MEDIA CONGLOMERATION: Does It Serve The Public's Best Interest?

Media conglomeration happens when large media corporations buy up smaller media companies and convert them into subsidiaries. These small media companies are usually struggling financially and are not economically solvent. Without financial assistance, many of these small media companies could not continue to operate and would eventually cease to exist. These small financially troubled media companies are blindly lured under the seemly protective umbrella of the large media corporations. The federal government sees no violation in anti-trust laws, but congress is investigating. A blog posted by Bill Densmore writes, “One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States.” In his blog, ANTITRUST: Sanders -- Media conglomeration can't be ignored by Congress http://mediagiraffe.blogspot.com/2005/10/antitrust-sanders-media-conglomeration.html, he further explains how congress is reacting to Anti-trust allegations.

Even though parent corporations infuse cash into their small new subsidiaries; utilize other subsidiaries for packaging and marketing; and open up global markets, conglomeration affects the diversity of media messages. The quality of the media content will decline and the uniqueness of the media message is lost. There is a sameness that becomes universal throughout the conglomeration. There is also corporate instability where corporations, in order to raise cash, sell off subsidiaries that are unprofitable. So does Media Conglomeration really serve the public's best interests?

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OTHER LINKS: Media Conglomeration Gone Wrong http://ualbany.blogspot.com/2005/12/media-conglomeration-gone-wrong.html Media Conglomeration is so Passe. http://newswithafeeling.blogspot.com/2005/06/media-conglomeration-is-so-passe.html My Beef With Big Media -- by Ted Turner http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html Corporate Media & Consolidation http://www.thenation.com/directory/corporate_media_consolidation A New Direction for Media Reform http://www.democraticmedia.org/issues/mediaownership/index.php
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