In the article “Data Deprivation” By Herbert Schiller, he argues that in industrialized nations, the rise of corporate decision making has become stronger and more influential than government authority, this is especially prevalent in the arenas of communication, in particular the dissemination of information. As a result the information which usually comes from the same source(same corporate powers) are able to utilize this power by making their own actions and authority covert while actually diverting the public's or society's attention away from much needed socially beneficial and essential information.

Schiller constructs his argument by discussing data deprivation and how freedom of expression is often seen as having the vulnerability of being impinged on by the State. As a result individuals and social movements throughout time have battled against the amount of censorial power a state can yield over its citizens (Schiller, 1996). Presently, the more powerful yet seemingly subtle threat to freedom of expression is not the State but rather private corporate powers, “Today, the power of huge,private,economic enterprises is extended across national and international boundaries, influencing and directing economic resource decisions, political choices, and the production and dissemination of messages and images” (Schiller,1996).Corporations use the guise of governments as being the only source of hindering individual expression. Two examples given are that the corporation is considered an individual according to the Supreme Court and Freedom Forum Foundation utilizes the First Ammendment in the New York Times but yet this Freedom Forum foundation is Gannet Corporation that owns many local and national papers across the US (Schiller, 1996). “This has allowed the effective right to free speech to be transferred from individuals to billion dollar companies which, in effect, monopolize public communication (Schiller, 1996). Historical arguments such the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Civil War and the anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s are used to explain how corporations did and continue to shun government regulation in terms of social responsibility, it ( Corporate Power) has led the campaign to privatize a variety of activities and functions that has been under public administration. And it has sought to extend market relationships to new spheres of rapidly growing economic activity, e.g. information management (Schiller, 1996).
The social arenas of science and education have been polluted by corporate interests, “In the scientific sector, for example, research findings have become a source of intense effort to gain competitive advantage .Profit-seeking ventures now penetrate the core of many major universities and threaten to undermine the openness of the scholarly community” (Schiller,1996). This restriction of information that should be made known to the public extends itself to the government in terms of what information can be produced, accessed and sold. The government is ‘contracting out’ some of their roles to private contractors which is justified as being a money-saving tactic and less government involvement. This can be seen in the public school system and in certain agencies such as Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Schiller, 1996). Deregulation was supported as being ideologically favourable to allow America be number one in the communication and technology section in the world. Business problems such as low profits or rising costs were blamed on regulation (Schiller, 1996). “… reducing or eliminating the social regulatory function over consumer and workplace protection and corporate communication practices, also meant reducing or eliminating public information about these crucial social spheres”(Schiller,1996).Information that is socially beneficially has a price tag on it which only high paying clientele can purchase.
Schiller uses an old and new model, then/now evidence style throughout his piece. This can be seen in the first paragraph when discussing the all –embracing structural transformation of the last fifty years. The threat to individual expression was arbitrary power now its corporate power in paragraphs four and five. The supposed overlapping of government and corporation is shown by using a New York Times advertisement example. He uses quotations from other works such as the Age of Missing Information and official voices of authority like University of Miami’s president’s concern over biotech equity, both examples can be found on the second page.
In general I agree with Schiller’s stance that corporate power has hegemony over information dissemination under the guise of “free and democratic speech” and that corporations have huge impact on societal ideology. Nevertheless, I think Schiller put too much weight on solely corporate power having such sway over what information is to be put forth to the public and underestimates the rather symbiotic relationship between both government and corporate power in achieving their own incentives. For example the Supreme Court is the one that has agreed to acknowledge the corporate power as an individual so the corporate power is reliant on the State but the State is also reliant on the corporate power to achieve certain economic motives. An example from a class discussion that relates to this article is about dominant paradigm and alternative paradigm. The former dealing with a form of communication that we are all exposed too such as advertising and the latter dealing with a less obvious type of information that a person needs to find through research. An example of this in the article is when the New York Times reported that the task force ‘discovered that the Government quit collecting state-by-state data on health spending a decade ago, an example of information the vast majority could read via the newspaper but an there was omission of information because there were many gaps in the data which was ordered by the Reagan White House in its efforts to eliminate the social functions of government. This data had minimal interest to commercial vendors and their corporate clientele that it just vanished (Schiller, 1996).
Another example of vital information that has been withheld from the public due to the privatization/commercialization of free expression; the danger of cigarettes. For years, Tobacco companies knowingly sold cigarettes to the public despite the evidence they had collected regarding the health risks such as cancer (Cummings).This clearly displays how corporations censor vital information in order to preserve income and maintain profits. Today, governments has taken that power back from the tobacco industry and has imposed many strict regulations, such as labels clearly stating the dangers of their products.

Bibliography
1. Schiller,H (1996) from Information Inequality, New York:Routledge
2. Cumming, K M (2002) Failed promises of the cigarette industry and its effect on consumer misperceptions about the health risks of smoking,

New York; Roswell Cancer Institute