4 ms·

Ad hominem and straw man attacks are very weak forms of counterargument.

• maxerickson 10y ago
  Are you calling the claim that big brands are an oligopoly a straw man?
  • wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    No, I think you may have mistaken which comment was the parent to my comment. Straw man: >irrefutable proof of an organized conspiracy to go all "1984" on the internet? Real life isn't a movie.
• soundwave106 10y ago
  I personally agree that media concentration is a problem, but those pictures honestly aren't the best argument for this thread. A) The only media concentration chart depicted was largely centered on television-heavy media conglomerates... so no mention of newspaper-heavy conglomerates like Gannett and McClatchy. Food and banking are not quite related to this discussion. B) The television-heavy media conglomerates depicted were very United States-centric. So no mention of (as an example) Bertelsmann. (Internationally, you'll also find many state-sponsored media outlets... not sure how those should be represented here). One other counterpoint: there is a bit of a trend towards greater ownership diversity (of a sort) in the newspaper market, at least in the United States. Individual businessmen have snapped up several papers in the last few years (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2013/08/06/a-major-shift-in-who-owns-newspapers/2623293/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2013/08...), ala Bezos famously buying the Washington Post.