John Oliver on Media Consolodation

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I am a big fan of Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media. The first of the five filters that make up this model concern the size, concentrated ownership, and profit-orientation of the media. The argument here is that these factors shape or filter the content of the media we receive in the US.  A very good example of exactly this point comes from an episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver that first aired on July 2, 2017:



As an addition to John Oliver's analysis, a video recently surfaced showing how Sinclair is using its media empire to promote a particular point of view. Video and analysis of this can be found here.

Concentration of Local Media

Bill Moyers has published a map that shows how media concentration has increased dramatically since 1996. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the graphic to embed well on this site, so you will have to be satisfied by this link.

This is an excellent illustration of the first component of Chomsky and Hermann's Propaganda Model of Media.

Media Consolodation Continued

Very busy grading this week, but a friend on Facebook posted this nice image that directly relates to discussions about the failures of the Mainstream Media.

Click to embiggen

 
As this chart nicely demonstrates, the number of media outlets in the US has been shrinking steadily for decades, and this results in a lack of alternative voices and viewpoints in the media. Those of you who have taken my class (and probably many more) can understand why this is such a big problem.

Media Consolidation

In a recent post on The San Diego Free Press, Jim Miller discusses Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. One of the main points Herman and Chomsky make is that a major source of the media system we have in the US is a result of increasing consolidation of the news media with fewer and fewer corporations owning more and more of the media outlets in the US. When Herman and Chomsky first published their book in 1988, there were about twelve companies that controlled all the media. As this image nicely summarizes, today that number has shrunk to just five.