Media Power Concentration: the Political and Economic Implications
Media play a pivotal role in our every day life. We depend primarily on it for the information and entertainment and for other purposes that has to do with our day-to-day operations.
Media is such a powerful entity. It can make and unmake a president. It can create and destroy an image, individual or organization. It can even tell and direct us what to do against what not to do and what to believe against what not to believe for. Truly, we can’t deny the power of media because it is so clear, transcending within boundaries of time and changes.
The concentration of media power among a few conglomerates is the trend prevalent in the media industry. In broadcasting, it is becoming the rule as merger mania hits the industry. One example is the CBS-Westinghouse merger in which the conglomerate owned 15 TV stations and 39 radio stations. (1999)
Another is the Time Warner and Turner broadcasting merger which produced the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, reaching more than 40 percent of cable households. And lastly, the merger of News Corp. Ltd. and MCI which made the products of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire available through a broadcast network (Fox), TV stations, newspapers, magazines and home and business computer. (1999)
Additionally, the combination of Twentieth Century Fox with News Corporation’s television stations helped creates a fourth television network. An infrastructure of scores of programs and hundreds of channels has created through this because of the wiring of the cities with coaxial cable. (1999)
Michael Eisner, Walt Disney chairperson, described how the combined resources of the two companies would allow them to provide programming services for China and India when he announced his company’s merger with ABC. “Think of all the things we can do together. I am totally optimistic that one and one will add up to four here” he said. (1996)
Similarly, in the print media industry, the concentration has long been the trend. In the United States, four out of five newspapers were independently owned just after the World War II. However, only one in five was not the property of a chain in 1989. Moreover0 corporations controlled most of the nation’s 11,000 magazines in 1981. But the number shrank to three corporations only seven years later. (1999
The market domination of media conglomerates falls into two categories such as the vertical ownership and the horizontal. Vertical ownership bears a logical relationship to the communications industry. ABC/Disney which owns newspapers, television, magazines, radio and books is the example of this. Horizontal ownership, on one hand, has no relationship between the media component and the giant corporations other subsidiaries like the CBS and NBC which are both owned by Westinghouse and General Electric, companies in the nuclear defense family. ( 1999)
The question such as is the concentration of media power among few conglomerates represented by the mergers of some giant media establishments a problem now arises. This also gives birth to the query of the political and economic implications of this trend of the media power concentration.
The concentration is argued by some people as the responsible for the least part of the improvement. On the contrary, Jay Harris, chairperson and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News reports that “if you look at the two largest newspaper chains – Gannett and Knight-Ridder – one of the outcomes of more newspapers coming into those groups has been that a number of the small- and medium-sized papers have clearly gotten better because of the resources of the larger company, the higher standards of journalistic practice, the investment in training, the ability to attract higher quality editors”. (1996)
Accordingly, the journalistic integrity is protected by these large corporations because the conglomerate has its eye on the bottom line, not on the sensitivities of local constituencies. The reporters and editors are actually shield by this concentration from the pressures that plagued those who worked for a news medium owned by a family in the community. (1996)
Harris (1998) states that, “it is not the size of the owner; it’s not what the owner chooses to do. It’s not what the primary motives of the owner are? What are the values? I can see no inherent positive or negative outcome in terms of the way journalism is done from any particular form media power concentration” (1996).
Equally, the defenders of concentration say that at least a few large corporations are better able to serve a democracy’s need for accurate, comprehensive information than many smaller competitors in the media and communication industry. (1996)
However, in the United States, the American public would have reason to fear for its democracy, if all the major media such as the daily newspaper, magazine, broadcasting station, book publishing house and motion picture studio were controlled by few corporations. Though this kind of extravagant power has a harsh history, the danger is not that this few controllers would necessarily be evil. ( 1983)
It is that the centralized control over information is incompatible with freedom whether it is evil or benevolent, governmental or private. Also, the need for choice of politics and ideas and access to truly diverse and competing sources of news, literature, entertainment and popular culture of modern democracies will be confine in vacuum because of such situation. ( 1983)
On one hand, the conglomerates that own the media run the United States because media power is equal to political power. Thus, the emergence of the corporate control of the media has altered how well-informed the American public is and as a result, these monopolies have also had an impact on the democratic process in this country. (1999)
In the same way, corporate ownership and media monopolies are essentially contrary to what democracy represents because these corporations control what the American people knows and does not know. (1983) writes that “the power to control information is a major lever in the control of society”. Thus, there is little pluralism in journalism because only a few companies dominate the media. (1999)
This allows the media giants to suppress whatever information they desire. Because there is no diversity of expression, the public is not well informed about what is occurring in this country. Likewise, the democratic consent of the governed, according to the ideals of democracy and individual freedom, is meaningless unless the consent is informed consent. (2006)
Moreover, the media giants have reduced the coverage of the government because of the industry’s hunger for ratings aside from the fear that it is boring. So, the corporate chains of newspapers sell their soul for ratings even at a time when coverage of local and state government is fundamental. (1999)
Also, since the media giants have many politicians in their pockets there is an extreme pressure on politicians from lobbyists to extinguish bills harmful to the media monopoly and to promote bills that increase their domination. (1999)
But, even this case is like this where the media power is concentrated among a few companies; there is a march which should be praise toward this unhealthy end. The media they control take every opportunity to report the beauties of corporate bigness. This mergers and media acquisition seem to be as an exclusive financial game without social consequences. This will lead to the event where there where almost nothing of the dangers to be told to the general public. ( 1983)
On the other angle, it is not surprising if the executives of dominant media corporations are personally silent about the dangers of this trend because the process benefits them. And, the media they control is also silent. However, this silence is not convincing evidence that the media never reflect the corporate and political interests of their owners. ( 1983)
The practice of companies in this trend is already dominant. The newspapers as a one medium, for example, still invest in another competitive medium like the television. Each medium used to act like a watchdog over the behavior of its competing media in the past. ( 1983)
Additionally, each was vigilant against the other industries’ lobbying for unfair government concessions or against questionable business practices. However, they have been cross-bred into an amiable hybrid at present because of this concentration. ( 1983)
Corporations insist that they improve the media they buy. But, concentrated media ownership would still damage democracy in the United States even if all corporate owners universally improved their acquisitions and even if they all made their properties totally open to conflicting news and views. This is because concentrated media power over public information is inherently anti-democratic. ( 1983)
The chief executive officers of the 29 corporations controlling most of what Americans read and see can fit into an ordinary living room today. To promote their own corporate values to the exclusion of others, they can use control of their newspapers, broadcast stations, magazines, books and movies, if they wish. Most say that they would never use that power. But surely, available power will always be used when central interests are at stake. ( 1983)
The answer to great power in a democracy is accountability to the public. On one side, in business life, accountability, in some cases requires government regulations to prevent monopoly or to make natural monopolies meet public service standards. Because there is enough diversity and competition so that consumers have real choices, accountability for most commerce is self-induced. ( 1983)
Furthermore, real choices in the media mean a rich variety of political and social content in news, entertainment and other public information. This also means enough competition in content and prices so that the average consumer has genuine alternatives. It means equitable distribution of economic power in the marketplace so that a few dominant leaders cannot prevent true competition or the reasonable entry of new enterprises. ( 1983)
But, the country is losing diversity and competition among its major media and with it today because of the monopoly and oligopoly. This happening losses not only the variety of political voices but also the economic accountability of the marketplace. Nevertheless, the public are not alerted and aware of such problem, though media is controlled by the dominant corporations. ( 1983)
Conversely, corporations claim that the process is improving the country’s media outlets because they bring greater resources to improve their new acquisitions; they have more sophisticated business management skills; and their size makes it easier to fend off government incursions on freedom of expression and improper advertiser influence. Likewise, they believe that the public would not stand for it if they were tempted to use their power to the disadvantage of the public. ( 1983)
Some of these claims have been realized some of the time in thousands of media transactions of recent years. But, most of the time the record is unimpressive or worse; at best the record is mixed. (1983)
Corporations do not purchase local newspapers and broadcast stations for sentimental reasons because they buy them as investments that will yield a maximum return as quickly as possible. Few investors can resist the spectacular profits that can be made by cutting quality and raising prices when they buy a local monopoly which is typical of newspapers or an assured share of the market – typical of television. (1983)
According to Shaw (1986), “a daily monopoly newspaper with a 15 percent annual operating profit, can, within two years of purchase, be making a 40 percent profit by cutting costs and raising advertising and subscription prices”. (1983)
Correspondingly, to pursue the political promotion of the owner when the owner lusts after high office, media outlets can be purchased. One example is the 1920 presidency where Warren Gamaliel Harding, Ohio newspaper publisher, defeated James M. Cox, another publisher of a paper in Ohio who became Democratic candidate for president. (1983)
Nonetheless, the primary political advantage of concentrated media power today is no longer to gain high political office for the media executive. The primary danger of excessive and concentrated media power is promoting the politics and economics of the corporate world, not the candidacies of the anonymous men and women who run corporations. Similarly, to influence the U.S. president is the desire now of most corporate leaders, instead of wanting to be president of the United States. (2006)
Moreover, the concentration of media power among a few entities leads to the demand for quite specific actions from government such as government contracts, relaxed application of antitrust laws, deregulation of business, elimination of limits on corporate profits and corporate tax loopholes. (1983)
For example, the General Electric combined its media power with its other industrial and financial interests when it bought RCA (and with it the NBC News) in 1986. It is now the major defense contractor and IT manufacturer selling sells electronic, electrical and nuclear systems worldwide. It also produces aircraft and spacecraft components and is in the insurance and banking business. With sales exceeding billion a year, its multinational operations are sensitive to both domestic and foreign policy. (1983)
Media conglomerates have integrated into the higher levels of American banking and industrial life as subsidiaries and interlocks within their boards of directors. In agribusiness, airlines, coal and oil, banking, insurance, defense contracts, automobile sales, rocket engineering, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, they become the heavy investors. (1983)
Since American foreign policy affected their investments, they make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarrassing publicity and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and government policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence. (1983)
Oligopolistic markets and media conglomeration barely reveal the extent to which the media system is fundamentally noncompetitive in any meaningful economic sense of the term because they share the major shareholders, own pieces of each other and have interlocking boards of directors. (1997)
Not to mention the tangled web of alliance among the few media companies that dominates the market, the media monopoly itself is disturbing enough. According to (1997), “these companies often have board members in common and they participate in joint ventures where they share ownership of concerns with their ‘competitors’ so as to reduce competition and risk”. (1999)
Generally, the concentration of media power among a few firms has taken place in national markets throughout the world. These powerful media firms dominate the regional and national markets. They have found a lucrative niche teaming up with the global media giants in joint ventures, offering the ‘local’ aspect of the content and massaging the local politicians.
This concentration in many ways is detrimental because it vaguely defined the political and economic interest of the society. This also brings all modes of communications and media schemes into one grand system lead by few conglomerates.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment