When the average person thinks about the media landscape, they usually think about what they see on a tv screen or in their smart devices: movies, podcasts, local news, sports networks and so on. The viewer only pays attention to the content rather than the production team or media company that works behind the scenes. In the United States there are over 176 media corporations and news outlets that control mainstream media. Of these companies, six of them control over 90% of media outlets in America (Legg, 2021); this means these media conglomerates, or multimedia groups, are the major producers of media content in the digital space. With only a handful of companies controlling the media landscape, they can have a large sway in the American consumer.
If not properly regulated; media conglomeration could have horrible consequences such as: Affecting future content that is produced, manipulating an audience's consumption of media, and finally jeopardizing an individual’s freedom of expression.
By identifying how these conglomerates operate and observing certain case studies, we will see how media conglomeration can influence the daily digital consumer and discover the dangers of media conglomeration towards the small-scale competitor, the digital consumer itself, and the functioning of our American democracy.
What is a media conglomerate?
A media conglomerate is when a company uses its resources to enter various sectors of the business world. In layman's terms, a corporation wishing to become a "multi-industry company". One big example is Amazon, an ecommerce company investing its profits in data servers, artificial intelligence, and in recent years media and entertainment. Conglomerates are also known as “holding companies”, when one company owns parts or all of other companies, known as “subsidiaries”. This is like the Walt Disney company having stakes in big entertainment networks (StudioBinder, 2021), like 20th Century Fox, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ESPN, and ABC Network, they work independently while being overseen by the interests of the parent company. With all these companies their subsidiaries, a large conglomerate has the influence to shape a digital consumers habit and subconsciously, their decisions in their daily lives.
Words of the day:
1. Media[ˈmēdēə]
NOUN
(THE MEDIA)
The main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the internet) regarded collectively.
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2. Conglomerate [conglomerate]
NOUN
(Company)
A combination of multiple business entities operating in entirely different industries under one corporate group
Informative articles and
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-Crash Course Media Literacy: Media ownership