Sociology Central The Mass Media

Sociology CentralThe Mass Media

2. Ownership and Control

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The Mass Media

Media Ownership

State: The BBC, for example, isstate owned; it is funded by thetaxpayer and doesn't haveprivate owners or shareholders.

There are different types of stateownership around the world. In China, forexample, the government directly controlsmedia content (the media is, in effect,state run); the BBC, on the other hand, isoverseen by a Board of Governors who,although appointed by the government,have a degree of independence from boththe state and direct political control.

Private: Companies areowned by individuals, families,shareholders and so forth.

Rupert Murdoch, for example,owns a controlling interest inNews Corporation, a companythat publishes books, films andmagazines and broadcastssatellite TV programmes,among many other things.

Owners have the potentialto decide what sort ofinformation an audience willbe allowed to receive. Forexample, private owners maydecide not to publish a bookcritical of their company,whereas state-ownedcompanies may be subject topolitical control andcensorship over what theycan broadcast or publish.

Controllers are the peoplewho actually run (or manage) acompany on a day-to-day basis- the editor of a newspaper orthe head of a film studio, forexample. Usually - especiallywhen talking about very largemedia companies - managersare not outright owners of thecompany for which they work(although they may own sharesin that company).

Debates over the relative importance of ownership and control havetraditionally been framed in terms of the significance of a separation betweenownership of, and management roles within, media companies to prevent, inMobbs' (2002) phrase: `Undue influence over, or bias in, content'.

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The Mass Media

Concentration of ownershiprefers to the idea that theownership of various media(television, books andnewspapers for example) isincreasingly restricted to arelatively small number ofcompanies. Concentration isimportant for two reasons:

1. Product diversity: If the numberand range of information sources isrestricted, audiences increasingly cometo depend on a small number of mediacorporations for that information.However, since even in terms of theabove table, British consumers have achoice of nine national dailynewspapers, the concentration ofownership doesn't necessarily affectthe range of products on offer…

Nenova et al ( 2001)

2. Information diversity:

McChesney (2000) argues wehave the `appearance of choice' invarious media lots of differentproducts all selling much the samesort of (limited range) of ideas

Compaine (2000) argues the global trend isnot necessarily for an increased concentration ofmedia companies. He argues mediaorganisations are not static entities theydevelop, grow, evolve and disappear.

He notes how the dominant global mediacompanies in the 1980s were not necessarily thedominant media companies in 2000. Forexample, ten years ago Amazon.com didn'texist. In 2005 it's one of the world's largestmedia outlets - but will it still exist in 2015?


The Mass Media

Conglomeration is a second important aspect of mediaownership and involves the idea the same company may,through a process of diversification, develop interestsacross different media. For example, Silvio Berlusconi (thecurrent Italian Prime Minister), through his ownership ofFininvest, has a diverse range of media interests television,book, newspaper and magazine publishing and so forth.

: Cross-media ownership can beused to enhance the profile and profits of different businesses.

Rupert Murdoch, for example,used ownership of The Sunnewspaper to promote hissatellite company SkyBroadcasting (later calledBSkyB after it took over acompetitor company) in itsearly years when it was losingmoney. The Sun rancompetitions to win satellitedishes and subscriptions,gave Sky and terrestrial (BBCand ITV) programmeschedules equal space (eventhough Sky had a fraction oftheir audience) and publicisedSky through feature andentertainment stories.

Murdoch also wanted to attract subscribers byoffering `first-run' films before they were availableto rent. However, to protect cinema and rentalmarkets, Hollywood Studios refused to allow TVcompanies to show their films until at least twoyears after their initial release. Murdoch solvedthis `problem' by buying a film studio (20thCentury Fox) to supply Sky with films whicheventually forced other studios to follow suit.

Mobbs: `Media Regulation and Convergence', 2002Nenova et al `Who Owns the Media?', 2001McChesney: “Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times”, 2000Compaine: `Mergers, Divestitures and the Internet', 2000.

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