Media Theory. Final Essay

Citizen Kane ¿past or present?

How can a movie from 1941 represent the ideas developed on 1923 and be relevant on
2019? Citizen Kane is a film by Orson Welles which tells the story of Charles Foster Kane,
a United States man that, from a humble childhood, ends up owning an uncountable
amount of richness, together with a newspaper. The entire story is told to us through
the vision of a journalist that after Kane’s death wants to know what his last word
“Rosebud” meant. Thinking that maybe on the moment of his death, he explained all his
life.

But to which extend can this character represent the Frankfurt School ideas? And
moreover, our own society in relation to the media? We should start from the
beginning; he was born on a quite poor family in which her mother gave Kane’s custody
to a bank in exchange for money. So from his childhood he was inserted inside the
capitalist world.

When he turns twenty-five, he owns a huge amount of properties due to the

agreements her mother made with the bank. But he decides he only wants a small
newspaper that the bank had just acquired from a bankrupt (the Inquirer).

The complexity of this character begins to appear up to this point. There’s a really
remarkable conversation he has with Tatcher, the banker who had his custody, in which
he accuses Kane on having given bad reputation to the Public Transit Company, in which
Charles was one of the largest stockholders. His respond to this was: “The trouble is, you
don’t realize you’re talking to two people. As Charles Foster Kane who owns 82,364
shares of Public Transit Preferred”…“I sympathize with you. Kane is a scoundrel; his
paper should be run out of town, a committee should be formed to boycott him.”

“On the other hand, I am the publisher of the Inquirer and such it’s my duty” … “It’s also
my pleasure to see that the working people of this community aren’t robbed blind by a
peck of money-mad pirates just because they have no one to look after their interest”

Reading this you may think, well he seems a reasonable man, with proper ideas in terms
of values. But then he continues saying: “I think I’m the man to do it. You see, I have
money and property. If I don’t look after the interests of the unprivileged, maybe
somebody else will. Maybe somebody with any money or property and that would be
too bad.” The idea of power in relation to money is implied throughout the whole
movie, exemplifying the idea of the Economic superstructure which controls all of our
society.

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 Silvia Álvarez Barrio (Group 80)
Mass Media Theory. Final Essay

When he takes control of the Inquirer, the editor-in-chief tells him about the type of
newspaper they are and the kind of news they focus on; mainly based on data and
proved information. Kane doesn’t agree with this perspective, and compares the
Inquirer with another newspaper in which the front page shows the murder of a girl. The
editor can’t believe what he is hearing and answers: “We are running a newspaper, not
a scandal sheet”… “There’s no prove that she is murdered or even that she is
dead”…“It’s not our function to report the gossip of housewives. If we were interested
in that kind of thing, we could fill the paper twice over daily”

“That’s the kind of thing we are going to be interested in from now on”, answered Kane.
Proving the idea of repetition of content, as a way to gain profit. Also linked to the Post-
truth theory, which states that when a content is proved to be successful, it is going to
be repeated, because it would retrieve on benefits for the newspaper in this case.

But most importantly, the use of Post-truth and sensationalism by giving more
importance to emotionally appealing news than to proved ones, based on data, just
because they will catch people’s attention easily than therefore, their benefits will be
increased; which is the most important thing in the capitalist society in which economy
is the ruling power.

But then writes his “Declaration of Principles” to publish it on the front page of his
newspaper. Here he promises he “will provide the people of this city with a daily paper
that will tell all the news honestly” and “provide them with a fighting and tireless
champion of their rights as citizens and as human beings”

This seems quite contradictory in relation with the type of news he said he was willing to
place on his newspaper. The manipulation is also present here because he is promising
his readers a type of information that they won’t get by reading the Inquirer.

The second principle is directed directly to the common citizen and can give a glance of
his future political attempts. In his political career for being the Estate Governor, he is
constantly using this type of statements in order to convince the citizens.

It’s especially relevant how he directs his discourse towards the unprivileged people. “To
the working man and the slum child, know they can expect my best efforts in their
interests. The decent, ordinary citizens know that I’ll do everything in my power to
protect the underprivileged, the underpaid, and the underfed”. He “wants” to give them
rights but doesn’t give them the tools to fight for them. He tries to persuade an
audience that doesn’t perceive the manipulation implied inside his discourse. He places
himself as the socio-economic power which will help the “poor” citizens, but without
renouncing to his own privileges and fortune, because the established social order
shouldn’t be changed.

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 Silvia Álvarez Barrio (Group 80)
Mass Media Theory. Final Essay

The counterpart ideas of this discourse are voiced by Kane’s best friend who, after losing
the elections for being the Governor, tells him:

“You talk about the people as tough you owned them. As tough they belonged to you.
As long as I can remember, you’ve talk about giving the people their rights as if you can
make them a present of liberty, as a reward for services rendered. You remember the
workingmen?” … “You won’t like that one little bit when you find out it means your
workingman expects something as his rights and not your gift. When your precious
underprivileged really get together, oh boy! That’ll add up to something bigger than
your privilege. Then I don’t know what you’ll do. Sail ways to a desert island probably
and lord it over the monkeys?”

In this moment we can see clearly the Marxists ideas followed by the Frankfurt School,
especially directed towards the concept of the proletarian revolution. However, the lack
of awareness together with the fewer power of the common working citizen makes the
revolution a difficult task.

But this critical discourse didn’t affect the protagonist point of view at all. In fact, the
ultimate identity of Charles Foster Kane never changed and neither the way he thought
about the role of mass media. To sum up this quote between him and his wife perfectly
illustrates the character itself:

Emily: “Really, Charles, people will think…

Kane: “What I tell them to think”

When I discovered that “Citizen Kane” is Donald Trump’s favorite movie is when I fully
realized the atemporal characteristic implied in this film. The truth is that there are lots
of parallelisms between both, Trump and Kane. Nationalist American business men,
with a huge richness; who suddenly become interested on politics. Which make use of
the media to transmit their message to the population, as a method of manipulation
through the catalyst of sensationalism. Not only can this movie be applied to our
contemporary society but the character itself is nearly a biography of the actual
president of one the most important countries in the world.

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 Silvia Álvarez Barrio (Group 80)
Mass Media Theory. Final Essay

Up to this point you realize that Kane embodies all the view of the media expressed on
the Frankfurt School theory; and therefore, all Trumps’ view. So to which extend can this
ideas be applied to our society and the use we have of the media nowadays?

Finally, I wanted to point out that this entire story is told to us through the voice of a
journalist, which at the same time bases his narrative on the stories of the people who
were related to Kane during his lifetime. And then there’s me, who am interpreting the
idea told by the movie, through this journalist interpretation, who at the same time
interprets the people’s discourses. So if we take into account the idea that the media
manipulate people and that in this new society, getting to the truth is a harsh
problematic; to which extend can you really know who Foster Kane is, or even, what this
film is all about? Can it even be related to these Frankfurt School ideas? Or am I myself
manipulating your own vision of the movie?

References

Frankfurt school. mass media theory notes.

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2012). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass

deception. Karl marx (1st ed., pp. 405-424) Routledge.

Post-truth. mass media theory notes.