When going over the research of what Media Consolidation is, the definition I found was "a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media". To put into simpler terms, I found that it means small firms are dominating the media industries and its very concentrated. But are in contact with large/ global companies use Media Consolidation as well. Companies with the highest revenue from Media Consolidation are "Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, CBS Corporation and Viacom per Forbes."
Media ownership is generally something very close to the "complete state control over information" in direct or indirect ways. this can lead to many issues because if media Consolidation is concentrated in one or more of the ways, a number of undesirable consequences follow. This may include but is not limited too, commercially driven ultra-powerful mass-market media. This is primarily made up of loyal to sponsors, (advertisers and government officials) rather than to the public interest. Another issue is, few companies representing the interests of a minority elite control the public airwaves. this can cause an alarming amount of people to pull away. which is another issue, the healthy, market-based competition is absent, leading to slower innovation and increased prices. All these problems have occurred/will if media ownership is present with complete control.
With all that being said above, media consolidation can be a very good policy to have or a very bad one. With having control over information, companies and their competitors will have to continue to grow and re-event themselves to be better than one another. Or other companies like Comcast who has spent billions to "kill off" their competitors than improve their service or build out their networks.
The FCC and the Justice Department should protect our ability to connect, communicate and organize for social change by blocking dangerous mergers and boosting diverse media ownership.
No comments:
Post a Comment