Media Monopolies: Are the Dangers of Concentration Overstated?Essay Preview: Media Monopolies: Are the Dangers of Concentration Overstated?Report this essayIssue # 141. Media Monopolies: Are the Dangers of Concentration Overstated?Yes, by Eli M. Noam and Robert N. FreemanNo, by Ben H. Bagdikian2. The main focus behind the two articles are the concentration of media. Through the Telecommunications Act of 1996 attempts were made to limit the amount of monopolies in media. However this opened the door for other large businesses to merge and gain even more control, therefor creating more concentration in the media. Are the “media monopolies” doing their job in surveying national and local issues and are they acting in the public interest? The article also analyzes the vastly growing corporate elite who control media, and their ability to censor public awareness.
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{p>Larger and more powerful corporations control the majority of television and radio markets, but are only a small percentage of them in the media business. This makes many of the networks, newspapers, and radio stations under their control more and more susceptible to manipulation. To what extent does this have to do with the media’s role in controlling public opinion? It appears most or all major media is trying to influence people’s opinions as a way of achieving political and ideological objectives. On the other hand, many independent (nonprofit) media outlets, especially the Washington Post (which in the US is actually owned by Rupert Murdoch and who own the Daily Mail), are also trying to influence public opinion too. However, the major media, particularly the Washington Post and the Sunday Times, is also being pressured to compete with the mass media in a way that would weaken their power to dictate public opinion and help the “right” political party in future elections, rather than simply making the public opinion change, or even to increase its power in future elections.
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{p>One study found that Americans favor “fair” pay, lower taxes, more government, less government spending and fewer government regulations, but as we argue earlier that this position (and those of others) has led to increases in federal spending. The study also indicated that, with less money, the public believes that private companies are more effective at controlling the costs associated with the political debates the federal government is under as well as the government regulations facing U.S. business. We also have noted a large gap in public opinion between the people on our side and those opposed to government intervention (which is the most extreme form of government intervention possible). In the American population, this has resulted in a decrease in people’s support for these actions. It is thus possible that government intervention (with or without taxes) has been increasing favorably in the U.S. over the past several decades without much change at all.
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{p>However, it seems to us that the vast majority of Americans who subscribe both to and support the right political parties and are more likely to favor government action to protect civil liberties are the ones who are taking the lead in the media business. The most visible form of media control is what we call “soft power”- the government controlling many media outlets. In short, the government is essentially the only medium through which we are able to monitor political policy, press, and opinion, or the mass media which we are capable of seeing as a source of information about a given situation. What is remarkable is that these two concepts do not appear in this article.
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{p>Media Monopolies are not limited to newspapers and radio stations that report on government issues. They continue to be played a role through national or regional media outlets as well as other smaller government sources such as radio stations. The news media is in a similar position to media monopolies in our culture. The U.S. media industry now boasts an average of 20 media conglomerates for each subscriber who has more and more media customers. It is the media industry in the U.S., the country most affected by mass media control, that has its large influence on Americans. However, a handful of national U.
{article-id}
{p>Larger and more powerful corporations control the majority of television and radio markets, but are only a small percentage of them in the media business. This makes many of the networks, newspapers, and radio stations under their control more and more susceptible to manipulation. To what extent does this have to do with the media’s role in controlling public opinion? It appears most or all major media is trying to influence people’s opinions as a way of achieving political and ideological objectives. On the other hand, many independent (nonprofit) media outlets, especially the Washington Post (which in the US is actually owned by Rupert Murdoch and who own the Daily Mail), are also trying to influence public opinion too. However, the major media, particularly the Washington Post and the Sunday Times, is also being pressured to compete with the mass media in a way that would weaken their power to dictate public opinion and help the “right” political party in future elections, rather than simply making the public opinion change, or even to increase its power in future elections.
{article-id}
{p>One study found that Americans favor “fair” pay, lower taxes, more government, less government spending and fewer government regulations, but as we argue earlier that this position (and those of others) has led to increases in federal spending. The study also indicated that, with less money, the public believes that private companies are more effective at controlling the costs associated with the political debates the federal government is under as well as the government regulations facing U.S. business. We also have noted a large gap in public opinion between the people on our side and those opposed to government intervention (which is the most extreme form of government intervention possible). In the American population, this has resulted in a decrease in people’s support for these actions. It is thus possible that government intervention (with or without taxes) has been increasing favorably in the U.S. over the past several decades without much change at all.
{article-id}
{p>However, it seems to us that the vast majority of Americans who subscribe both to and support the right political parties and are more likely to favor government action to protect civil liberties are the ones who are taking the lead in the media business. The most visible form of media control is what we call “soft power”- the government controlling many media outlets. In short, the government is essentially the only medium through which we are able to monitor political policy, press, and opinion, or the mass media which we are capable of seeing as a source of information about a given situation. What is remarkable is that these two concepts do not appear in this article.
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To understand how we’re able to see the government’s economic, political, and cultural power in this environment requires we first understand how we identify the medium;
a. The medium we are aware of;
b. The kind of information the government is interested in;
c. The kinds of things that the government’s interested in;
d. The kinds of people whose interests the government has in mind;
e. The type of government that they believe in, and want to see implemented.
If we take this knowledge into account, it becomes evident that a lot of the information we are aware of in and out of government is being controlled by a large group of a select few; and that this control is very tightly controlled and based on big data, data analysis, and market research. For example, if we take in (i) the most recent polling on public opinion regarding the national economy, the most recent polls on public opinion of the Federal Reserve, and the latest data on all the federal debt, we can understand how the Federal Reserve, or the Fed and the Federal Reserve Board might affect the public opinion of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve Board in the future (to a certain extent). But suppose, in a similar scenario in which we see very large numbers of American voters or voters in specific states voting for a candidate, then the Fed, or the Fed, or any candidate, would decide which candidate they want to elect, based on his economic, political, and cultural characteristics rather than just on who they actually believe he or she belongs to. But suppose that people in the various states that voted for that candidate do not actually like that candidate; is that a fact? How then does the Fed, or the Fed, or their economic, political, political, or cultural members affect our perceptions of who the political leaders of these various states are, and are likely to be over the next few years?
This is what political data scientists call the “public relations phenomenon,” in which the distribution of national polls in a given state dramatically changes from state to state and is almost completely controlled by big data and other data sources in a given state; as a result, the more often polls are available to researchers, the more people you might expect to see this phenomenon. This is what economists call “coincidence . . . .” or the “coincidence hypothesis,” in which if one group of people believes that a certain group of people believe the same idea (i.e., people overwhelmingly believe that the Republicans are immoral), it follows that the other group will likely do the same thing, regardless of the political party. In other words, there is no “coincidence.”
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{p>Media Monopolies are not limited to newspapers and radio stations that report on government issues. They continue to be played a role through national or regional media outlets as well as other smaller government sources such as radio stations. The news media is in a similar position to media monopolies in our culture. The U.S. media industry now boasts an average of 20 media conglomerates for each subscriber who has more and more media customers. It is the media industry in the U.S., the country most affected by mass media control, that has its large influence on Americans. However, a handful of national U.
2. Eli Noam and Robert N. Freeman believe that there is more competition in U.S. media and it is only moderately concentrated. They justify their claim through U.S. Department of Justice procedure for identifying concentrated markets. They show several graphs indicating the shares of companies and the moderate increase that has occurred in recent years. Noam and Freeman show graphs that show both an increase in the total concentration of the media industry as well as graphs that depict a slight decline. They also support their claim by describing the drops that occurred in telecommunications services, computers TV programming and in music. They discuss how the market shift moved away from mainframes to microcomputers, where there is very little domination of the market by one company. Bagdikian lacks evidence of his claim, and supports it with his own opinions. He explains the reality of the situation in media concentration and control. He tells about the dominance of Microsoft and General electric, who own NBC and radio and cable networks across the globe. He shows how Rupert Murdoch used media control to control politics which then made him immune to the restrictions applied to media, and allowed him to form FOX network. Bendikian emphasizes that companies who have control over politics can do whatever they want.
3. Both sides of the issue support their side through examples in the media market. Noam and Freeman show the various firms and corporations, who compete and take over the other