Note: This was written just before Comcast's agreement with General Electric to take a majority stake in NBC Universal.
The New Media Monopoly: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition, published in 2004, updates Ben H. Bagdikian’s 1983 The Media Monopoly for the Internet age. In a strongly worded argument, Bagdikian contends concentrated media ownership has had a devastating effect on society. Five corporate giants control the majority of U.S. media. The Big Five, he argues, don’t compete; instead, they are interconnected with numerous partnerships. This concentration of corporate power, he charges, favors conservative policies and has swung the nation’s political discourse sharply to the right.
Bagdikian wrote in 1983 that about 50 owners controlled most of the nation’s media. Two decades later, five men — Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Viacom’s Sumner Redstone, News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, and Bertelsmann’s Reinhard Mohn — led five corporations that dominated U.S. media.
Bagdikian’s latest examination of media ownership came in the middle of then-President George W. Bush’s administration, which waged war against Iraq on grounds that its leader, Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — grounds that turned out to be unfounded. During this march to war, Bagdikian charges, most of the news media failed in their duty to expose the truth behind our political leaders’ decisions. The corporate-dominated media, he argues, ignore competing views, display “amnesia” to a history of U.S. intervention abroad, and celebrate moneyed interests rather than examine financial wrongdoing.
Bagdikian offers several possible responses, including action by antitrust regulators; repeal of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the industry; establishment of a “digital commons” as an alternative to control of content through copyright law; and support of media reform groups. Even so, he argues, corporate interests are all too ready to use their influence to battle consumer advocates and “overzealous” reporters — or to use their money to buy media space to express their points of view.
Examining newspaper and magazine publishers, he argues that Gannett values profit over community service and that publishers market their products to an affluent demographic rather than the general public. Newspaper owners also use their influence to advocate for policies benefiting their industry, such as when Hearst’s top executive wrote then-President Richard Nixon asking for an exemption from antitrust law. Bagdikian charges that a “subtle corruption” in advertising-dependent entertainment and news media results in messages favorable to corporate interests.
Despite this concentration of power, Bagdikian concludes with a message of inspiration: Young activists, using the Internet and alternative media, are “mobilizing protests, petitions, and votes. The remedy ultimately will rely on the ballot box. … These have become the voices of hope.” (p. 265)
Bagdikian’s case is strongly argued, but would appear harshly worded to those more familiar with the conventional wisdom about the U.S. media — that they are too liberal. However, Bagdikian makes a strong case about conservative influence in the media in his examination of media coverage of the Bush administration leading to the Iraq war and in reporting of corporate America during a time of scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other large businesses. His argument about the Iraq war, though, is somewhat oversimplified. The Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, for example, reported before the Iraq war started that evidence about weapons of mass destruction was weak. It’s certainly true, however, that much of this reporting was downplayed in other newspapers and for the most part ignored by television news operations.
For a reader in 2009, it’s disappointing that Bagdikian doesn’t offer a more complete examination of the Internet’s potential to provide alternative views. For example, blogs such as The Huffington Post and Daily Kos provide an outlet and an audience for liberal and progressive opinions. The Internet also proved its potential, in the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, as a tool for organizing voters, especially younger people who otherwise might not be engaged in politics. On the other hand, corporate media outlets owned by the Big Five have established substantial Internet presences, and conservative blogs such as The Drudge Report have their own audiences.
An updated version of The New Media Monopoly would certainly note two recent developments in corporate media ownership.
Time Warner, the world’s largest media company, was formed through a series of mergers. In 2000, new media giant AOL purchased old media giant Time Warner in 2000 to become AOL Time Warner. “AOL Time Warner was seen as synergy perfected,” Bagdikian writes. (p. 31) However, this view of synergy ultimately was at odds with the rapid change of the Internet. AOL’s dial-up access lost ground to high-speed services owned by telephone and cable companies. Time Warner, which dropped “AOL” from its name, benefited from this trend through Time Warner Cable, and Time Warner’s media properties have their own Internet sites. AOL, though, is being spun off this month as a separate company.
Bagdikian also notes the ambition of Vivendi’s Jean-Marie Messier to turn the Big Five into a “Big Six.” (p. 23) Vivendi ultimately sold 80 percent ownership of Vivendi-Universal to General Electric, owner of NBC, creating NBC Universal. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, now is in talks to buy control of NBC Universal, with GE keeping a minority share. (The deal hinges on Vivendi selling its 20 percent share to GE.) Combining Comcast with the owner of NBC, Universal Studios and several popular cable channels would be a significant development in the concentration of media ownership. Comcast would seek to control distribution of NBC Universal’s vast library of content at a time when video viewership is shifting to the Internet.
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