What Has Been the Impact of Media Ownership on Diversity
What has been the impact of the concentration of media ownership on media diversity?
The term ‘concentration of media ownership’ describes the apparent practice whereby gradually fewer organizations or individuals have direct control over ever-increasing shares of the mass media among public consumers; other terms in relation to this are ‘media consolidation’ and ‘media convergence’. The concentration stems from institutions merging to secure a more stable financial status as well as greater corporate strength. ‘Hunt’ and ‘Ruben’ described the situation stating that the world had “become one large marketplace” and, as the information on investment suggests, “a few ‘players’ dominate the distribution and the production of services and the goods in the world”. Large amounts of modern research reveal the increasing amount of consolidation of the media, it also shows that there are some industries, which are already intensely concentrated and have a small number of firms whom dominate. There are a large number of considered media conglomerates who are globally dominant over much of the mass media, for example, Viacom, Time Warner, the CBS Corporation, News Corp, The Walt Disney Company and the Sony Corporation of America, among others. According to figures, In the USA, The Walt Disney Company is the largest conglomerate with the British media conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, ranking second. The concern regarding the concentration of mass media ownership occurs around the world and has done for much of the time that the media has been a dominant source of public information. It stems from the belief that through narrowing the concentration of control, the diversity within the media also decreases, and this can lead to problems such as predisposition, construed information and misrepresentation within an apparent passive consumer audience. In addition to this, according to some, media ownership is comparably linked, and has parallel ideologies to
The term ‘concentration of media ownership’ describes the apparent practice whereby gradually fewer organizations or individuals have direct control over ever-increasing shares of the mass media among public consumers; other terms in relation to this are ‘media consolidation’ and ‘media convergence’. The concentration stems from institutions merging to secure a more stable financial status as well as greater corporate strength. ‘Hunt’ and ‘Ruben’ described the situation stating that the world had “become one large marketplace” and, as the information on investment suggests, “a few ‘players’ dominate the distribution and the production of services and the goods in the world”. Large amounts of modern research reveal the increasing amount of consolidation of the media, it also shows that there are some industries, which are already intensely concentrated and have a small number of firms whom dominate. There are a large number of considered media conglomerates who are globally dominant over much of the mass media, for example, Viacom, Time Warner, the CBS Corporation, News Corp, The Walt Disney Company and the Sony Corporation of America, among others. According to figures, In the USA, The Walt Disney Company is the largest conglomerate with the British media conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, ranking second. The concern regarding the concentration of mass media ownership occurs around the world and has done for much of the time that the media has been a dominant source of public information. It stems from the belief that through narrowing the concentration of control, the diversity within the media also decreases, and this can lead to problems such as predisposition, construed information and misrepresentation within an apparent passive consumer audience. In addition to this, according to some, media ownership is comparably linked, and has parallel ideologies to
Bibliography: Paul Long and Tim Wall, Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context, Pearson, 2009. Chapter 5 Vicki Macleod (Ed) Media ownership and control: in the age of convergence International Institute of Communication, 1996 Eugenia Siapera Cultural diversity and global media: the mediation of difference.Wiley - Blackwell, 2010 Henry Jenkins ‘The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence’ International Journal of Cultural Studies 2004