Media Conglomeration In Mass Media

648 Words2 Pages

Mass Mmedia is made up of several communications systems that reach millions of people every day. But who owns the media? Actually, through the long history of mergers and acquisitions, few big companies have been controlling what we see, hear, and read by maintaining the ownership of mass media. However, the issue of media conglomeration has produced a significant amount of controversy. Since the media’s power and the control of the communications system have been dominated by a few corporations, media conglomeration has been viewed as an obstruction and limitations ?? of diversified contents. While opponents believe there is a crisis impending due to the perception of increased concentrated ownership and convergence of the media industry that interfere with message pluralism, supporters argue the media system has increased diversity more than before and large companies offer advantages that a small company can never afford . This paper examines the history of media ownership and the current FCC regulations, and discusses the effects of media conglomeration on our society. In the United States, there are a few corporations that control the mass media. The Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP), founded in 2000 to provides research and advocacy on free speech, copyright, and media democracy issues indicates: there are ten corporations that control the mass media in the United Stets???: Viacom, Time Warner, Walt Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, and Vivendi Universal. While media concentrations have been going on for quite some time, there are concerns about how this conspiracy of media monopolies started ? In early 1900, telecommunications markets were not monopolies. After the radio was invented, regulations were ... ... middle of paper ... ...lt Disney Company, Liberty Media Corporation, AT&T Corporation, News Corporation, Bertelsman, Vivendi Universal, and Sony. After several rounds of rulemaking and court challenges, the FCC announced a new “Broadcast Ownership Rules” in June of 2003. This law raised the ceiling for national market share from 35% to 45%. Responding to widespread protests, Congress overturned this increase as part of its 2003 appropriations bill. However, after President Bush threatened to veto the entire appropriations bill, a compromise was reached at 39%, which allowed Viacom and the News Corporation to keep all of the stations they currently owned. (Miller) For many years, despite the enormous revenues that have been generated by these few big media companies, media conglomeration caused a mutilation of viewers’ thinking and suppression to segments of the communicated message.

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