I suggest getting involved in New America / Open Markets and directly participate in tackling this problem. The downside to this group is that a number of its funders are, in fact, monopolists themselves.
6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
81–90 of 146 posts
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook creates no content whatsoever on its own. Its a crowd-funded link aggregator that earns revenue by ads.
It is a channel. With 2 billion viewers / readers / listeners.
The two billion figure is not an accurate one. Two billion users (not individual persons) rely entirely on Facebook as their primary source of news. I don't think the relevant figure is more than a few millions.
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#83A big difference between the US media and the rest of the developed world seems to be a complete absence of state-owned/subsidized/run media. To me, this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between corporate media. In the US, it seems that news/stories/investigative reporting without some commercial interest to some company tends to go underreported. There is no money in being critical towards bu…
What about Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe?
Also all the other media organizations funded by the National Endowment for Democracy?
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A big difference between the US media and the rest of the developed world seems to be a complete absence of state-owned/subsidized/run media. PBS and NPR, both modern day liberal, fascist, so called, news hacks, loyal to the Democrats to a fault. > To me, this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between corporate media. The US is not China, that is a very, very good thing.
You're literally contradicting yourself. Something cannot be both liberal and fascist (a philosophy characterized by authoritarianism and limited individual freedom)
There are four points on the political compass. I'm not sure that I'd agree with their use of the word 'fascist,' however.
Left - liberal. Right - conservative. Up - authoritarian. Down - libertarian.
One can be in the upper left quadrant.
I make no claims that they are and offer no opinion concerning NPR/PBS.
Meh, it is eating my formatting.
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh. Tough question. You don't want to make the mistake of using sources with an opposite mindset to the prevailing media. Prevailing media has a strong democratic bias. Opposing media has a strong republican bias (breitbart, oann, etc). Better media doesn't give a shit. I suggest sott.net, global research, strategic culture, mises.org, the intercept, reason, opslens, the unz review, counterpunch, zerohedge. KEEP IN M…
Brietbart and oann have strong republican bias but mises and reason don't? /:
From what I've read on Mises they are big on numbers, data, citing sources and logic. They don't deserve to be grouped with the others.
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#86While still small, Netflix probably represents one of the bigger threats to the Big 6. Of course, this makes it a prime merger target. [0] Netflix is not mentioned in the article. [0] https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/15/better-buy-the-wal...
I'm thinking how Netflix compares to the traditional media. On demand services have much less control of what we're going to watch. Bigger catalog -> better service -> less control.
One would think the Internet offers the biggest catalog, yet here we are - you are free to read your news from any source and I mean any source, however the influence of big media remains. Choice and freedom doesn't mean a better informed audience.
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see how the other half lives?
Internet media is the new media. Check out DrudgeReport.com, breitbart.com and InfoWars.com. If you're looking for something on your TV, your only hope is OANN, but most cable providers don't carry them yet.
OANN rocks! Been very happy with it.
Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#88Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#89Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America
#90Some might ask why this matters. The problem with these six mega-corporations is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind. These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) and most of the larger online US news sites. They have, in my opinion, been quite effective at brainwashi…
When I ditched cable TV about 7 years ago I lost track of these outlets. I can't say I've missed them. I occasionally open cnn.com if I'm bored, mostly because it's quick to type. I have a (physical) subscription to the Economist, which is where I get all my serious news. I can't tell you how great it is to read the news without the page content shifting all around because of ads loading.
I ditched both TV and The Economist 20 years ago.
The latter was difficult. I was emotionally attached; it felt good to put that issue on the counter ("I'm smart, informed, discerning!"); and there was nothing else. But alas, as soon as The Economist started with their tech and software focus spreads it quickly dawned on me that these guys just know how to sound authoritative. That was a bad move on their part.