Talk:Concentration of media ownership
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main body of the article (as opposed to descriptions of the situations in different countries) seems to assume that media ownership is being concentrated, and that media concentration is always the result of deregulation (rather than the result of regulation).
- The article should not make baseless assumptions. It would be more effective simply to list statistics showing trends of media-ownership concentration in various markets both before and after deregulation. Rangergordon (talk) 07:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Would Freedom of the Press be a worthwhile addition to the "See also" section?
- I added Freedom of the Press. Brian Pearson 02:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
The six current media conglomerates are Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann, and General Electric. These companies together own more than 90% of the media market.
90% of the United States market, or the world-wide market?
Due to Canada's smaller population, some types of media consolidation have always been allowed.
Compared to the United States presumably, not Australia, which was just mentioned above, right? Andjam 13:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
The american section needs rewriting anyway; this is a hot topic here, although not in papers owned by the media concentrators, of course...I was surprised to see so little discussion/account of the political issues/context in Canada, actually; instead of a bald-faced justification for it; and I don't buy the "smaller population" thesis; Canada is historically a network of interacting monopolies, public and private, in all areas of industry, commerce, culture; what it's about is the colonialist concentration of political power in the hands of friends of the reigning parties; but that's all ever newspapers have ever been fore, especially here in BC.Skookum1 03:14, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
This entry is a persuasive essay about breaking up media ownership, not a presentation of facts about consolidated media ownership. The intro is a convoluted and certainly doesn't effectively introduce the following topics. Many bogus implicit claims are made about the topic; seven companies providing 90% of the content in the US is good competition, how many does the author think there should be? Were the two journalists fired because the paper was trying to aid an advertiser cover up a scandal or because they using their position to wrongfully smear a business who would win a defamation lawsuit? Did people die in Minot because Clear Channel pipes in content from 1000 miles away or because there was a chemical spill? Nhertel 16:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] This IS a joke, right?
I like the article, but for all of its many claims, the sole general citation offered is a single documentary, Orwell Rolls in His Grave. According to the IMDB, this documentary was filmed in 2003, almost five years ago, so it may no longer be valid. Moreover, the website for Orwell Rolls in His Grave cites to the website for The Nation for its data, a magazine that Wiki claims advocate the far left.
Additionally, how can one mention the concentration of media ownership without also mentioning the grossly disproportionate Jewish control of this media? Indeed, the cover of the August 1996 issue of the Jewish "Moment" magazine read: "Jews Run Hollywood, So What?" In this article, Jewish film critic Michael Medved states: "It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names." Medved notes that Walt Disney studios hires only "highly paid Jewish moguls," such as Jeffery Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, and Joe Roth as producers and further states: "The famous Disney organization, which was founded by Walt Disney, a gentile Midwesterner who allegedly harbored anti-Semitic attitudes, now features Jewish personnel in nearly all its most powerful positions."
I routinely make posting to this website on very sensitive political issues, only to be berated for the "interpretation" of my sources or some other pretextual argument to stifle alternative viewpoints. (See, for example, the discussion about the Washington, DC, "think tank," the American Enterprise Institute, being a zionist organization and how my citation to the fucking BBC was no good enough for the zionist jews who apparently run this website.) Therefore, I cannot see how someone can write an entire article with a general citation to a clearly leftist documentary film, omit a very important aspect of the subject (i.e., jewish ownership and/or control), and you guys permit this to stand.
This article should be removed immediately or at least re-written with citations and appropriate analysis.
Then Why don't you do it??
Sorry, or in fact not really, but mass-media is demonstrably more monopolised now than it was when Orwell wrote about the subject in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. You appear to have suggested that something Orwell wrote then, whilst it may have been true five years ago, is now out of date. That's just fascinating. What you actually appear to be doing is arguing for concentrated ownership of mass-media because you want to cover it up, which I would liken, for good reason, to arguing for concentration camps (presumbly you understand why I find that 'funny'), or as Orwell put it, 'rubber truncheons and castor oil', which I see are very much alive and, as it were, kicking. Presumably you're also the person suggesting that the title of this article on concentrated ownership of mass media is biased in being entitled concentration of media-ownership. This article barely even touches on the subject, or why it might really be considered problematic, but I agree whole heartedly - mass-media monopoly or monopolisation of mass-media are both adequate alternatives. With regard to references, much of the information, including that i have used myself, depends on data presented in other Wikipedia articles, but which I noticed had not been carried over where pertinent. That's data difficult to research and all the more precious for that reason. LSmok3 (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Clear Channel merger
"Clear Channel Communications, Inc. has agreed to be acquired by a private equity group co-led by Bain Capital Partners, LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. in a transaction with a total equity value of approximately $19.5 billion at a price of $39.20 per share in cash." [1] Brian Pearson 13:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Change title of article
This article's title is biased and sets an improper tone for the presentation of information and "debate." Yes, media ownership has become more concentrated, but a proper article on the subject would be titled simply, "media ownership" and discuss the history of media ownership and subsequent consolidation. At times, this article attempts to properly discuss the issues at hand, but the intro and title are so directed towards one side of the debate, it is impossible to have an honest presentation of the facts.
This article needs to be rewritten and retitled, or it should be deleted. It is an important issue that is receiving much media attention and consumes much of the government's time at the moment. It's worthy of our time to be fixed. --Sententia (talk) 21:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] More Information on Media Concentration
I've worked in media for 10 years. I've been working on a documentary about the subject of consolidation for about a year. For the small percentage that read the "talk page", I've compiled the following:
1. It's difficult to know exactly how many companies own what portion of media market-share because it's actually not public information. This is a democratic travesty. Try getting the information from the FCC. My advisers at NYU and MIT Media Lab tell me it's next to impossible to find out.
2. Congress ruled in 1934 that the public airwaves must serve the public interest. It's a clear conflict of interest to have only 5 to even 20 companies control the public space and represent the public opinions of 300 million (pop of USA). The 1st amendment exists to protect the freedom of the press — to keep the public informed and engaged in order to run a government which represents the people. A free press makes up a critical part of the democracy the founding fathers fought for.
We know statistically that Americans are overwhelmingly illinformed about basic information despite the ubiquity of media. It's no controversy at all but simply a fact that the barrage of misinformation or omitted information is all coming from the highly concentrated commercial media.
3. Unlike a few decades ago, the few, unregulated media goliaths of the USA are completely funded by advertising and closely connected to government. This means the fourth estate of our democracy (the press) serves the interests of sponsors and government first, and the people second. This is the exact opposite of what the 1st amendment meant to the writers of the US constitution.
4. Besides rarely representing the issues of economically poor or minority Americans, the networks repeatedly refuse to air ads they consider "controversial" regardless of factual or moral basis thus eliminating personal free speech even for wealthy citizen-activists. There are numerous examples of this which aught to be a wiki-article. May I suggest the title, "Government Sponsored Public Censorship".
5. The section in this wiki-article on the internet and citizen-journalists is incorrect. While recent Reuters polls show more and more Americans are getting their news from the internet, they're still going to the same big corporate media websites.
Bloggers still primarily report on information found on other big corporate media sources. A citizen with a camcorder doesn't have the resources and research capabilities of the Washington Post or CNN. Capturing police brutality is an important story but how can one expect a "citizen-journalist" with an HD handy-cam report on the Iraq war, global politics of fossil fuels and OPEC. Or the sub-prime crisis on wall street and it's relationship to fighting global warming.
It's irresponsible to propose that the advent of the internet means we don't need a professional and a public-funded press. This is why media reform and an intelligent discussion about it is so important.
6. Media concentration and copyright is a big issue of media concentration — control over the cultural references of a society. Disney, for example took works from the public domain, e.g. Sleeping Beauty etc, made a fortune off them, and then used that fortune to change copyright law so the works would never return to the public.
The implication of this is that due to the commercialization of media the purpose of stories is actually changing. Where once stories were a participatory part of culture, changed by the people telling them — tools for living, metaphors for ethical and moral decisions, now stories are given from above. Their messaging and underlying themes often approved by highly political entities unbeknownst to the general public. E.g. every Hollywood blockbuster action film that uses military equipment (most of them) must get script approval from the Pentagon. This is so the Pentagon can approve the underlying morality of the film.
That's just one example. Most societies call this kind of concentrated media system, 'propaganda'. With more competition in the market place, a news outlet which wasn't owned by the same corporation who released the action movie in question may be more likely to report the Pentagons approval process. With copyright law the way the constitution intended it, competing media companies would each do their own competitive versions of a same story. The internet today, is actually much more active in fighting copyright issues than doing citizen journalism.
7. The problem of commercial media concentration is of great relevance. Statistically Americans spend about 6.5 hours per day in full attention to the media. Kids between 8 and 18 spend over 44 hours a week in front of a video screen. A US citizen is bombarded by over 3000 advertisements every day. All this media has a profound effect on American psychology, culture and politics.
I encourage anyone who wishes to know more about this topic to use wikipedia as a discussion forum but read books by Mark Crispin Miller and Naomi Klein which may serve as a much more comprehensive knowledge base.
I'll close with the point that I don't agree with anonymous posting of information in the media. All information has a point of view and a bias. Accountability should remain a serious part of our free press, whether it be encyclopedic, periodical or editorial.
written by Matthew Cooke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.169.77 (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
