We have been born and raised on the principles of freedom of speech, individual rights and freedom of the press. We are Canadian citizens and those values are part of our identities. We live in a democratic society and value autonomy, independence and individualism. Those values and ideals are being jeopardized today through media consolidation; an increasingly and inescapably common practice.
Media consolidation is a major issue facing journalism today. It is the concentration of media ownership; the process of a single, large organization acquiring or taking over smaller companies. The image to the below illustrates the process of media consolidation in the past few decades. The number of individual companies that have been merged into super-organizations is astronomical. News Corp, Time/Warner and Viacom are examples of organizations with an ever-increasing reach across various industries and mediums.
In 1983, over 50 corporations controlled half of all broadcast media. In less than three years, that number shrunk to 29. Today, fewer than ten multinational media conglomerates dominate the mass media (Growing media consolidation must be examined to preserve our democracy, 2000). If we continue on this path, what’s to stop a single organization from owning everything? Where do we draw the line?
Media has the power to influence our values, beliefs and perspectives (Media consolidation, 2011). We are bombarded by multiple mediums everyday; newspapers, radio, internet and books. Media is pervasive. The danger in media consolidation is that a single organization, a single company has the power to affect our lives profoundly. In submitting to media consolidation, we, the audience, are offering up our control over content like a sacrificial lamb to slaughter.
Media consolidation challenges the concept of a free press. With larger companies taking over multiple smaller ones, the diversity of voices becomes lost. The few remaining dissenting voices have less power and sway in an industry that is monopolized by a bigger corporation. J.S. Mill once said, “when the conflicting doctrines, instead of one being true and the other false, share the truth between them, and the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the truth of which the received doctrine embodies only a part (Mill as cited in Barlow & Mills, 2009, p.44).” Mill was a pioneer of the Liberal Press Theory and was known to search for the absolute truth. According to Mill, the only way to reach the truth is to include every voice in a debate and the discussion will result in a solution that is as close to absolute truth as possible (Barlow & Mills, 2009, p.50). This cannot happen if there are no alternative voices. Media consolidation threatens the opportunity for debate and discussion.
Mill also stated that, “the quiet suppression of half [the truth], is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth by being exaggerated into falsehood (Mill as cited in Barlow & Mills, 2009, p.52).” Mill recognized the danger of only listening to half the story or half the truth, which would be the case if media consolidation continues to increase.
In addition to the loss of diversity, we need to remember that media conglomerates are businesses. As such, they are motivated by economic gain. They have obligations to shareholders and investors; they do not exist solely to disseminate information or inform the public. This, in turn, affects the type of content that is displayed in the media.
According to an article about media consolidation (2011) on the freepress website, media owners influence the following:
- What voices are heard or silenced
- Whether important issues get covered accurately or at all
- Who gets hired to produce the news
- How minorities such as women or different races are portrayed
Milliband further offers a Marxist critique on media ownership: “the press, magazines and book publishing, cinemas, theatres, and also radio and television wherever they are privately owned, have increasingly come under the ownership and control of a small and steadily declining number of giant enterprises, with combined interests in different media, and often also in other areas of capitalist enterprise (Milliband as cited in Barlow & Mills, 2009, p.162).” We depend on the media to be accountable to the public (Growing media consolidation must be examined to preserve our democracy, 2000). The cartoon below illustrates this point nicely. Media conglomerates are less accountable to the public and more accountable to their private interests. Most importantly, they have the potential to grow so big and to gain so much power that they will only hold themselves accountable to rules of their choosing.
As more and more media outlets become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people, we are forced to question the validity of the freedom of the press. This concentration of ownership may ultimately shape upcoming and emerging models of journalism in a negative way. It could move journalism away from the search for the truth and accountability to the public to an even heavier focus on ratings, sales and infotainment. Restrictions on media ownership are necessary to preserve the interests of an open and democratic society; to preserve the values of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
We currently walk a fine line of media ownership within Canada. If we continue on this path of capitalist pursuit, ignorant of its consequences, we, as free citizens, may find ourselves bound by our own greed and apathy.
References
Bell/Rogers/Shaw – who/what do they own. (2011). Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/foq3v/bellrogersshaw_whowhat_do_they_own_a_very_long/
Growing media consolidation must be examined to preserve our democracy. (2000). Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/62357169.html
Media consolidation. (2011). Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.freepress.net/media_issues/consolidation
Media ownership in the age of convergence. [Video file]. (May 2010) Retrieved from http://hstalks.com/main/browse_talks.php?father_id=453=250
Barlow, D. & Mills, B. (2009). Reading media theory: Thinkers, approaches, contexts. London, England: Pearson Education Limited.
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