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The question is simple: Who owns the media? And why does it matter?
Media concentration has increased for several decades. Changes in media ownership regulations partly explain the consolidation, as in this case in the US:
At the time [1982], the “7/7/7” rule meant one corporation could own up to seven AM stations, seven FM stations and seven TV stations—a limit that was expanded to 15/15/15 in 1985.
With the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, all radio ownership caps were removed, save for regional caps preventing ownership of more than eight stations in any market.
https://fair.org/extra/media-monopoly-revisited/
Concentration of ownership should also be understood as a consequence of a general trend in capitalism towards monopolies, as predicted by Schumpeter. Members of boards of directors at media corporations often also sit on the boards of other corporations. To quote Sourcewatch,
It is kind of like one big happy family of interlocks and shared interests.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Media_reform
It is no coincidence that billionares add media companies to their investment portfolios. Alan Mcleod writes:
In comparison to other tech billionaires, [Bill] Gates has kept his profile as a media controller relatively low. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013 was a very clear and obvious form of media influence, as was eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s creation of First Look Media, the company that owns The Intercept.
In an overview from 2016, Business Insider lists the 30 biggest media companies worldwide.
Business insider: 30 biggest media owners
The list (in increasing order of revenues) includes the biggest American names as well as several companies from other parts of the world, such as:
The list also includes media companies that publish entertainment, fashion magazines, etc. For some reason they also include companies better known for search engines or social media, such as: Microsoft (No. 17), Yahoo! (15), Baidu (9), Facebook (5), and Alphabet/google (first place).
An infographic at the site webfx sums up the big six media corporations that own most of the media in the US (Published in 2016). They write:
While independent media outlets still exist (and there are a lot of them), the major outlets are almost all owned by these six conglomerates. To be clear, “media” in this context does not refer just to news outlets — it refers to any medium that controls the distribution of information. So here, “media” includes 24-hour news stations, newspapers, publishing houses, Internet utilities, and even video game developers.
The big six are:
Sinclair media, who runs many local TV stations around the US, was briefly mentioned in an earlier post. Their grab of increasing shares of local US news markets can be partly explained by the way regulation has been applied, or rather, how it has been neglected by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).
Free press: Media consolidation
The FCC under chairman Ajit Pai received a lot of attention around the debates about net neutrality. A memorable scandal ensued as the FCC received feedback from "citizens" about net neutrality, and as it turned out, many apparently were of a negative opinion. Later it was revealed that bots were largely responsible for opposing net neutrality, actual citizens were overwhelmingly in favour of it.
Media Ownership Monitor is an organisation started by the German branch of Reporters sans frontier. They investigate issues related to media ownership in developing countries. Media pluralism, according to their methodology page, is a key prerequisite of democratic societies. There is internal media pluralism, which refers to how well different groups or political opinions or ideologies are represented. There is also external media pluralism, which has to do with the number of media company owners.
Checking who owns a media company isn't always straightforward. On their FAQ page, the Media Ownership Monitor suggests some reasons why media owners sometimes prefer to hide:
Among the countries analysed by Media Ownership Monitor is Argentina. With the current economic crises many news outlets have been forced to close down and employees have lost their jobs. They write:
However, eight of those 20 media outlets have been recovered by their staff and continue to operate as workers’ cooperatives. (...) The phenomenon of independent, non-profit media is not a new one in Argentina, but has been existing for several decades. Although being very diverse in background and shape, what unites these print and online outlets, TV and radio stations is to consider communication a right, not a commodity, independent from the centers of economic power. In early 2019 Argentina has seen over 400 of those alternative media outlets, and the number is becoming larger and larger.
http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/argentina/
As a counterpart to Media Ownership Monitor there is the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) that studies the media situation in Euroupe, and specifically the EU countries.
https://cmpf.eui.eu/media-pluralism-monitor/
MPM has published reports since 2014 about media pluralism in the EU proper as well as EU hopeful countries. The latest report shows "either general stagnation or deterioration in (...) Basic protection, Market plurality, Political independence, and Social inclusiveness." Even the executive summary of the report is long and detailed.
https://cmpf.eui.eu/mpm2021-executive-summary/
The study covers many aspects of media, including freedom of expression, commercial influence over editorial content, political independence, and social inclusiveness. In their detailed questionnaire, ownership transparency is covered with questions related to regulations, and news media concentration is probed by asking about market shares for the top four newspapers, radio, TV, and digital sources.
The debates about who's funding to accept or not to accept is vital in contemporary radical art and music circles, where the freedom to raise a critique against anyone is fundamental. Some well-known cases involve oil companies that have sponsored art galleries, museums, or festivals. The refusal to accept their funding must be seen in the context of the typically precarious artist economy; it is not a lucrative business to engage in a radical criticism of big corporations. Yet, on one hand, the perception of being bought by these big companies is enough of a deterrent, while on the other hand these corporations often really are in need of anything to improve their reputation, so refusing to accept their support appears to be an efficient strategy insofar as it draws any attention.
Analogous arguments apply to independent media. Recently, at the Summit for Democracy, US State Secretary Antony Blinken announced that the US government would support independent journalism with a newly launched International Fund for Public Interest Media. Joe Lauria writes:
What can go wrong? This is like the State Department funding so-called non-governmental organizations making them in effect governmental NGOs. Media that accept U.S. government funds, whatever the strings attached, become dependent independent media, prone to self-censorship to keep the money flowing.
It seems the U.S. may well be nervous about the growing influence of real independent media and feel a need to co-opt it, if it doesn’t throw independent journalists in jail like Julian Assange.
Lauria: Can media be independent if US funded?
Since we have previously often looked at the situation in France, we will do so also in this part. An infographic displays the ownership structure in French media. Radio, television, printed press, and some online sites are included, but not alternative or independent media.
https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA
Julia Cagé, an economist, says in an interview from 2016 that media have become too concentrated to break up.
Je pense que nous en sommes arrivés à un point très grave où les médias sont devenus « trop concentrés pour être déconcentrés » ...
Les groupes de médias sont si puissants que les politiques ont peur d’y toucher. Il faut que des politiques courageux s’emparent enfin de ces questions clefs pour le futur de notre démocratie.
(I think we have arrived at a serious point where media have become too concentrated to break up. The media groups are so powerful that politicians are afraid to take them on. Courageous politicians must engage with these key issues for the future of our democracy.)
There is also a declining trust from the public and loss of revenues leading to downsized editorial staffs. Cagé suggests that the solution is non-profit media organisations with limits to ownership shares, and where journalists themselves have a stake in the organisation.
Cagé : Les médias sont devenus trop concentrés
The converse argument can be made, that media concentration is in fact a good thing, at least insofar as there are still two or three major alternatives.
Jean-Clément Texier in an interview with ina contends that the French media landscape has many titles to choose from, too many in fact, and not much to actually differentiate the outlets in terms of content. He thinks further consolidation is both inevitable and desirable. Bigger French or European media and telecommunications corporations would also stand a chance against GAFAM and the other big international media corporations. It is a matter of economics of scale.
https://larevuedesmedias.ina.fr/la-concentration-des-medias-va-saccelerer
In another interview with Cagé, she points out risks with media corporations having owners who don't primarily care about the media, they are more interested in the power such ownership brings them. Some owners are interventionists, such as Vincent Bolloré who had intervened directly to stop a documentary on Canal+.
https://larevuedesmedias.ina.fr/la-concentration-des-medias-menace-le-pluralisme
Mais le risque le plus fort c’est celui de l’autocensure de la part des journalistes qui vont par exemple arrêter d’enquêter sur le secteur des télécoms pour ne pas déplaire potentiellement à leur actionnaire majoritaire.
(But the greatest risk is that of self-censoring by journalists who would refrain from investigating the telecom sector in order not to displease their share holders, says Cagé.)
As of October 2021, members of the French Senate have proposed to launch a commission to investigate media ownership concentration.
It bears repeating that the greatest threat to editorial staffs and journalists isn't direct involvement from the owners, even if that also happens. The whole profit seeking model of commercial media trivialises and sensationalises the content, staffs are reduced to save costs, advertisers are not alienated with investigative reporting, and journalists know very well how to censor themselves. Both the example from Argentina and Cagé's proposed solution is to start non-profit media organisations, where the audience pays the journalists directly. Indeed, that model has been adopted by several of the most promising independent media outlets in recent years.
Part eleven (internet censorship)
Part twelve (conspiratorial thinking)
Part thirteen (psychology of propaganda)
Part fourteen (information warfare)
The Oxymoronist Media Guide is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This part first published on November 28, 2021
Updated on December 9, 2021