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Six companies control 90% of what you read, watch, and hear
- hammock 5y ago> the Telecommunications Act signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996, which 72% of the public didn’t even know about and no one voted on. A law passed by Congress but no one voted on it? Huh?
- hermannj314 5y agohttps://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/652/all-actions https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/senate-bill/652... It appears to have been voted on. Also it took almost a year from draft to law, so I dont know how anyone can say it wasn't known about either.
- kortex 5y agoThe most cheritable interpretation I have is they meant no one directly voted on it, which like, is not how most of lawmaking in the US works.
- tekknik 5y agoWhich still doesn’t change that most of the public didn’t know about it. It makes it look conspiratorial. Could they have not made it more known? “Hey we’re implementing a law that’s gonna concentrate power!!!!!” Perhaps it’s time we use these fancy phones and replace Washington DC and instead we all vote on everything?
- duxup 5y agoIt would be interesting to somehow record your personal activity and find out what your personal numbers are.
- phs318u 5y agoThis would be an awesome browser extension, especially if it can distinguish between channel and source.
- blobbers 5y agoDisney does the news? Today in Agrabah, dissidents upset at Aladdin’s monkey are protesting in front of the palace.
- tomjen3 5y agoI don't think so. They may produced 90% of what is out there, but that assumes a 50's media landscape where everybody watches the same thing. Recently my media consumption has been recordings from russias war on Ukraine, Lord of the Rings and Quill18s play through of Vampire the Masquerade.
- ethanpil 5y agoSo what reputable and fresh sources exist outside of these 90%?
- paulpauper 5y agoToday, Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Fox, and Paramount Global control 90% of what you watch, read, or listen to. These companies spend millions on lobbying each year to sway legislation in their favor. I was not aware Disney and Comcast made books. Was not aware that no one uses Facebook. This article is just..wrong. Few people rely on those sources for information. they are mostly for entertainment. Even for the news, most people get their news online like Twitter or Facebook.
- amazd 5y agowhat? where do you think those people on facebook and twitter linked to for their news?
- newguynewphone 5y agoThat's what I'm thinking lol, the content shared on social media platforms COMES from these 6 companies (~90% of it)
- bombcar 5y agoAnd since much reporting is now “someone on Twitter posted this” it becomes an ouroboros.
- mattl 5y agoDisney makes lots of books. Plus they own Marvel Comics.
- Anon4Now 5y ago> I was not aware Disney and Comcast made books. I agree with what you're saying. The title is an stretch. However, the "Big 5" book publishers own 60% of the market in the US. Two of them are subsidiaries of the six companies listed in the article, so I wouldn't underestimate the reach of the six media companies.
- mgh2 5y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28021956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28021956 On "choice": https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale-4fecf8095812 https://trendguardian.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale...
- elzbardico 5y agoWrong. Two entities run everything: Blackrock and Vanguard.
- cpr 5y agoAnd they're totally interlocked.
- kfrzcode 5y agoWrong. One entity runs everything: Bilderberg.
- LarryTheQuaker 5y agoWhy is this repeated everywhere? They’re just fund managers and most of their “money” is in automated index funds investing retail and institutional investors.
- Enginerrrd 5y agoB/c when the fund managers buy assets to make the index fund to resell to retail investors, they usually get the same voting rights from their ownership as a normal shareholder, and they don't pass that part on to the retail investors, no?
- mrintellectual 5y ago> Americans spend an average of 12 and a half hours per day consuming news via the television, Internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio. This just doesn't make sense. The average American spends the majority of waking hours consuming news?
- bombcar 5y agoYeah something is majorly off. That’s more than half a day consuming news. There’s no news available after an hour, it’s all olds by that point.
- smegger001 5y agomaybe senior citizens with 24 hour news channels on all day are over represented in their sample?
- asdff 5y agoOr millenials listening to joe rogan at work.
- smegger001 5y agoi dont actually know any millennials personally that like joe rogan much less listen to him.
- asdff 5y agoBe thankful your circle is so learned. He wouldn't be offered millions if people weren't tuning in.
- smegger001 5y agoI figured he was aimed at genXers as his average listener is according to google in their late 40s
- sandworm101 5y ago>> Today, just six conglomerates — Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Fox, and Paramount Global (formerly known as ViacomCBS) — control 90% of what you watch, read, or listen to. No google/youtube? No twitter? No facebook? Is this article from the past? Most people do not get their information from the television and so I doubt these six control most of anything.
- cphoover 5y agoDon't forget Reddit and Hacker News
- woodruffw 5y ago> Most people do not get their information from the television and so I doubt these six control most of anything. I know a lot of people who get the majority of their news either from television, or from media properties that they would see on TV, but via the Internet instead. But I understood part of the point of the article to not be solely about "news" per se, but about general produced media content. And if that's the case, then the list given makes sense to me (Facebook doesn't make TV shows, at least that I know of.)
- irrational 5y agoThe only people that I know of that still get the majority of their news from TV is people of my parents generation, who are in their 70s. I’m in my 50s and none of my acquaintances of a similar age watch broadcast TV, or even use social media.
- jeffbee 5y agoIn the most recent Pew survey on media habits, TV was still far and away the leading source of news. For people who prefer to use a computer, tablet or phone to read the news, the websites of traditional media companies was their preference. Nothing else even approaches the popularity of traditional news orgs. And for people who do get news from social media, Facebook is the most popular source by a large margin. So you may not know any TV watchers outside of your parents (which is also true for me), there are somehow millions and millions of TV news watchers out there.
- cryptonector 5y agoYeah, and God forbid Twitter change hands!!!1!1!!1! /s
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoThe lead is > In a recent Twitter survey I conducted, nearly 90% Or, put another way, "In a completely scientifically invalid to the point of being laughable survey I conducted, nearly 90%..."
- B1FF_PSUVM 5y agoIn other "breaking news", poisoned wells feature swarms of deadly bacteria and toxins ...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bee_rider 5y agoBut it continued to say: > of people rated their trust in mainstream media as either “very low” or “low.” It isn't a necessary data point for the the overall argument of the article really, just a motivating anecdote. They could have opened with "Everyone says they don't like mainstream media, but..."
- tekknik 5y agohow is that any different than any other poll?
- version_five 5y agoSome random thoughts: I don't see why that's automatically bad. Most of the "news" we consume is a sort of baseline of current events that doesn't require deep thought and is more about volume. It makes sense that this would be consolidated. It's the remaining 10% where there can be interesting nuance and opinion. Even very differently aligned news sources agree on most stuff. Related, I get a local paper from the small town where I grew up. It represents a tiny fraction of what I read in a week, and it doesn't cover e.g. the war in Ukraine, but its that sort of thing that actually contributes to how I might experience the news differently from someone else If you read major news networks like Fox or CNN, they have an obvious agenda, but at least they have some conflicting, if often ridiculous, views on stuff. Come to Canada if you want to see homogeneous media. There is an outsized influence of elitist publications that normal people don't read, like NYT (is it owneed by someone in the six?), The Atlantic and similar stuff, Twitter, probably more. This is relevant because it helps set the agenda of the ruling class, so even if it's a smaller proportion, it gets an outsized influence in policy, righthink, and what trickles down to the progressive media. There may be an equivalent on the right but I don't know it. There are of course some major narratives that get pushed to rile up the right wing base as well that come from somewhere. People on HN appear more interested in questioning the premise of the article than discussing centralization in the media
- g42gregory 5y agoI feel this is a completely wrong list. I think that platform providers, whether social media or operating systems, now control access to the users: Google, Meta, Twitter, Apple and Microsoft, for the English-speaking readers. Totally different list for the Chinese-speaking readers.
- mikkergp 5y agoI don’t want to negate what this person is saying, but from an objective perspective, is this the most diverse source of news we’ve had in human history? I mean 50 years ago it was just the big three right? ABC, CBS, NBC. Maybe the New York Times and the local paper on top of that? And as another person commented this article doesn’t include social media.
- matthewmcg 5y agoIn broadcast television maybe. But most of the larger markets were served by multiple competing daily papers. Those have largely disappeared or are under common ownership and limping along as branded outlets of a few conglomerates.
- resonious 5y agoI had the same reaction. There's no way this is actually worse than before.
- giantg2 5y agoWell, there was also radio news. You could get news from around the world (mostly Europe) on shortwave. Not sure how common that was, but I do know my family and many immigrants in those generations did that. I still agree that overall there are more choices today. Just saying it wasn't that limited in the past. Edit: why disagree? Am I missing something?
- uoaei 5y agoI would reconsider your use of the word "objective" because your comment sounds like an entirely subjective (and anecdotal, and presumptive) perspective on this issue.
- mikkergp 5y agoMy use of the term objective was to try and describe the numbers and not the substance of what they were saying. I guess I could have said from a quantitative perspective vs a qualitative perspective? I wasn't alive 50 years ago, so I can't really be subjective.
- perardi 5y agoMainstream outlets will often cite time constraints as an excuse for why they’re failing to tackle crucial stories. But is it possible that maybe their silence is by design? After all, in 2021, they apparently had ample time to report on the murder investigation for a travel blogger, gossip about Melania Trump, and a maskless Rudy Giuliani leaving a New Year’s Eve party. --- Well, perhaps there is a wide-reaching corporate conspiracy to peddle pablum… …or pablum is what people actually want to consume. That is what gets clicks and eyeballs. That’s what’s exciting, that’s what’s fun, that’s what is easy to understand. Is, I dunno, the LIBOR scandal vastly more important than that what outfit Melania Trump wore? Sure is! Does anybody really want to sit through an article or show about the subtle manipulation of inter-bank interest rates? Hell no! I am sorry, there is and has been an abundance of erudite, in-depth reportage out there covering just about anything, and people’s revealed preference is to care a lot about Kanye. I am sure there is some incentivizing to bow to the corporate masters, but the day-to-day decisions in the media are much more about “what’s going to sell to the cheap seats?”
- uoaei 5y agoOr neither: pablum is what is profitable, consumer desires be damned. Consumers consume pablum not because it's what they want, but because it's there and is more engaging than the immediate alternatives. Virtually no one makes calls for more outrage porn and limited, biased reporting. I would not conflate automatic engagement with volitional desire.
- usrn 5y ago>Does anybody really want to sit through an article or show about the subtle manipulation of inter-bank interest rates? I really enjoy tedious stuff like that at night. I've watched through every single CSB safety investigation video and a lot of OCW courses because of this. Maybe I'm uncommon but I'm certain I'm not alone.
- infamouscow 5y agoMy anecdotal experience with the people I meet and talk with fall into two very clear buckets: those that read books and those that don't. I've been able to predict with 100% accuracy so far (N=12) which bucket a person falls into solely based on if the person regurgitates mainstream narratives uncritically, regardless of political party. Having a discussion with someone that has additional information external to the narrative seems to be in short supply and stands out, probably more than it should. I'm curious if anyone else on HN has experienced similar and/or can provide some further insight to this phenomena. Thanks!
- kryptn 5y agoI'm curious, do you have any examples?
- missedthecue 5y agoI've seen the same thing. Apparently 33% of people haven't read a book since high school and 42% haven't read a book since college. It's shocking statistics. I myself had a protracted dry spell of book reading but picked it up again about 5 years ago and noticed that it really turned my brain "on" so to speak. My vocabulary increased, but I also felt I was able to store and retrieve information from my brain much quicker.
- derekp7 5y agoHow do you keep books from completely consuming your free time? For me, whenever I get into a good book I don't want to put it down. I'll read a few hours after my normal bedtime. I'll skip everything I wanted to do over a weekend just to finish a book or book series. Even to the point of reading while in traffic (that I fixed by getting unabridged audio book versions, and switching to that while in traffic and back to paper book when I get home). Then the other issue I have is that since I know a book will consume me, I have a hard time deciding on the next book to read as I don't want to invest a chunk of time getting part way through it, just to find out that a given book is junk. Also I have a number of really good books that are on my abandoned book pile. These are ones that I started reading, go half way through then got back into "life" mode. Then after not reading it for a couple months I have a hard time picking up where I left off (already lost parts of the plot), but I can't start from the beginning either because I already read that part. I have to wait till I mostly forget the parts I read in order to start them again.
- spullara 5y agoWhen did Disney buy TikTok?!
- t_mann 5y agoComcast, Disney, AT&T, Sony, Fox, and Paramount Global control 90% of what you watch, read, or listen to Which year was that survey done? 2006?
- obert 5y agosuggestion: maybe add a [USA] label to the title
- lettergram 5y agoIf you think that’s bad, wait until you learn they all collude. Anything not part of their platform / narrative is actively labeled “misinformation” https://www.bbc.com/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/ https://www.bbc.com/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/
- daniel-cussen 5y agoOh, well that's an easy problem to fix, seek out misinformation and you'll get to the bottom of things. And...yeah they collude, you think what? You think there's votes for the Oscars? Like they print ballots, and people go to a get-together with little little foods, and sparkling wine, then they say OK these are the rules, nobody gets to look to the sides at the other votes, it's all secret, then they say some other rules, and one about harassment...then they have pens, right? Or you can use a pencil and erase if you change your mind, but they're not sure if that's good for the integrity...I don't know I guess maybe there's some winks and nudges, just like on this site there's precautions on voting rings, but there's some people beating the system...there's a whole game of cat and mouse, and...OK you know it's just horse trading, there's no merit. Like Oh you want feel-good-movie-of-the-year status to stamp on your blue-ray? There doesn't have to be only one, there's been three some years, it's not the Olympic gold. But you gotta give me best actor, it's key, without that I we can't arrange with Paramount, and you know you owe them, you know you owe them, that they swap best picture for what I want, and you know what that is. Making it up, but how else can it go, you think the foreign press (what are those, foreign correspondents, these days really? Foreign newspapers pay to have correspondents in USA instead of getting it from a blog?) like start little revolutions? Like the State Department, they'll do revolutions in LA to shake up the movie industry and help the good movies win, like... Like what do you expect, how many players do you expect in the information market? You know what I do, this is my idea, just pay taxes, shut up and pay taxes, because then the state has its own local news sources, lots of them, like police gazettes those are a good one, and like different government agencies have blogs, hey they don't have the funding for this...yet, but they could buy some spectrum and reach more people through talk radio. Government sources have helped me, for real in real life, in startups, like by looking up authoritative information in Japanese, this was a trade office, or by finding out what type of seeds can be imported for wasabi seedlings, without cookies or spam, upselling, emails about how their terms of service are changing clearly just want to be fresh in our thoughts when a buying decision comes up, or like meaningless database updates, like I wouldn't read Heroku database updates if they told me my great-grandmother was a vegetable attached to that database, by all means pull the plug. When the government does something, I guess it has to be a benevolent government, that hasn't come up for me yet, but after forgiving their flaws...they forgive yours. Tons of the time they can't do anything for you, but they tell you, companies never say "no we can't help you in the least, stop trying," they always want you to bite some lure. Like which are the really idealistic companies...Mullvad...Apple so-so, they live for their market cap so now Apple stuff rots pretty quickly...so just those two, they let you access sources from far away, sometimes only locally available geofenced stuff. But the biggest thing to do to get news from more different sources is learn to read new languages. That's when you really get more sources...Google translate helps too. On top of that? Decide who your country's worst enemy is and go read their propaganda. Always has gems you can easily verify, that your country tried burying.
- autokad 5y agotwo companies control nearly 100% of everything that is seen on mobile (Google / Apple)
- rob_c 5y agoThankfully so far theyre just relatively benign gatekeepers... I wish this was just a dystopian concept piece and not the very real world. Wr are underestimating the power/pull of social media and news-atainment.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoIt's not the same in the Netherlands, these companies are not big there. However, we do have a similar problem: Almost all the news outlets are controlled by two mega corporations, DPG (De Persgroep) and Mediahuis. Both aren't even Dutch but Belgian! Only the state media (NOS) is still independent.
- umeshunni 5y ago> Only the state media (NOS) is still independent Isn't state media, by definition, not independent
- asdff 5y agoIt depends on if it is being used as a vehicle for the party or a vehicle for the public.
- asdff 5y agoI'm willing to bet literally every capitalist country has this problem. The incentive to monetize the audience of a news base is too high for these news agencies to turn down, and once one company starts doing this stuff, they become at such an advantage financially they capture the market from any of the other companies not participating in such lucrative practices. It's a race to the bottom because there is no regulation otherwise.
- nimos 5y agoI think the bigger issue is what % of content is being filtered through a recommendation algorithm that has been trained on probably very similar metrics. Even if there are 6-20-100 companies if they are all using similar metrics, ad clicks, retention and so on in terms of what to recommend people it seems likely there will be a high degree of convergence. What does society look like when most of what we consume is optimized for these metrics? It also changes what content is even created. There is a lot of talk about politics/elections but I think the changes are even more far reaching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmpJIyYY1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmpJIyYY1Y Weirdly I think this video is one of the most disturbing. Makes you really question to what degree our collective culture is being shaped by these recommendation systems. The algorithmic construction of reality. Designed to drip feed us dopamine in high definition. How many people are going to be on their deathbed wishing they had scrolled just a little further?
- chaostheory 5y agoThe rise in media consolidation also coincides with the dropping public trust in mainstream news media. If my memory is correct, the blame falls squarely on the Clinton / Gingrich era politicians, especially those two names, for allowing this to happen. This is on them.
- hollerith 5y ago"Six companies create 90% of what you freely choose to read, watch, and hear."
- tomatowurst 5y agoReminds me of this viral video of different US media outlets saying the exact same thing. It made me think whether the claim that US intelligence agencies placing an insider was true or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo
- rob_c 5y agoNo thats disinformation... snopes told me so... :p </sarcasm>
- l33t2328 5y agoThey’re just given the same script by corporate.
- ShivShankaran 5y agoNo this is absolutely Russian disinformation
- shermablanca 5y ago...and nearly every US media outlet has at least 1 board member from Big Pharma[1] [1] The Young Turks (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giVY-Qnqd5Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giVY-Qnqd5Q
- usrn 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlL5_kKyLA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlL5_kKyLA0
- rob_c 5y agoWhen the likes of Jones bring it up its tin-foil hat territory... now, well reaping the sewn comes to mind
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pkdpic 5y ago> ...with more than 2,000 U.S. counties (63.6%) now lacking a daily newspaper. Curious what the political party affiliation balance is in these counties. Or maybe I don't want to know...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- clucas 5y ago> the Telecommunications Act signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996, which 72% of the public didn’t even know about and no one voted on. Bullshit. It was voted on by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both of whose members are elected directly by the citizens of the United States. And it was signed into law by the President who was also directly elected. There is a populist strain of political discourse that loves to point out how "you didn't have a say in this" for just about anything the government has ever done. You can make a better argument regarding administration rule-making, but trying to claim that "no one voted on" an Act of Congress... get real.
- buzzard1 5y ago
- mromanuk 5y agoNot accurate. US presidents are not elected directly by citizens, they are chosen by electors. Take a moment to grasp how complex is what we think we know about the political system. Would be posible that other people also didn’t know about more nuanced issues like what laws are voted by congress?
- clucas 5y agoFair enough, the electoral college is a step between the President and the people. But even with the electoral college, you're talking about a huge number of people overriding the will of a slightly larger huge number of people, you're not talking about tyranny. As to your broader point about how people don't know about the nuanced issues... you are 100% correct, there probably weren't a whole lot of people who understood the details behind this Act when it was passed, and there a probably not a whole lot of people who understand it now. But if there are issues that matter, and truly do harm us as a society... you write news articles, or blogs, or substacks about it, and you try to convince voters that it is an issue, and you encourage them to write to their congressional rep and senator, and explain why the law is bad. You don't need to pay high-priced lobbyists to do this stuff. Make a good case, and try to get people to do something. If it's really an issue (i.e. if it affects enough people a little bit, or affects a few people a lot), it will get fixed. This constant harping on how you don't have any say in the government is learned helplessness, and the political apathy it breeds is far worse than any of the problems it purportedly identifies.
- pessimizer 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian
- spamizbad 5y agoReally makes you wonder… how much more efficient things could be if we consolidated this down to just 3 companies
- kilroy123 5y agoWhy stop there? Let's consolidate it down to just one. What could go wrong?
- dleslie 5y agoAnd in Canada it's BCE, Corus, Shaw and the CBC that decide what's broadcast and on cable. As others have rightly pointed out, we have unprecedented access to other services via the internet. However, Canadians are poised to lose some of that access thanks to Bill C-11; a bill fought hard for by the Canadian media cartel lobbyists.
- usrn 5y agoThe political tradition in Canada is radically different from the US. I'd argue it has more in common with the UK than its neighbor.
- dleslie 5y agoThe Telecom tradition in Canada is uniquely Canadian, and I think it doesn't compare particularly well with any other Commonwealth state or former British colony. That said, the future for Canadian access to international content online is murky.
- jquery 5y ago
- FpUser 5y ago>"Americans spend an average of 12 and a half hours per day consuming media" Somebody has a problem with basic math. If person works 8 hours and sleeps another 8 there is only 8 hours left. Assuming said person spends their free time doing nothing but "consuming media"
- randcraw 5y agoWhat fraction of the day do you spend away from a networked electronic device of some kind? For me, it's not much. Even while I'm at work or reading a paper book, I usually listen to streamed music. Generally, I unplug only when I sleep.
- bee_rider 5y agoPersonally I get most of my news from Podcasts. Of course mine are the good ones, but when looking around I see an awful lot of shitty podcasts. Conclusion? I dunno, the grass doesn't look that much greener outside of those six.
- asdff 5y agoIMO I find a lot of podcasts just slog the current mainstream narratives anyhow. They are full of the same dark patterns too attempting to monetize their userbase using the same techniques as the talking heads on cable news.
- BurningFrog 5y agoThe ambiguous word "control" is the slippery part in this argument. Those six companies are probably somewhere in the chain of events that brings most news to my eyes. But that's mostly not in a way you'd normally call "controlling what I read, watch, and hear"
- roody15 5y agoWe are essentially living in a middle school dystopian novel. We have no idea what is true and what is happening. Scary
- asdff 5y agoHave the lay people really ever had a clear idea of what is true or happening? Information about the world has always ever been feed from the oligarchy down. People think the internet age shook that but here we are, some of the largest companies on the stock market are these internet companies controlled by the billionaire class.
- yogrish 5y agoThis infographic gives better perspective https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/ https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own...
- eyelidlessness 5y agoNo they don’t
- thenerdhead 5y agoHasn't this been known for a long time now? The Big Six? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate If anything will wake you up, read or watch something by Jerry Mander. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television is life changing. That was written in 1978, well ahead of its time. > “[T]he problem was too much information. The population was being inundated with conflicting versions of increasingly complex events. People were giving up on understanding anything. The glut of information was dulling awareness, not aiding it. Overload. It encouraged passivity, not involvement.” > “The program is only the excuse to get you to watch the advertising. Without the ads there would be no programs. Advertising is the true content of television and if it does not remain so, then advertisers will cease to support the medium, and television will cease to exist as the popular entertainment it presently is.”
- matrix12 5y agoHow can we help reduce this down to a couple, or even single source? Much less fighting if we could achieve this.
- ryan93 5y agoI get most of my info from the 600+ people I follow on twitter. Almost none work for these companies or the government.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoOkay, but in my childhood, ABC, NBC, CBS, the NY Times, WaPo, and the local Times Picayune States-Item did the same. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but I have a FAR easier time accessing data without a filter today than an adult my age did in the 80s.
- Llamamoe 5y agoAre there similar lists for other industries? There has been one for snacks/food going around for a few years, but what about everything else?
- t0bia_s 5y ago"Media. Let us think for you."
- ernirulez 5y agoI'd rather have companies control that than governments, which is all about mass control, power and citizen slavery. My current government, along with our autocrat president, is one good example of this (Spain)
- incomingpain 5y ago>I'd rather have companies control that than governments, which is all about mass control, power and citizen slavery. My current government, along with our autocrat president, is one good example of this (Spain) Well I have to tell you... the government is fully involved in censorship on those platforms. Especially spain.
- Traster 5y agoOne thing I found really disappointing about this article was the complete lack of discussion about the economic drivers of this consolidation. You know what happened to the news stations and newspapers that didn't merge to become behemoths? They generally just went out of business because they weren't able to make money. This consolidation doesn't happen through some massive conspiracy, it happens because it's way more economical to have 1 team of researchers and journalist produce content for every small news station rather than having tonnes of independent teams. You can say that's bad, but it's the reality that advertising revenue on local television stations won't fund high quality local journalism. So you can regulate that no company can dominate that market, but what you will end up with is no local news stations at all. It's also a bit weak to say "Well atleast I know who funds Russia Today", do you want to know who funds CNN? It's a publicly listed company, it's on the stock market. It's not like there's some shadowy owner. In some cases there actually are shadowy owners and we really should be more critical of those situations - the British Newspaper business for example - Metro, owned by Rothermere, Mail - Rothermere, Evening Standard- Lebedev, Telegraph - Barclays. And those owners do have direct private conversations with politicians to wield political power. But it all comes down to - what is the business model for a large, diverse news eco-system? Because as far as I can see at the moment the consolidation has been driven by economic factors, and so that's how you have to reverse it (if you can).
- natmaka 5y agoChomsky denounces this since at least the 70's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model#Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model#Ownership
- prirun 5y agoI didn't read the story but from the comments it is actually about the decline in local news. IMO, the decline in local news started when the local channels started sending local reporters to cover national news stories: a hurricane in FL, a shooting in Boston, or whatever. Those stories are already covered on national news; why would I want to hear about them when watching local news?