The 1996 Telecommunications Act concentrated US media in six corporations
Evidence
That anyone could use the IMC newswires to publish a news story was the IMC’s challenge to corporate media coverage of radical politics. Participants in the WTO protests were disgusted by what they saw as sensational and inaccurate coverage of their activism, which they attributed to media consolidation. In 1996, the Telecommunications Act dissolved a number of laws that regulated the number of media outlets a company could own. The resulting mergers concentrated media ownership in six huge companies, including Disney and Viacom, that now control virtually all mainstream media. Scholars like Lance Bennett, Robert McChesney, and Eric Klinenberg have thoroughly documented the effects of media consolidation on the corporate news media. These include a decline in the coverage of foreign and local news, a reliance on mainstream sources, a decrease in minority viewpoints, a reduction in substantive educational content, an increase in cross-promotion and sponsor-driven content, and a pro-government, pro-capitalist bias. These problems were especially relevant during the post– September 11 Bush administration, when progressives criticized corporate media for cheerleading the war effort and for failing to investigate policies carefully or provide historical context for government decisions. In contrast, online publishing provided a platform for people with views outside the mainstream to voice opinions and practice amateur investigative journalism. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 105
That anyone could use the IMC newswires to publish a news story was the IMC’s challenge to corporate media coverage of radical politics. Participants in the WTO protests were disgusted by what they saw as sensational and inaccurate coverage of their activism, which they attributed to media consolidation. In 1996, the Telecommunications Act dissolved a number of laws that regulated the number of media outlets a company could own. The resulting mergers concentrated media ownership in six huge companies, including Disney and Viacom, that now control virtually all mainstream media. Scholars like Lance Bennett, Robert McChesney, and Eric Klinenberg have thoroughly documented the effects of media consolidation on the corporate news media. These include a decline in the coverage of foreign and local news, a reliance on mainstream sources, a decrease in minority viewpoints, a reduction in substantive educational content, an increase in cross-promotion and sponsor-driven content, and a pro-government, pro-capitalist bias. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 105
Categorization
- SHARE: Worth sending to anyone who covers media consolidation or telecom policy — this is the canonical 1996 Act fact applied to radical media culture.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s noise/media-curation reading — concentration of media ownership as the structural backdrop for how mainstream information flows. — connects to: American media is consolidated into three or fewer firms per sector — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 31; Financialized debt fuels the consolidation wave reshaping media ownership
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 105
Broader Connections
- American media is consolidated into three or fewer firms per sector
#expands(0.85) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 31 - Financialized debt fuels the consolidation wave reshaping media ownership
#expands(0.72)