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Media conglomerates have resulted in monotony in news and in entertainment. When one corporation owns a series of seemingly independent news sources, editorial decisions start to reflect the political agenda of the CEOs. Self-censorship can result, keeping the public in the dark about key political issues or events. For example, one of the newspapers owned by a conglomerate might hire an upstart reporter who wishes to write a weekly piece about the abuses at Guantanamo Bay, but the corporate heads of the conglomerate, in collusion with the Bush administration, pressure the paper's editor to refuse the reporter's request. The editorial boards answerable to the media conglomerate corporation end up including and excluding the same information. As a result, all the news sources owned by a conglomerate will end up delivering the same basic information even though they may appear different. Political pressure is not the only reason media conglomerates inhibit freedom of expression and heterogeneity in the media. Advertisers also pressure the media to maintain content standards, under the threat of spending their advertising dollars elsewhere. If Ford or Budweiser don't want their ads placed during a documentary on Bin Laden, then the media corporation will happily say no. In the absence of alternative media outlets, independent journalists have no means of getting their ideas out to the public.
If media corporations are not limited in how many outlets they can own in a particular market or medium, then consumers suffer from a homogenous media. Moreover, American citizens do not enjoy their full First Amendment rights. Alternative media sources are not only hard to find and expensive to acquire, but many consumers don't have time to search for alternative media websites or magazines. With television news one of the only options for current event information, consumers deserve a plethora of sources, not just a handful, owned by the same few corporations. Similarly, corporate-owned media conglomerates usually neglect the voices of minorities and of women because the heads of the corporations are too far distanced from minority issues and points-of-view.
Mistrust of the government to regulate the media is understandable. Therefore, an independent watchdog group, run by a team of diverse and international professionals from a variety of disciplines including communications, education, economics, and politics, could inform the regulatory environment in which the media can operate.
Media Ownership Concentration The author of this report is asked to do a Marxist analysis of a media conglomerate and what does or tends to happen when a single corporate structure owns multiple publications and how the forcing out or limiting of other publications can lead to a stunted and incomplete view of reality due to an artificially limited marketplace. The company used as an example in this report is Time
Conglomerates / Media Ownership Media mergers that started in earnest in the mid-1980s have continued non-stop ever since. The result is that in 1984, fifty firms controlled the majority of market share in daily newspapers, magazines, television, radio, books, and motion pictures -- today, six firms control the majority of market share in these media. (Ben Bagdikian) Such concentration of the major information sources in a handful of large media conglomerates
Thus, they set off a great deal of protest. Americans did not appreciate the fact that a small group of powerful corporations are given more control of the most important element of our democracy: our access to information. They are right to feel this way. The media monopoly allows a small amount of companies power over media outlets (independent and corporate alike, including on the Web). This is far
Media Ownership It is very telling that mass media today is often referred to as a "media industry." This term implies that mass media is no longer concerned with merely relaying information to the general public. Instead, media is engaged in producing a product, akin to industries such as manufacturing. This paper examines the media industry from the production perspective. It looks at how news coverage is itself a manufactured product, a
The advertiser (Toyota) is reinforcing dominant ideology in one promotion and attempting to forge a new one in the other promotion. There are no real stereotypes in these promotions, as there are no real characters, other than the fake bug. It is worth considering, however, that the audience in both cases is viewed as a stereotype. Those concerned about mileage are taken as very concerned, and enamored almost solely with
Media Injustice and the Media There was a point in the not-too-distant past when it was reasonable to perceive the media as a force collectively aimed at informing the public, exposing corruption, surfacing scandal and general performing the responsibility of protecting the people's right to know. However, several forces have permeated the so-called 'fourth estate,' diluting the media's acceptance of this responsibility. At one end of the spectrum, the growth in value