adjexc - Consider the Source

ADVERTISING

As advertising becomes more important for businesses, larger companies are able to spend more and more on sophisticated ways to make us buy their products. Advertisers also exert direct and indirect influence on the media companies and their content in order to foster moods and cultures where consumers are more likely to buy their products. As a consequence, dumbing down of content is not uncommon. Media companies sell consumers to their customers, the advertisers, that bring in the money that allows media companies to survive. Market pressures therefore affect content further. Globalization also has an impact on advertising and consumerism.

www.globalissues.org/article/158/corporate-influence-in-the-media

CORPORATE OWNERSHIP

The 1980s and 90s saw a lot of mergers and buyouts of media and entertainment companies. Nine corporations (mainly US) dominate the media world: AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, News Corporation, TCI, General Electric (owner of NBC), Sony (owner of Columbia and TriStar Pictures and major recording interests), and Seagram (owner of Universal film and music interests). As Robert McChesney, a media critic, and author of Rich Media Poor Democracy, (University of Illinois Press, 1999) says, these are the "first tier" companies and following them are around 50 or so "second tier" companies doing media-related business at either national or regional level. All of these companies each do more than one billion dollars worth of business.

"In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. ... [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. ... [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. ... [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. ... [In 2000] AOL Time Warner's $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983]." -- Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx - xxi

When Viacom offered to buy out CBS earlier in 1999, it resulted a flurry of praises in the mainstream media in the US, which otherwise reports little on its own industry. However, there are increasingly "fewer and fewer players" in the media. This results in the possibility of less diversity and reduced quality of journalism as political interests may not allow certain topics to be covered.

Just as the Viacom/CBS deal fervor began to die down, we saw the largest merger in history -- mega internet giant, AOL, and media king, Time-Warner merging into AOL Time Warner. While corporate-owned mainstream media praised this, there were many critics commenting on the resulting lack of diversity that will impact meaningful democracy and open debate even more.

For a video cartoon summary of media mergers and corporate ownership, see below:

This video aired on Saturday Night Live ONCE. After the East Coast airing, the West Coast airing of the video was pulled for a Michael Jackson cartoon spoof. The cartoon was never shown with reruns.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1057391195915718366

RELIABLE SOURCES

The world is full of information that can be potentially misleading. The internet is the most notorious medium when it comes to unreliable source material, but one must also be wary of newsprint, magazines, television and books. Here is a useful link for evaluating internet sources.

http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

Even "the most trusted name in news" has corporate sponsorship that can change the conversation as well as what is reported.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/15/clean-coal-sponsors-debate/

Here is an example of what happens when a pro-corporate lobbyist group gets hold of a certain kind of domain name... Consider the source of your information! Impartial sources are vital to forming an educated opinion, be wary of what you hear and read.

http://www.globalwarming.org

BIBLIOGRAPY

Information

Pictures and Video