Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Six corporations control 90% of America media

techstartups.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 183 posts

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#161

Post by HWR_14 »

thewebcount wrote: post #90
dwd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this article generated by AI?

Yeah, that was my first thought, too. It certainly makes me wonder about the rest of the article. I did a quick search to see if there was any Jim Morrison-related news from 2018, but other than some other people with the same name dying, there wasn’t anything. Even that movie with Val Kilmer was like 20-30 years ago. Very bizarre.

There wasn't any Morrison related news, but my cursory search shows a resurgence of the quote circulating on the web in the 2017/2018 period. Maybe this was when the author first heard it?

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#162

Post by HWR_14 »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #147
HWR_14 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia" For crying out loud, I oppose a surveillance dystopia as much as anyone and far more than most. But it's not a surveillance dystopia for the things you publicly say and have your name attached to as you publish it to be brought to the attention of the publisher. If you wanna talk about censorship, we can talk. But that's a different concept of…

> have your name attached to as you publish it be brought to the attention of the publisher Yes but by whom, and are they being held to the same standards of accountability? If corporations collude in favor of the state against its political opponents in order to secure their place in a new regime's cabinet and no one is around to hear the president order it, is it still fascism?

I didn't say it was good. I said if you want to argue the benefits/costs of censorship that's a different story. But it's not a surveillance dystopia issue.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#164

Post by guerrilla »

jefftk wrote: post #91
irjustin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joe Rogan is now Netflix. YouTube is not an owner so you have to attribute specific videos to owners/sources (and potentially reference their sources). 90% is good to be skeptical about, but is it so unrealistic? I'd love to see which company is the most shared ones. Fringe ideas always seem the loudest/most shared, so that to me, would be a better measure of 'marketshare of reach'. At which point NYTimes likely fall…

> Joe Rogan is now Netflix Okay, but as you say, Netflix isn't in their six either

The companies that produce 99% of what's distributed by Netflix are though.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#165

Post by teslafire124 »

thayne wrote: post #157
teslafire124 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I also think a lot of people aren't aware of the situation, since each company has a multiple of different brands under their umbrella. And it doesn't hurt that since these companies control so much of the media they can, at least in theory, suppress any press that might result in such public outry.

I guess we have the OP's article as something available in public media. The infographics are useful for giving a basic idea of how many media companies are under each corporate umbrella. There needs to be more of an understanding about why trusts and near monopolies like these are going to just get worse as they continue to merge to compete against each other's super Chimera. The fact that these companies own intellectual properties that the public wants to consume may make them more willing to turn a blind eye though. There would need to be an event that causes significant anger in the public to inspire outcry. Not just knowledge.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#166

Post by guerrilla »

throwaway277 wrote: post #94

Long time employee of one of those companies, here. To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. Yes, some corporate-synergy exists to cross-promote, especially on morning shows, but when it comes to news, we are usually pushing so close to deadline there's no way to even allow for corporate control. That s…

You don't need to literally conspire (although there's plenty of evidence that that does happen [1][2]) for bias to occur and propaganda be made: [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mockingbird

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#167

Post by doctor_eval »

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…

I suppose in a sense Huxley and Herman/Chomsky were saying something similar. The horror of “Manufacturing Consent” was that the behaviour emerged from the system, rather than intentionally; I recall Herman and Chomsky writing something along the lines that “nobody wakes up in the morning and says ‘how am I going to make the world worse today?’”. The interplay of advertising, money and government simply make criticism of the government very expensive, and therefore much riskier, to produce. You can see this play out on a smaller scale if you ever make the mistake of saying something political on Facebook. Much easier to upvote baby photos and Jackass videos.

But entertainment, drugs and distraction are even cheaper to produce than apolitical news, and once we started to clamour for the creativity-free, trope-laden SFX trollop of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I suppose it was just a matter of time.

It’s been decades since I read brave new world but I think it’s time to read it again.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#168

Post by bookofsand »

in_a_society wrote: post #149
bookofsand wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under climate emission targets & global equity assumptions, western (#) lifestyle must end. In political terms, the western middle class lifestyle must end, the global elites will still ride their jets 'for the common good'. According to WRI calculator, in 2018 world GHC emissions totaled 47.6 Gt. Paris accord 1.5C target is 25 Gt. Population in 2050 projected at 10 billion people. Back of the envelope calculation gi…

What would a lifestyle look like that meets these targets?

Subsistence agriculture? Slums? Manhattan hyper density?

Cuba (2.68), Tunisia (2.60), Ecuador (2.43), Egypt (2.32), Brazil (2.25), Vietnam (2.20)?

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#169

Post by fitzie »

judge2020 wrote: post #114
mtnGoat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, when you say "american media" then don't include all "media" sources, it just looks like clickbait.

from the article it says "Today, 6 media giants control a whopping 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to.". there is a heavy handed content moderation policy on all major social media platforms. it is a rare day when I don't see or hear of blocked suspended or banned content on social media.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#170

Post by guerrilla »

tzs wrote: post #138
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.

If they didn't divest yet, the latter is also the owner of most billboards and bus stop ad places in the US.
Post reply on HN