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Six corporations control 90% of America media

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Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#131

Post by kcunnin16 »

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…

Agree this piece was garbage and was exactly the kind of content that the actual tech companies who dominate media would want to promote, to deflect from their ability to silence anyone.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#132

Post by IIAOPSW »

fourtrees wrote: post #122
briefcomment wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hear the word "conspiracy" and are already on the opposite side before hearing any arguments. It's like they're terrified of having the wrong thoughts. Don't worry, we haven't reached the mind reading flavor of conspiratorial dystopia yet.

I agree with your first sentence at least. Conspiracies -- from what led to Jan. 6th to Watergate to John Brown's Raid to the XYZ affair -- absolutely exist. But the word has been so completely conflated with absurd, even insane ideas, that to talk of conspiracy immediately puts the accuser at a serious rhetorical disadvantage.

I use the term "contrarian theory" to describe what is usually meant by "conspiracy theory".

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#133

Post by briefcomment »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #126
briefcomment wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hear the word "conspiracy" and are already on the opposite side before hearing any arguments. It's like they're terrified of having the wrong thoughts. Don't worry, we haven't reached the mind reading flavor of conspiratorial dystopia yet.

I'm not terrified of having "wrong thoughts", but I do think conspiracy theorizing is dumb because no conspiracy theorist seems able to believe just one conspiracy. Oh, you think COVID was a lab leak, and that global warming is fake? What do you think about the moon landing? Is the government controlled by the Jews or the lizardmen? Why don't you (and this is a purely rhetorical "you") seem to have any limits to your…

If you believe everyone who thinks the lab leak is viable also believes in lizard men, I'm not sure what to say.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#134

Post by wombatmobile »

yann2 wrote: post #112
wombatmobile wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you heard of Bounded Rationality? There is an upper bound on what the chimp brain can do. No big diff with a group of chimps. There is always an upper bound. Pretending there is no bound leads to a big trap. Its like telling second graders they can solve tenth grade problems. They cant no matter what they are entertained by, how well they built od consensus or how hard they work. All that it archives is make the…

> Bounded rationality however does recommends a way out of the trap - work on simple problems

Climate change is a simple problem, reducible to just one number - the percentage of C02 in Earth's atmosphere.

What is difficult is not the technical challenge of how to reduce C02 emissions. We have known that for thousands of years, and all societies practised it until recently. They went about their business without burning fossil fuels.

What is difficult is to get people to walk back from convenience. Once you've driven on the freeway to the beach in 30 minutes, stopping by the supermarket on the way to pick up a bbq chicken and a can of asparagus imported from Argentina for $1.50, nothing will convince you to go back to the old way of living.

Most people would say the pursuit of convenience is at the core of their definition of rationality. If that's the case, we aren't limited by an upper bound on rationality so much as condemned by our perpetual desire to exceed it.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#135

Post by IIAOPSW »

yann2 wrote: post #112
wombatmobile wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you heard of Bounded Rationality? There is an upper bound on what the chimp brain can do. No big diff with a group of chimps. There is always an upper bound. Pretending there is no bound leads to a big trap. Its like telling second graders they can solve tenth grade problems. They cant no matter what they are entertained by, how well they built od consensus or how hard they work. All that it archives is make the…

>Its like telling second graders they can solve tenth grade problems. They cant no matter what they are entertained by, how well they built od consensus or how hard they work.

Child prodigies exist.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#136

Post by bGriz »

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 6 corporations "owning the media" concept came out just shortly before, and during, the rise of social media (e.g. I recall it circulating as far back as 2010-'12). In fact, reddit and social media are how a large number of people became aware of it.

Without picking a side or making an argument, it's basically a repeatable factoid that gets people wondering how much collaboration, and potential illicit collusion, is really being applied to the stream of messages they are exposed to on a daily basis.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#137

Post by 40four »

This is not a surprise is it? My gut tells me the large majority of us here at HN already knew this either empirically or intuitively. I’m not mad about this fact being publicized though. It definitely not obvious to everyone.

The super sad and disheartening part of this is even in a ‘free market’, capitalistic environment, in the long run this state of propaganda is still what we are reduced to.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#138

Post by tzs »

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…

Also missing is Nexstar Media which owns 197 US TV stations, and Sinclair Broadcast Group which owns 193 US TV stations.

And let's not forget iHeartMedia which owns around 850 US radio stations. Their stations reach nearly 100 million listeners a week, and nearly 250 million every month.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#139

Post by ok123456 »

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…

>And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet?

YouTube has editorial control over which videos are allowed to stay up, which videos are eligible to get monetized, and which videos are actively promoted. It's not just a web server with an index and a movie player.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#140

Post by PatentlyDC123 »

SapporoChris wrote: post #47

>Back in 2018, Jim Morrison, a singer, songwriter, and poet, who served as the lead vocalist of the rock band, once said: “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” Jim Morrison Born: December 8, 1943. Died:July 3, 1971. It is difficult for me to take an article seriously when there are glaringly obvious mistakes.

And as big as ViacomCBS is, it's still a subsidiary of National Amusements.
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