Is the concentration of media ownership a threat to freedom and democracy?

Question

The FCC was set up to promote the independence of the American media and to prevent concentration of media ownership.

However, under the present US administration the FCC's remit has been completely reversed and so media ownership is falling into fewer and fewer hands.

Is the concentration of media ownership like this a threat to open communiction?

Answer 1

Any concentration of power is.

Answer 2

I have to agree with you on this.  We have to ask ourselves, "Who owns your brain?"

Your opinions are based on the information you receive.  If the information is skewed, your opinions will be skewed.  If large corporations like GE (who is also, under another corporate ID, one of the top weapons manufacturers) own the news media they control the news, and they control the information that you get.

As for the war in Iraq, it is as if that war was "marketed" on the US public.  Wars don't need cutesy titles like, "Operation Freedom,"  etc.  We don't need soundbites to frighten us about weapons of mass destruction.  If Iraq had any weapons, I'm sure the US sold them to them.  That's probably why we thought they had the weapons...

The mind boggles.

But, I digress.

If the military/industrialist complex owns the media, then they can market a president into office..Oh, right, that already happened.

Answer 3

Yes, because these organizations can pick and choose which stories they will cover and which ones they ignore. A prime example of that happening is with the Fox conglomerate. All the Fox news outlets have become essentially tabloids. They go into brief stories about the news and then spend the rest of their time focusing way too much on entertainment and celebrities.

Answer 4

Great question!  I'm giving you a star.  I teach a whole class about Media & Culture in which we address this.

The answer is yes.  It is definitely a threat to the free flow of ideas and also contributes to the dumbing down of the population.  The media may not be able to control what we think (though even that is still debated), but it definitely controls what we think about.

Blogs are possibly the last bastion of true freedom and exchange of ideas.  Even the Internet is being bought up though.  This Yahoo!Answers is fun, but I wouldn't consider it a serious platform for exchange of original intellectual thought.  Seriously, if I didn't read books, I think my mind would turn to mush in the present media climate.

Answer 5

No. The real threat to democracy is the person who doesn't use his ability to try to think for himself.

Answer 6

Did someone mention the Murdock conglomerate?

Answer 7

The one benefit of large media ownership is they are less dependent on advertising revenue for survival and can actually be more critical of businesses.

Working in media relations for many years I've seen many abuses of journalistic powers. Blogs aren't really an answer either because they're largely opinion driven and don't have to answer to any kind of editorial control. It does serve to balance out traditional media but digging up angles that may have been ignored.

I think if a media company is part of a conglomerate the editorial department should be as far removed from the marketing parent company as possible and journalists should be guaranteed some sort of  job protection for objective reporting.

But as someone has already said, we need learn how to interpret the news and consider more than one source for our information.

Answer 8

Good answer, TedEX :)