Media Consolidation

Paper Summary:

The mega-mergers of the media world in the past few years are a by product of economic change and a powerful agent of further transformations. As the 1980s began, there were about 50 companies that controlled most of the business in magazines, newspapers, radio, television, movies and books. By 1992, that number had dropped to 23 companies. This paper examines the effect of these mergers on news reporting, bias and questions how they affect free expression of speech. The paper shows that critics of these mergers emphasize that America's press has become largely one voice, representing not a broad range of diverse publics but a small and powerful minority.

From the Paper:

"The Federal Communications Commission is considering when and how to respond to a petition filed by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) asking the regulatory agency to ease 25-year-old restrictions on newspapers owning television or radio stations in the same market.
If the FCC decides to lift the ban--put in place to ensure competition within markets--it could accelerate the consolidation of media outlets and enable marketers to buy advertising packages across formats.
The most frequently occurring frames were financial benefits to the companies involved and the mere size of the merger."

More papers on Media Consolidation:

• Analytical Essay # 131808 : "Analyzing the Religiously Conservative Media"
• Persuasive Essay # 125703 : "Media Control and Diversity"
• Essay # 87510 : "Media Convergence as Consolidation to Recapture Readership"

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