History
1979
-News Corporation is founded
1985
-News Corporation bought Metromedia, which included six TV stations, as a launching pad for the Fox Network.
1996
-Telecommunications Act is Passed
-New Corp. bought New World Communications Group, Inc.
2003
-News Corp. bought controlling interest in Hughes Electronics (DirecTV)
-The FCC aimed to change the national audience cap to 45%. The U.S. Senate passed a “resolution of disapproval” which would repeal the FCC rule changes, but the threat of a presidential veto on behalf of President Bush resulted in a compromise. Congress rolled back the national audience cap to 39%, which would have been just enough to accommodate News Corp. and Viacom and allow them to keep all the stations that they owned.
-News Corporation is founded
1985
-News Corporation bought Metromedia, which included six TV stations, as a launching pad for the Fox Network.
1996
-Telecommunications Act is Passed
-New Corp. bought New World Communications Group, Inc.
2003
-News Corp. bought controlling interest in Hughes Electronics (DirecTV)
-The FCC aimed to change the national audience cap to 45%. The U.S. Senate passed a “resolution of disapproval” which would repeal the FCC rule changes, but the threat of a presidential veto on behalf of President Bush resulted in a compromise. Congress rolled back the national audience cap to 39%, which would have been just enough to accommodate News Corp. and Viacom and allow them to keep all the stations that they owned.
News Corporations Presence in our Media and Abroad
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the majority of all the media that was available to the public. By 2000, that number had fallen to 6. The “Big Six” own about 90% of what we read, watch or listen. One of those Big Six is News Corporation, whose notable properties include Fox, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. News Corp. is a global player and has reach to in the U.S. and other countries. News. Corp. owns the top newspaper on 3 continents: North America (Wall Street Journal), Europe (The Sun), and Australia (The Australian). International revenues make up an increasingly large percentage of the income of the Big Six companies.
Advocates of Deregulation
Gary Ginsberg, the vice president of News Corp. has argued that the company has brought greater choice to consumers including a diversity of programming in news, sports and entertainment, invigorated the media market and unlocked monopolies. All of this was accomplished with deregulation due to the fact that it allows News Corporation more room for freedom and to change, alter, influence, and actively engage with the media market without government intervention. Some have also argued that this allows for the viewers, not the government, to decide what should stay and what should go. In a free market, if something is good, then viewers will support it and if corporations abuse their power and provide terrible service, viewers will go elsewhere. Essentially, the media corporations will regulate themselves to provide high quality content. Also, another benefit provide to consumers is that it would allow for better synergy. Consumers can purchase the digital television, internet, and phone service from the same company as opposed to having to reach out to many different companies. Media consolidation is beneficial to consumers’ budgets.
Opponents of Deregulation
In 2003, advocacy groups labelled Rupert Murdoch as being the poster child of media consolidation. Organizations like MoveOn.org argued that the danger of media consolidation can be seen in Fox News Channel, The Weekly Standard, and The New York Post’s conservative bent. These are all owned by Rupert Murdoch and appear to echo his political views. However, this isn’t always the case. For example, Rupert Murdoch has been seen as pro-immigration, stating “immigrants enrich our culture and add to our economic prosperity”, and Fox News has been seen as having an anti-immigration angle. However, there is still a big concern over media consolidation. A study released in February by the Project of Excellence in Journalism revealed that “smaller station groups tended to produce higher quality of newscasts than networks owned by larger companies by a significant margin”. If media regulation rules continue to be reassembled to allow a handful of companies to get bigger and bigger, this could result in a media environment that is not high quality, but rather streamlined content of low quality. These rule changes would be made in the interest of large corporations and not of democracy or the people.
Another major concern is that if only a handful of corporations control the majority of the media that is available, how could they influence the opinions of others? In a study based on microlevel audience data, it was found that media could have a political impact. It was found that Fox News had influence on viewers’ voting behaviors in the 2000 elections. The worry stems from the potential effects this can have on the future. For example, Silvio Berlusconi started with a newspaper in Italy. He then went on to purchase television stations, radio stations, more newspapers, and eventually a TV network. He ended up owning 95% of all the media available to the Italian citizens. When Berlusconi ran for Prime Minister, he won and served on three separate terms, which totaled to nearly a decade, despite having been accused of multiple crimes such as tax fraud, false accounting, corruption, and other serious crimes. Silvio Berlusconi’s power is attributed to the fact that he controlled so much of what was seen, heard, or read. Opponents of media consolidation argue that if the FCC continues to make changes that allow media corporations to acquire more and more media assets, a scenario like Italy’s could be possible in the United States. Evidence of media influence was seen during the years of the Iraq War. For example, in 2005, 56% of Americans still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had supported Al-Qaida. These two notions had long been debunked. Misinformation persisted because the media would not challenge the claims of the Bush administration. A study released by the American University’s School of Communications revealed that media outlets acknowledged that they had self-censored their reports on the Iraq invasion. What this reveals is that the lack of diversity in ownership can help explain the lack of diversity in the news. Before and after Colin Powell made a speech to the U.N. where he made a case for war, the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting media watcher group noted that less than 1% of sources were affiliated with anti-war activism.
In 2003, Rupert Murdoch declared that George W. Bush would “either go down in history as a very great president or he’ll crash and burn. I’m optimistic it will be the form by a ratio of 2 to 1.” When we take into consideration that the Bush administration helped push many of the media regulation changes, such as playing a role in raising the national audience cap to 39%, it can be alarming to think how News Corp. could attempt to help George W. Bush be seen as a great president. Although FCC deregulation rules affect millions of Americans, these issues tend to receive no major coverage by none of the major networks. Despite this, media activists, both liberal and conservative, have banded together to protest FCC rule changes. One such example is the Prometheus Radio Project, a grass-roots media activism group that sued to prevent the sale of public airwaves. This resulted in a victory in federal courts. This shows that the topic of media deregulation isn’t issue of being a republican vs democrat or liberal vs conservative. Too much deregulation affects every ordinary citizen, regardless of political background.
Another major concern is that if only a handful of corporations control the majority of the media that is available, how could they influence the opinions of others? In a study based on microlevel audience data, it was found that media could have a political impact. It was found that Fox News had influence on viewers’ voting behaviors in the 2000 elections. The worry stems from the potential effects this can have on the future. For example, Silvio Berlusconi started with a newspaper in Italy. He then went on to purchase television stations, radio stations, more newspapers, and eventually a TV network. He ended up owning 95% of all the media available to the Italian citizens. When Berlusconi ran for Prime Minister, he won and served on three separate terms, which totaled to nearly a decade, despite having been accused of multiple crimes such as tax fraud, false accounting, corruption, and other serious crimes. Silvio Berlusconi’s power is attributed to the fact that he controlled so much of what was seen, heard, or read. Opponents of media consolidation argue that if the FCC continues to make changes that allow media corporations to acquire more and more media assets, a scenario like Italy’s could be possible in the United States. Evidence of media influence was seen during the years of the Iraq War. For example, in 2005, 56% of Americans still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had supported Al-Qaida. These two notions had long been debunked. Misinformation persisted because the media would not challenge the claims of the Bush administration. A study released by the American University’s School of Communications revealed that media outlets acknowledged that they had self-censored their reports on the Iraq invasion. What this reveals is that the lack of diversity in ownership can help explain the lack of diversity in the news. Before and after Colin Powell made a speech to the U.N. where he made a case for war, the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting media watcher group noted that less than 1% of sources were affiliated with anti-war activism.
In 2003, Rupert Murdoch declared that George W. Bush would “either go down in history as a very great president or he’ll crash and burn. I’m optimistic it will be the form by a ratio of 2 to 1.” When we take into consideration that the Bush administration helped push many of the media regulation changes, such as playing a role in raising the national audience cap to 39%, it can be alarming to think how News Corp. could attempt to help George W. Bush be seen as a great president. Although FCC deregulation rules affect millions of Americans, these issues tend to receive no major coverage by none of the major networks. Despite this, media activists, both liberal and conservative, have banded together to protest FCC rule changes. One such example is the Prometheus Radio Project, a grass-roots media activism group that sued to prevent the sale of public airwaves. This resulted in a victory in federal courts. This shows that the topic of media deregulation isn’t issue of being a republican vs democrat or liberal vs conservative. Too much deregulation affects every ordinary citizen, regardless of political background.
Sources:
Boehlert, E. (2003, May 31). Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a right-wing power grab. Salon. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2003/05/31/fcc_4/
Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2006). The Business of Media. USA: Sage Publications Inc.
DellaVigna, S. & Kaplan, E. (August 2007). The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Retrieved from http://eml.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/FoxVoteQJEAug07.pdf
Dylan. (2009, August 7). Pros and Cons of Media Consolidation. Who owns media? Taking a look behind the scenes. Retrieved from http://whoownsmedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/pros-and-cons-of-media-consolidation.html
Goodman, A. & Goodman, D. (2005, April 4). Why Media Ownership Matters. Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/04/why-media-ownership-matters
Hartmann, T. and Sacks, S. (2012, November 29). Obama’s FCC Set to Give Rupert Murdoch a Media Monopoly. Truthout. Retrieved from http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/13051-obamas-fcc-set-to-give-rupert-murdoch-a-media-monopoly#
Jamess. (2008, January 18). Media Consolidation – brought to you by Regan and Clinton. Daily Kos. Retrieved from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/19/439135/-Media-Consolidation-brought-to-you-by-Reagan-and-Clinton#
Kirckpatrick, D. D. (2003, May 29). Media Deregulation Foes Make Murdoch Their Lightning Rod. The New York Time. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/business/media-deregulation-foes-make-murdoch-their-lightning-rod.html
Lutz, A. (2012, June 14). These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
PBS. (2004, January 30). Media Regulation Timeline, PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html
Rosen, D. ( 2012, December 5). Murdoch’s Media Monopoly. Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved from http://filmmakermagazine.com/60164-murdochs-media-monopoly/#.VUf6dvlVikp
Schmelzer, P. (2003, April 22). The Death of Local News. ALTERNET. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/15718/the_death_of_local_news
Watson, L. (2014, June 19). Fox Responds To Murdoch’s Pro-Immigration Op-Ed by Hosting Extreme Anti-Immigrant Group. Media Matters: For America. Retrieved from http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/19/fox-responds-to-murdochs-pro-immigration-op-ed/199804
Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2006). The Business of Media. USA: Sage Publications Inc.
DellaVigna, S. & Kaplan, E. (August 2007). The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Retrieved from http://eml.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/FoxVoteQJEAug07.pdf
Dylan. (2009, August 7). Pros and Cons of Media Consolidation. Who owns media? Taking a look behind the scenes. Retrieved from http://whoownsmedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/pros-and-cons-of-media-consolidation.html
Goodman, A. & Goodman, D. (2005, April 4). Why Media Ownership Matters. Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/04/why-media-ownership-matters
Hartmann, T. and Sacks, S. (2012, November 29). Obama’s FCC Set to Give Rupert Murdoch a Media Monopoly. Truthout. Retrieved from http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/13051-obamas-fcc-set-to-give-rupert-murdoch-a-media-monopoly#
Jamess. (2008, January 18). Media Consolidation – brought to you by Regan and Clinton. Daily Kos. Retrieved from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/19/439135/-Media-Consolidation-brought-to-you-by-Reagan-and-Clinton#
Kirckpatrick, D. D. (2003, May 29). Media Deregulation Foes Make Murdoch Their Lightning Rod. The New York Time. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/business/media-deregulation-foes-make-murdoch-their-lightning-rod.html
Lutz, A. (2012, June 14). These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
PBS. (2004, January 30). Media Regulation Timeline, PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html
Rosen, D. ( 2012, December 5). Murdoch’s Media Monopoly. Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved from http://filmmakermagazine.com/60164-murdochs-media-monopoly/#.VUf6dvlVikp
Schmelzer, P. (2003, April 22). The Death of Local News. ALTERNET. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/15718/the_death_of_local_news
Watson, L. (2014, June 19). Fox Responds To Murdoch’s Pro-Immigration Op-Ed by Hosting Extreme Anti-Immigrant Group. Media Matters: For America. Retrieved from http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/19/fox-responds-to-murdochs-pro-immigration-op-ed/199804