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Six corporations control 90% of America media

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Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#61

Post by alexeldeib »

wombatmobile wrote: post #46
doctor_eval wrote: post #11

I didn’t understand this at first as Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” discussed media consolidation many years ago. But of course the problem is that we’ve gone from a small number of companies controlling _the news_ to a small number of companies controlling _all media_. It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell.

> It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell. As Neil Postman pointed out, it's less Orwell and more Huxley. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egois…

> it's less Orwell and more Huxley.

This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#62

Post by javajosh »

starkd wrote: post #52
motohagiography wrote: post #27

Should we be concerned about them using their media properties to push narratives designed to consolidate their influence, or ask whether some of the things we believe might be artifacts of that influence, or maybe what the sources and motives of those narratives might be? Kidding. This isn't the 90's. The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillanc…

what does that even mean? There is a name for government-corporate collaboration. Even if you think it's going well "for now", it probably isn't.

Perhaps the GP should have been more explicit with his sarcasm. People say (and apparently believe) the craziest things, it's almost impossible to do satire or sarcasm without a disclaimer.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#63

Post by teslafire124 »

thayne wrote: post #7
analyst74 wrote: post #2

This is not news for anyone paying attention to the media space. The big question is ... is there a way out? Or are we destined to have a small number of powerful organizations controlling world's information and in extension, our thought?

Probably not without government intervention. Antitrust or antimonopoly (or anti-oligopoly) enforcement would probably help. Perhaps copyright reform would help, although that is less obvious.

That would help but there seems to be no incentive to push anti-trust efforts. Otherwise these mega corporations wouldn't exist in their current behemoth forms. I think public outcry would need to be strong enough to pressure antitrust action, but people tend to be fine with it since less companies makes access to their media more simple and streamlined

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#64

Post by easterncalculus »

motohagiography wrote: post #27

Should we be concerned about them using their media properties to push narratives designed to consolidate their influence, or ask whether some of the things we believe might be artifacts of that influence, or maybe what the sources and motives of those narratives might be? Kidding. This isn't the 90's. The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillanc…

> The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now.

The president of the United States proudly admitted to alerting Facebook to "problematic" accounts just last week. Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia", but the best light is "collaboration" between the largest corporations and the government. It's certainly going on, and that's not a conspiracy theory.

Also, corporations are government - they quite literally are often the same people, having their hands in government agencies and institutions before cashing out in the private sector. Practically everyone at one point or another is thinking about their next job, so it's hard to argue the folks in the highest positions in society aren't.

> Kidding, not kidding. We should really look at what these companies are pushing.

Now you're confusing me a bit - but if this is your actual position, I agree.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#66

Post by wdr1 »

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me.

The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed.

And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983.

The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excludes giants like Netflix?

There may be issues here, but this article wasn't very good.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#67

Post by wombatmobile »

alexeldeib wrote: post #61
wombatmobile wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell. As Neil Postman pointed out, it's less Orwell and more Huxley. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egois…

> it's less Orwell and more Huxley. This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?

Nobody wants to be controlled.

Everybody wants to be entertained.

In a democracy, this is a recipe for mediocrity, because reaching consensus and buy-in is so difficult, it is easier to ignore hard problems than to solve them.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#69

Post by mtnGoat »

wdr1 wrote: post #66

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excl…

YouTube/IG/etc are not media creators per se, just aggregators. Thus, not including them on that list makes perfect sense to me.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#70

Post by guerrilla »

wdr1 wrote: post #66

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excl…

> The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed.

None of whom are major producers of their own content. They're just floating user-generated content and content from the corporations mentioned in the OP.

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