Media Moguls and Conglomerates

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the mergers which have created giant communications conglomerates led by moguls such as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch affect consumers both negatively and positively. It analyzes how the primary positive effects are the technological advances made, while the major negative effect is the commercialization of products, including entertainment, news and information. It also looks at how the incredible amounts of money involved in acquiring and operating huge communications media organizations make it inevitable that the decisions made by the leaders of those organizations are based on little but economic pros and cons.

From the Paper:

"The argument of the moguls and their representatives, of course, is that the developing technology (made possible in part by the wealth of the conglomerates in support of research and development) allows for greater consumer choice in terms of channels and content. Some of the arguments the moguls make, however, are preposterous. For example, America Online Chairman Steve Case and Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin, in testimony before the Federal Communications Commission on the merger of AOL and Time-Warner, "extoll[ed] the virtues of their merger as one that will 'take the Internet to the next level' and 'increase consumer choice in communications service and content'" (Connell, 2000, p. 1). The fact is, however, that the rapid expansion of mergers related to the Internet have created logjams in which service is terrible, particularly in DSL lines."

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