Garrett Smith
JOUR 4201
Consolidation of Global Media
A trend of deregulation and privatization starting in the 1980’s has given rise to
growing transnational corporations, which has had a great effect on marketplaces and the
information that is shared within society. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 in
particular opened the flood-gates for mergers within the US media sphere, and led to a
consolidation of many of the past local media players. This continued trend has not only
allowed these media empires to consolidate within their sector of business, but also
across into other industries, thus increasing their influence to virtually all media and the
depiction of our local culture, and also foreign cultures. This consolidation and merging
of interests leads to issues both domestically such as higher prices and the stratification of
information, and internationally such as the lack of representation of developing nations
and the cultures that inhabit them. Consolidation of market ownership of global media
has taken off in the past few decades across the globe, and this has greatly impacted not
only local economies and communities, but also the political economy of world media
and how cultures and people interact in the global public sphere.
The domestic issues with consolidation and oligopolization here in the U.S. range
from simple effects on consumers, all the way to our role as citizens. When Internet and
television companies are allowed to buy eachother out, fewer and fewer conglomerates
control more and more of the competition in the market, and the information that is
shared among it. Many modern markets don’t resemble the “mythical free market found
only in economics textbooks, the media and telecommunications sectors today comprise a
small group of very large providers that resembles a cartel in which, by virtue of their
large market shares, the members often act in collusion. In the classic theory of
oligopoly, firms with large shares of the market can act as price-setters rather than
competitive price-takers” (Warf 99). These higher prices don’t just effect consumers, but
also lead to declined access to the poor, and creates what is known as the “digital divide”.
The result of this divide is a teired system where there is not equal access to information,
which presents issues for minority groups that are more prevalent in the digital divide,
and undermines our democracy and how citizens are represented. There are helpful
institutions like schools and libraries that provide an alternate option for internet access,
but this option is restricted by hours of operation and lines that accumulate.
There used to be dozens of regional cable-TV companies, however they’ve all
now consolidated into four giants: Comcast, Time-Warner Cable, Charter
Communications, and Cox Communications. In 2013, Comcast proposed to aquire TimeWarner Cable for forty-five billion dollars, which “would unite the nation’s two biggest
cable operators, giving Comcast roughly a third of the nation’s cable-TV subscribers”
(Chart: Two Decades of Cable-TV Consolidation). The digital divide is a serious
biproduct of consolidation of TV-Internet companies, and this stratification of
information could be amplified by future mergers like the Comcast-Time-Warner Cable
deal.
Concentration of ownership poses a huge threat to overall competition, which is
what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was established to promote, as
their website says: “the agency capitalizes on its competencies in: Promoting
competition, innovation and investment in broadband services and facilities, (and)
supporting the nation's economy by ensuring an appropriate competitive framework for
the unfolding of the communications revolution (…)” (What We Do). Deregulation has
led to increased integration and mergers horizontally within their own industry by taking
over competition, and laxed regulations by the FCC have allowed this integration to
occur vertically into other industries in order to expand the reach of a bussiness’ own
market, thus increasing the extent of consolidating media. One great example of the
extent of the lack of regulations for vertically integrated media players, is Rupert
Murdoch’s media empire. Rupert Murdoch and his family are majority stakeholders in
his enormous media empire called News Corp, consisting of 175 newpapers and
magazines, such as the New York Post, The Wallstreet Journal, and London’s The Sun,
HarperCollins publishers, 35 local television stations that reach almost half of the U.S.
population, a bundle of 11 national and 22 regional cable satellite channels (including
Fox News), Twentieth Century Fox production studios, as well as many large hands in
multiple forms of foreign media in Australia, the Middle-East, and China. The ownership
of such vast media “demonstrates, in short, how centralized ownership allows highranking management—invariably conservative—to inject its political views into the
shaping and presentation of the news in a large array of outlets” (Warf 98).
The consolidation of these huge industries have provided huge growth and record
levels of profit, which often gets devoted to influencing and lobbying government
representatives and entities like the FCC, which effects legislation and the social
environment we live in. For example, Comcast has dedicated almost twelve million
dollars just in 2014 to lobbying the U.S. government (Comcast Corp.). I should also point
out that it should seem problematic that Tom Wheeler, the Chairman of the FCC, used to
be the main lobbying arm of telecommunication companies before he was appointed by
President Obama. So while there’s a direct effect of concentration of ownership on
individuals, there’s a much larger effect on our political sphere and our democracy.
This concerns the current topic of net neutrality and the traffic of free-flowing
information. Net Neutrality is the idea that the Internet should stay open with all
information being treated equal, however internet providers like Comcast are fighting the
concept in order to get “fast-lanes” to those who can afford quicker rates. However many
critics argue that this would hinder the innovation and creativity that has flourished
across the Internet in the past, and largely change how information is shared within our
democracy. If net neutrality is hindered, small businesses wont see the kind of growth
and visibilty that has been provided in the past, which will hold back further innovation.
Different voices and perspectives need to be heard across the Internet at equal rates, and
“In societies in which a diversity of voices is critical to the political process,
consolidation of the media is no friend to participatory democracy” (Warf 101).
Senator Paul Wellstone spoke about the threat of media consolidation on
democracy, and called for more discussion and debate on the topic in both Congress and
within the public. He explained how there is increasing concentration in other sectors
besides the media industry, such as in finance and agriculture, and while the pace of
consolidation should alarm us in these industries, the mergers within the media and
entertainment industries should alarm us the most. The media is special; “the media is not
just any ordinary industry. It is the life-blood of American democracy. We depend on the
media for the free flow of information that enables citizens to participate in the
democratic process” (Wellstone 551). Yet, “in this age of media consolidation and
cartelization, the quality and even the quantity of news has deteriorated…Whereas
broadcast stations still are licensed to operate in ‘the public interest,’ news in the age of
media empires has become reduced to ‘infotainment’” (Champlin and Knoedler 459 ).
The news and journalism have been founded as a watchdog of the government and a tool
for the American people to stay informed, and its integrity comes into question when
media empires are cheapening news as they expand into all reaches of journalism,
including print, publishing, broadcast, and even the film industry.
The consolidation of media in the dominant Western oligopolies has distinct
effects on foreign cultures also, as well as the global public sphere—media space where
consensus and deliberation are held with unfettered discourse. Following the 1980’s and
the past few decades, the theory of cultural imperialism and the observations of the
dominant Western powers over developing nations has prompted the creation of
countless new media outlets which attempt to provide a perspective and ideology that
counters the Western influence. Radio was the first available avenue of promoting these
perspectives, and radio stations like Voice of America, Radio Moscow, and Radio
Vaticana were all forms of self-purposeful propoganda during the 1990’s. Although these
main stations originated from dominant powers like the U.S. and the U.K., and the Soviet
Union, the trend of expressing an ideology and culture through media is a strategy that
has been utilized more and more by many other countries in the recent years. Now the
public sphere is a very crowded place where you find many state-funded sources of
information, particularly in broadcast, such as the BBC, Russia Today, Euro News,
Venezuela’s Telesur, Qatar’s Al Jazeera, China’s CCTV, and France’s France 24. There
are also many privately funded sources such as CNN and Fox News.
Al Jazeera is a very unique case of media, that has gained popularity and
momentum following the Iraq War, Afghanstan War, and many of the events taking place
throughout the Middle-East. The news outlet was established in Qatar to expose
mismanagement of wealth within Arab-states, but has become a growing counter-power
to dominant Western media. Rupert Murdoch and “News Corporation’s various outlets
were unanimous supporters of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003,” and represents a
perfect example of how news can be used as propoganda and a tool for politicians and
political players (Warf 97). Following the attacks of 9/11, American media produced
stereotypes and uninformed resentment aimed toward the Arab world. Murdoch’s Fox
News often praised involvement in the Middle-East, which reflected his political and
financial interests, however his right-wing outlets fueled sense of terror and fear of the
region. While special interests such as oil are often discussed as reasons for American
involvement in the region, Al Jazeera was questioning our intenion during the invasion,
while George W. Bush was calling Al Jazeera the “mouth piece of Bin Laden.” This
seems very problematic to how we treat foreign perspectives, especially when they’re
portrayed as evil by mainstream media and we can realize their integrity and efforts afterthe-fact. We have to hold the media accountable for what they aren’t telling us, because
we often discover what was left out is of monumental importance.
One example of Al Jazeera providing a different and informative perspective, is
evident in their show Borderland. Although immigration in the U.S. is a widely
politicized topic in most of American media, Al Jazeera looked at the topic through the
eyes of many different individuals from different backgrounds and parts of society, and
brought them along on a journey across the Mexico-U.S. border to see the reality of the
situation. They focus more on the individual story of issues rather than being very broad
like most mainstream media, which is important if we expect to get any context and
understand these complex issues. A lot of how mainstream media justifies its objectivity
is simply by showing arguments from both sides, however Al Jazeera understands that
being objective isn’t always enough, and sometimes you have to be somewhat subjective
in order to get down to the personal level and the reality of these major issues. I should
point out that there are now Al Jazeera America and Al Jazeera English channels that
have finally entered to U.S. media sphere, despite fending off a great deal of resistance
from American media institutions. The fact that sixty percent of Al Jazeera English’s
viewers are from the United States, says something about the general state of domestic
institutions and the information that is being portayed by dominant media powers.
Growing transnational media players like Al Jazeera are making a dent in the
uneven media flows coming from Western powers, and they are changing the public
sphere into a more open and less-biased environment. While the typical flow of
information can be thought of as a bridge going from “West”, which is obviously
Western media, to the “East,” which are vitually all other countries, the flow of Western
media to these other countries is now being countered by more and more entities like Al
Jazeera. The visibility of Al Jazeera is a mere 17,000 people during primetime, while
MSNBC has almost 350,000 and Fox boasts 1.87 million viewers. Although the
information is not flowing equally across this bridge, the media coming from the East is
beginning to chip away at the dominant spheres of influence, and beginning to represent
different voices more and more. Media industries across the globe are exploding in
rapidly developing areas, such as China, India, Japan, throughout Latin America, and
throughout the Middle-East and Asia, and this growth is allowing them to influence the
flows of global media. Any country can now make a difference in public discourse within
the public sphere, and this is changing how we percieve media and representations within
it.
Brazil has developed into a major media power in Latin and South America, and
has an increasing impact on representation of local identity and the social issues that
exist. Telenovelas, which are comparable to the soap opera genre, has “developed as a
complex cultural product with generic, social and cultural roots far back in Latin
American history” (Tufte 2). Mexico and Venezuela are also large exporters of these
telenovelas, and house large media entities such as Globo and Televisa. These telenovelas
have been praised for incorporating audience participation and input, which stresses the
political role of citizens despite the presence of corrupt regimes in the region.
Telenovelas have provided a platform to voice concern over social issues as they “have
criticized both local and national political bosses, raised ecological concerns, and
discussed issues of homelessness and landlessness” (Straubhaar 138).
One example of how telenovelas have housed social change was in the case of the
murder of Daniella Perez in Brazil, who was one of the starring actors in a popular
telenovela in 1992 called From Body and Soul. After Daniella had been murdered in Rio,
the main suspects were identified as her partner in the telenovela, Guilherme de Padua,
and his wife. While the Brazilian audience was stunned, many were angry that Guilherme
de Padua had not been jailed despite being the prime suspect. This gave rise to a social
movement, headed by Gloria Perez, the mother of the victim, which demanded a total
revision of the Penal Code in Brazil. In September of the following year, Gloria handed
over 1.3 million signatures supporting the revision of the law. In 1997, Guilherme de
Padua and his wife were both sentenced to almost 20 years in prison. This trial was
known in Brazil as the trial of the decade and shows how “telenovelas can articulate mass
emotional involvement, stimulate national unity and also poitical or civic action” (Tufte
1). Media consolidation in this case is allowing for media players like Globo and Televisa
to represent Latin American culture in the public sphere, both domestically within their
own systems, and internationally in America and diaspora across the globe.
UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that aims "to contribute to
the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and
intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and
information"(Introducing UNESCO: what we are). There was a call for a New World
Information and Communication Order (NWICO) that was pushed by UNESCO because
many countries wanted more control of the image being portrayed by the majority of the
global media. UNESCO held several forums where demands for the “decolonization of
information” were presented during the 70’s and 80’s, and
“At successive general conferences and specialized meetings of Unesco, Third
World complaints came to crystallize around several key areas: news flow.
Television flow, advertising and communications technology. The critique of US
domination of information flow and Madison Avenue brought home to the West
that in many ways the NWICO movement was an attack on capitalism: it was not
only te news and enteratinment values which were felt to be ‘alien’ to many nonWestern societies, but also the transnationalized economy represented by
American communication industries.” (Roach 283)
The NWICO promoted local news agencies in the underrepresented areas because
many of the perceptions about developing regions such as Africa and the Middle-East
were, and still are, tarnishing the image of the region, which deters foreign investment
and growth. Take the media coverage of Ebola for instance, where there was a total
ignorance of the thousands of lives already lost in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and New
Giunea, yet the media devoted much of the focus of the attention on our nation where an
“outbreak” was impossible, rather than on the nation where very little resources and
infrastructure can be utilized.
The extensive media of the US is now controlled by only a mere handful of media
conglomerates, and because these few corporations account for the vast majority of
revenue and global influence, this is changing the global media order as other countries
and communities feel the need to represent themselves and local culture through their
own avenues of media rather than relying on the dominant perspective and images
portrayed the more powerful Western empires. Powerful corporate giants paired with
deteriorating government regulation has led to divisions between the reach of
information, therefore, “Such a trend will enhance the discrepancies between those who
can speak out politically and those who cannot, a division with distinct class and racial
consequences. Far from constituting some utopian domain of free speech, therefore, as
early technocrats predicted, corporate concentration of tlecommunications, the media,
and the Internet may well reinforce and deepen social parities” (Warf 103). Concentration
of media ownership of global media has direct effects on consumers, political spheres in
different countries, and discourse in the public sphere as a whole, and we need to take
notice to how these effects are transcending through concepts like the digital divide and
how cultures are represented in global media and global economy.
Works Cited
Baynes, Leonard. Race, Media Consolidation, and Online Content: The Lack of
Substitutes Available to Media Consumers of Color. HeinOnline. Web. 3 Dec.
2014.
<http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/umijlr39&div=15
&id=&page>.
Champlin, Dell, and Janet Knoedler. Operating in the Public Interest or in Pursuit of
Private Profits? News in the Age of Media Consolidation (2002). Journal of
Economic Issues. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4227797?uid=3739568&uid=2&uid=4&
uid=3739256&sid=21105409239493>.
"Chart: Two Decades of Cable-TV Consolidation." Corporate Intelligence RSS. The Wall
Street Journal, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. <http://blogs.wsj.com/corporateintelligence/2014/02/13/chart-two-decades-of-cable-tv-consolidation/>.
"Comcast Corp." Opensecrets RSS. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.
"Introducing UNESCO | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization." Introducing UNESCO | United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization. Web. 9 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/introducingunesco/>.
Roach, C. "The Movement for a New World Information and Communication Order: A
Second Wave?" Media, Culture & Society (1990): 283-307. Web. 9 Dec. 2014.
<mcs.sagepub.com/content/12/3/283.extract>.
Straubhaar, J. Producing National Television, Glocal, and Local. Web. 4 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.nabilechchaibi.com/resources/Straubhaar.pdf>.
Tufte, Thomas. Living with the Rubbish Queen: Telenovelas, Culture and Modernity in
Brazil. Luton, Bedfordshire, UK: U of Luton, 2000. Print.
Warf, Barney. "Oligopolization Of Global Media And Telecommunications And Its
Implications For Democracy." Ethics, Place & Environment (2007): 89-105.
Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.nabilechchaibi.com/resources/Oligopolization of
lobal media.pdf>.
Wellstone, Paul. Growing Media Consolidation Must Be Examined to Preserve Our
Democracy. HeinOnline. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.
<http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/fedcom52&div=2
7&id=&page>.
"What We Do." Home. Web. 7 Dec. 2014. <http://www.fcc.gov/what-we-do>.
Warf reading
<https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000461&cycle=2014