pdfcoffee.com_david-croteau-william-hoynes-and-stefania-milanbookseeorg-5-pdf-free

32 PAR,TT~I~I~P~RO~D~U~C~T~IO~N-------------------------------­
---~
ditions that are always changing as economic. technocreate
media products under con . h broader society. Therefore. if we are w
. . 1 d ocial changes occur rn t e ..
logical, pollttca. an s
k . to account the hiswrically spectftc conbeuer
understand media products, we must ta em
text in which people create them. J" d the production
Within the explicitly sociological liter~tureh, resfearchmer~hh:~~h~~~~:pter explores the
. . d ly to the news media. T ere ore, u
perspective most WI e . . W also use the production perspective to
1
:::~~~: ~:~~~~t~~:~:~:~~~i:x~x:':~~ees~~~cl~ding the musi~ industry. the film and
television sector. the software industry. and new media technologtes.
CHANGING PATTERNS OF OWNERSHIP
Who owns the media? This is a central question about the economic organiz~ti_on of the
mass media. The assumption behind the question is that owners of th~ medta.tnfluence
the content and form of media products by their decisions to hire and ftre certam personnel.
to fund certain projects, to give media platforms t? certain speak~rs. an~ w ~evelo~
or support certain technologies. In its least subtle verston. such questions mtght tm~ly
kind of conspiracy theory, in which a small group of powerful own_ers uses t~e medta to
control the thoughts of the rest of us. With its Orwellian connotations of mmd control.
this extreme version of the ownership question is far roo simplistic and therefore not
particularly illuminating. Instead. a substantial body of research has explored this topic
in a more helpful way.
Concentration of Ownership
ilhe of the clearest trends in media ownership is its increasing concentration in fewer and
fewer hands. In his widely cited book, The N<?W Media Monopoly. Ben Bagdikian (2004)
argues that ownership of media has become so concentrated that by the mid-20005 only
five global firms dominate the mass media industry in the United States. operating like a
cartel. The five companies are Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company. Viacom. News
Corporation. and Bertelsmann AG. With the exception of the German company Bertelsmann.
all of them are based in the United States. They are multimedia entertainment conglomerates
that produce and distribute newspapers. magazines, radio. television. books. and movies.
According to Bagdikian, "This gives each of the five corporations and their leaders more
communication power than was exercised by any despot or dictawrship in history"
(Bagdikian 2004: 3). Within each sector of the media industry. these large companies tower
above their smaller competitors. For example, in book publishing. HarperCollins is owned
by News Corporation, Simon & Schuster by Viacom, and Random House by Bertelsmann.
Together with Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, and Penguin Group. they constitute the
··Big 6 .. in the book industry and control the global English-language book market.
In the U.S. magazine industry, Time Inc. (property of Time Warner. which operates. among
others, the premium cable television network HBO, Warner Brothers. and CNN) wwers above