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6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

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Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#91

Post by propogandist »

remotehack wrote: post #43
ytNumbers wrote: post #40

Some 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…

What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see how the other half lives?

NoAgendaShow.com; a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics. They are listener funded, so they arent subject to pleasing advertiser (as these 6 big corporation and most news outlets).

One of the hosts is also the 'co-founder of podcasting', took a company public and registered mtv.com, back in the day. They have a very interesting news media deconstruction process; Highly recommended.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#92

Post by rubyfan »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #55

I am reminded of a quote that made an impression on me years ago but which I'm unable to attribute: "If you don't believe ownership matters, you're not playing capitalism anymore." Really, you shouldn't need to go to such a reductionist extreme to find stats like these troubling. "Tone at the top" is a real enough phenomenon, and you're not going to have much variety of tone at the top if there are only a few tops.

What is that quote from?

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#93

Post by m52go »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #73
m52go wrote: post #68

Earlier 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? /:

Correct. Mises and Reason are libertarian, not republican.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#94

Post by barrkel »

Maarten88 wrote: post #69
barrkel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culturally, many people would dismiss state-owned media perspective as a kind of Pravda. Because of the cultural perspective, two things would happen: firstly, politicians would think it's OK to instruct such media to follow a particular party line; and secondly, journalists and presenters that are the visible face of the media would also follow the party line, because they think that's where the money is coming from…

Most western european countries have public media that operate independently from the government. Many forms are possible: the British BBC single broadcaster model to the fragmented model of my country with many competing broadcasting associations. I think most models work out well enough. Of course, comparing to Pravda is a straw man argument: I was promoting a balance between (independent) public and commercial med…

I'm Irish and live in the UK; I understand your perspective. I don't think the BBC would work in the US, though, for cultural reasons I tried to outline. The political economy is structured such that it would be fatally lopsided.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#95

Post by pjc50 »

barrkel wrote: post #42
Maarten88 wrote: post #28

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. 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…

Culturally, many people would dismiss state-owned media perspective as a kind of Pravda. Because of the cultural perspective, two things would happen: firstly, politicians would think it's OK to instruct such media to follow a particular party line; and secondly, journalists and presenters that are the visible face of the media would also follow the party line, because they think that's where the money is coming from…

> many Americans view government as a necessary evil that we only institute to restrain our worst vices

I'm tempted to say "Why do so many Americans hate America?" It seems like a sort of anti-national nationalism.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#96

Post by pjc50 »

KGIII wrote: post #84
dtech wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Left" and "Liberal" are not at all the same thing.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#97

Post by barrkel »

andreasklinger wrote: post #63
barrkel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culturally, many people would dismiss state-owned media perspective as a kind of Pravda. Because of the cultural perspective, two things would happen: firstly, politicians would think it's OK to instruct such media to follow a particular party line; and secondly, journalists and presenters that are the visible face of the media would also follow the party line, because they think that's where the money is coming from…

> two things would happen: firstly, politicians would think it's OK to instruct such media to follow a particular party line; and secondly, journalists and presenters that are the visible face of the media would also follow the party line, because they think that's where the money is coming from, so it would be stupid to do otherwise. In my experience the opposite is true. eg in Austria: * politicans aren't allowed t…

I know; but Americans don't, and a state owned channel would be run by Americans, viewed by Americans and judged by Americans. It would be American, ie be an instrumental tool of power.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#98

Post by voidz »

propogandist wrote: post #91
remotehack wrote: post #43

Earlier 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?

NoAgendaShow.com; a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics. They are listener funded, so they arent subject to pleasing advertiser (as these 6 big corporation and most news outlets). One of the hosts is also the 'co-founder of podcasting', took a company public and registered mtv.com, back in the day. They have a very interesting news media deconstruction process; Highly recommended.

Steve Jobs himself gave him the title "The Podfather"

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#99

Post by skinnymuch »

The point of the post still stands with control mostly being in the hands of a few corporations, but it is really outdated. The article does mention AOL isn't owned by Time Warner anymore and Comcast owns NBC Universal along with GE never owning Comcast.

Here are the corrections I can point out. I'm not trying to be pedantic or douche. Just in case someone wants to know up to date info and a bit more info on the control of media. Here we go:

Infographic saying "read watch or listen" is incorrect as what we read is more diversified.

Time has spun off from Time Warner. News Corp split. Fox should be the name up there. News Corp is still big in its own right with its newspaper, books, and other assets.

If you want to say the above splits still have the same shareholders, then Viacom and CBS should be featured as one. National Amusements/Sumner family owns both.

The key company missing is Sony. And no mention of the big 3 in music - Sony, Time Warner, NBC Universal. Sony is also one of the big 6 in film.

Netflix should probably be included at this point. Hulu is owned by Time Warner, Disney, Fox, Comcast.

The part saying Time Warner's 178 million users read news each month is out of date now with the spinoff. Reddit alone gets more users per month now with over 200M per month.

Going along with that, magazines are more diverse. Condé Nast (also controlling stake in Reddit), Time, Hearst, and about 3-4 other companies control most of that industry. But not 90%.

Newspapers are much more diverse in ownership and control, but the infographic doesn't mention that too much so leave that.

Clear Channel went through a few things and is now iHeartMedia. You could also mention Sirius XM for radio. They took a stake in Pandora and will probably completely buy them out. Sirius XM themselves are controlled by Liberty Media/John Malone.

Could potentially mention other tidbits of companies like Vice and Vox having minority stakes owned by the big 7 media companies. It's also unknown how Oath owning AOL and Yahoo will fair under Verizon control. Lots of users and readers there.

I think that's all I got. Again not trying to be pedantic or douchey. Just pointing info out. If I got anything wrong, let me know.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#100

Post by rdtsc »

ytNumbers wrote: post #40

Some 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…

I think, after the election and the billions spent on advertising and air time supporting one candidate and either ignoring or negatively covering others, and then all that ended up being for naught, there was a realisation that that somehow the traditional manufacturing consent machine has broken down.

And almost immediately Google and Facebook issued a press release about how they will be filtering Fake News. While there might be some genuine altruism and desire to make the world a better place, it was also a brilliant business move. They effectively jumped in and filled the void left in manufacturing consent market. They are signaling they instead of companies and political candidates investing their billions in CNN and NBC they should come to them now.

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