Media Ownership: COMPLETE MIND CONTROL.

The ideology of media ownership is almost non-existent due to the fact that numerous media outlets are in existence.  There are a wide variety of radio stations, magazines, television stations, publishing companies, and newspapers that publish news frequently to the general public.  HOWEVER, I was clueless that there are only a few major corporations that own these different media outlets until it was discussed in class.  These companies that are controlling all of the smaller media sources are known as “The Big Five” media conglomerates.  These companies include Walt Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp, and Bertelsmann. 

Although times are changing and “Corporate America” is seeing an extensive percentage boost of minorities and females in the workplace, the CEO’s of these major companies are still the same “old white man” stereotypes controlling everything.  When it comes down to it, these CEO’s have the final say as to what gets marketed and published onto these media outlets for the world to see.  In a way, it’s like the ultimate mind control on society.  If they want to send an underlying message to the general public that men are in control and over power women, they can do so by incorporating it into magazine ads and television commercials on all the different networks and stations.   Point is, they have the control because money makes the world go around and they have a lot of it.  

Whatever the CEO's of these major companies want their employees to write, they can also control them to deliver the news in a specific way.  For example, Fox news is a known station to report news on politics in favor of the Republican party.  MSNBC favors the Democratic party, making the station appeal more to liberals.  If I watch Fox News and had no idea about the other side to different political debates, I'd think all Democrats were lazy hippy's who mooch off the government and collect unemployment.  If I only watched my beloved MSNBC, I'd think all Republicans were rich white people who live in mansions, drive Mercedes-Benz', and don't pay taxes.  This is a prime example of how the media has the power to control your mind, body, and soul into believing whatever they want you to.  No matter what your political preference might be, if you work for a specific station that has a reputation of broadcasting news to favor a certain group of people, you need to make sure your work reflects those same views or else you will be out of a job rather instantaneously.  

http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart
This is a pretty interesting site that shows who really owns each major sector of media and how they use their brainwashing abilities to make us think a certain way.  It also gives us a breakdown of some of the major "Big 5" companies and how much revenue they bring in annually.  For example. Walt Disney Company, who is currently the number one company leading in Media Ownership, brings in approximately $40.1 BILLION dollars per year.  The Walt Disney Company owns ABC television network; ESPN, the Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime.  They also own 277 radio stations, music- and book-publishing companies, film-production companies such as Touchstone, Miramax and Walt Disney Pictures.  Last but not least, Walt Disney Company also owns Pixar Animation Studios, the cellular service Disney Mobile, and various theme parks around the world.  So not only are they cashing out big time on media companies, but they have also moved on to dominate different companies such as theme parks and production studios.  SMART if you ask me, but what about the little people?

Here are some shocking (but not so shocking) facts about women & people of color from Women in Media Fact Sheet:  

• Women own just six percent of the commercial broadcast TV stations in the U.S., and people of color own a mere three percent. In fact, the total number of African-American owned stations has dropped by nearly 70 percent since 1998.

• While slightly more than half of local television news anchors are now women, women still make up only 28 percent of local news directors and 16 percent of the general managers at TV stations that air local news. People of color fill just 16 percent and 10 percent, respectively, of these key decision-making positions.
• On primetime cable news programs, more than three-quarters of the hosts are white men and less than a quarter are white women. None of the hosts are people of color. The typical guest on these shows is white and male; overall, 67 percent of the guests are men and 84 percent are white. The percentage of guests who are women and/or people of color falls far short of their percentages in the general U.S. population
• At daily newspapers in the U.S., women and people of color remain under-represented.Nearly 90 percent of reporters/writers and newsroom supervisors are white and about two-thirds are male. Hundreds of newspapers in this country employ NO minorities as full-time staff.

But there are many females who take it upon themselves to express themselves via some sort of media outlet.  For Catherine Saalfield, she created various movies to promote both activism and art in the same project. She makes movies about being HIV-Positive and the gay and lesbian community.  

"I can't seperate my work into either art of activism.  For me, filmmaking is the most creative, effecting, and satisfying form of activism," --Catherine Saalfield

As far as alternative media sources are concerned, I found a pretty interesting site that is dedicated to broadcasting news around the world that DIDN'T make it to "mainstream" news stations such as ABC, CBS, NBC, and so on.  They report on stories such as NYPD Officers planting drugs on innocent people to reach arrest quota and other things the world is not supposed to find out.  (Whether these news stories are real or not, it is an interesting concept.)  CHECK IT OUT! -http://www.projectcensored.org