Blog 11: The Yes Men Save the World

The Yes Men made the critique that the media is used as a tool to benefit corporate executives. Typically, the media encourages people to "trust" corporate executives, who promise that they will "do what's best" for people. That is in fact not true. Corporations shape media to give a false image of themselves, when really they are using tactics to make profit above all; this is demonstrated through the "Acceptable risk calculator" that the Yes Men created. Truthfully, most corporations accept that a certain amount of people must suffer in order to make a profit. However, their image is spun in the media in a positive way to hide their true intentions. This can be linked to the concept of false consciousness. Most people never find out what corporations are really up to because their practices are hidden by the media. People usually believe corprations do good for the world besides making money. This image is produced through messages in the media such as a corporation presenting themselves as a "green company" to win more approval. That corporation may be a "green company", but they may also be causing more harm than good for the world.

The Yes Men's plan was to expose the Dow company to millions of people on the news channel BBC. One of them posed as a fake represenative of the Dow Company on BBC, and exposed the inhumane damage they caused in Bhopal, India twenty years ago that still persists even today. Once Dow's flaws had been exposed to the world, their stocks fell immmediately by almost three percent, which is a huge loss in the stock market. Prior to their exposure, their profits were flourishing. This example reveals how false consciousness is extremely present in the media when it comes to preserving the image of corpartions who are hungry for profit. False consciousness allows several huge corporations to continue to profit because the media helps them do so. The media acts as a cover up. The Yes Men showed that corporations typically value profit over human lives. Prior to the Yes Men's stunt on international television, people really had no idea. Because the Yes Men were able to take down Dow so easily in that short interview, this shows just how influential media can be. The response to their stunt was extremely quick, and was the top of news headlines for an hour afterwards. People were easily persuaded, even though the Yes Men were merely acting as fakes the whole time. Even the city of Bhopal heard of the news immmediately, and hundreds were given false hope in a matter of hours. Public opinion can be easily swayed through media, even if the source of information is not accurate. The Yes Men's stunt was short lived, but they were able to cause hours of global controversey from an interview that lasted only a few minutes.