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Ben Bagdikian expertly lays out all the proof for this media in his updated 2004 edition of The New
Media Monopoly.
http://benbagdikian.net/
These five huge corporations — Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation,
Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) — own most of the newspapers,
magazines, books, radio and TV stations, and movie studios of the United States….
These five are not just large — though they are all among the 325 largest corporations in the
world — they are unique among all huge corporations: they are a major factor in changing the
politics of the United States, and they condition the social values of children and adults
alike.
SIX CORPORATIONS DOMINATE THE UNITED STATES’ MEDIA
A more recent investigation by FAIR.org revealed that the vast majority of media in the United States is
dominated by six mega-corporations: General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom
and CBS.
[As you delve into the individual categories of cable, television, print, telecom and radio, you find a
few more companies chasing behind the Big Six – but not many.]
These companies often control the entire creative process of a film or television show from beginning
to ending – making it an ideal environment for creating propaganda:
http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main
The U.S. media landscape is dominated by massive corporations that, through a history of
mergers and acquisitions, have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read.
In many cases, these giant companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from
initial production to final distribution.
Three of these mega-conglomerates appear on Fortune 500’s Top 50 Most Profitable list for 2010:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/performers/companies/profits/
This includes General Electric at 11 billion, 644 million; Walt Disney at 3 billion, 963 million; and
Comcast at 3 billion, 635 million.
General Electric is also the world’s third biggest public company – according to the Forbes 2000 list.
AN INTERNATIONAL PLAN TO GENERATE PROPAGANDA?
You may not realize that most of the cable channels on American television are international. Subtitles