Media Controls the World but Who Controls Media?

As a journalism and media studies major, I know that our media has a huge influence on everyone's lives but I never knew how controlled our content was until I started taking media classes at Rutgers. There a few massive corporations that dominate the U.S media landscape and these companies have control over everything including what content we see, hear, and read. Many of these companies are vertically integrated and control everything from the initial production to final distribution. Obviously one way that these media companies grow is through group ownership. This system allows a company to own the same type of media in more than one market area. We think as consumers that we have control over our media consumption because for example our television has several channels, we choose what we want to consume and we think we have power but that is wrong.

Today, through all the mergers only six corporations dominate our media. These corporations control 90% of media in America and because of this it’s important that consumers understand ownership in media because this complicates what we assume to believe and consume. The conglomerates that run the world and our media is Disney, News Corporation, GE, CBS, Time Warner, and Viacom. The fact that only 6 corporations own the majority of our media demonstrates “the illusion of choice”. In 1983, 50 different companies owned 90% of American media and now because of consolidation there’s only 6 gatekeepers controlling media.

Unfortunately, this isn’t illegal but I bet you see the problem. For example, Disney owns almost everything. They own not only a group of movie studies but also the movie theme parks where their cartoon characters are, they also own recording studios that sell the movie sound tracks and publishing companies that produce books and magazines about its movie and characters. Plus, Disney even owns a professional hockey team, the Mighty Ducks, ABC television network along with several cable channels, video companies and also a chain of retail stores. This shows that we should be worried about media ownership because this one company for instance has way too much power and they obviously sway public opinion in their favor.

This makes us question how do we trust the information that they give us when they are all owned and manipulated by special interests. I would like to read the newspaper or watch the news and trust it but today everything seems to be driven by ratings and profits. Cable news corporations compete with each other for broadcasting first the sensationalized news and they are not concerned about accuracy or reliability.

The CEOs of these companies are all old, rich white men. Not to say that I have a problem with old, rich white men but this shows that there is a huge problem with diversity in media ownership. If you turn on the nightly newscast it often depicts people of color in a negative way. Negative images of black men in the news show them as only criminals and Latinos are viewed as illegal immigrants invading our borders. This has a huge impact on children especially. Many parents put their child in front of the TV not knowing that these images can affect how children see themselves and others. If you’re over-represented, you see yourself as having many opportunities and choices while if your under-represented, you see yourself as having the opposite.

I believe that women are also underrepresented in the news. According to FreePress.net, a 4th Estate's six-month study of 2012 election-year coverage found that major American newspapers and TV news programs featured up to seven times as many quotes from men than women. This held true even when “women’s issues” were the subject. This is a huge problem. This lack of accurate coverage or no coverage at all relates directly to media consolidation, which results these CEOs keeping female, and minority media ownership at low levels. Coverage on minorities has become distorted due to news reports. Through this process of storytelling, the media reinforces ideas about who is trustworthy and untrustworthy, who is a ‘troublemaker’ and who should be feared.

There is a huge importance of understanding the bias and discrimination that is broadcasted to us everyday. This is why we stress that alternative media sources are key. The problem is finding a trustworthy source. The YouTube video below is of Walter Isaacson who is speaking about how we need to find a way to look at alterative sources of revenues. We shouldn’t be totally dependant on government and these CEOs who produce and distribute out our news. Alternative news media sources like TheRealNews.com focuses on providing independent and uncompromising journalism. Websites like this one won't blindly follow wire services or official press releases that attempt to set the news agenda. However, they still will cover the big stories of the day, but they will broaden the definition of what's important unlike the top 6 corporations who control our media.