features of media ownership

• Bagdikian = Lords of the global village

  • Notices that in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of news media but in 2004, just 7 corporations controlled media ownership.
  • Defined as dominate worlds mass media and control every step within very few people.
• Concentration of media ownership is the trend that fewer individuals or companies are owning a higher proportion of the media.
• Some features of media ownership is:

  1. Vertical Integration
  2. Horizontal Integration
  3. Global conglomeration
  4. Diversification
  5. Synergy
  6. Technological convergence
• Vertical Integration is when one company owns all the stages of production of media products

  eg. a company owning a film production studio and the cinema where the film is shown
• Horizontal Integration is when one company diversifies to own more types of media. They cross media boundaries and invest in a wide range of media products

  eg. A film production company gets into book publishing
• Global Conglomeration where companies buy companies in other countries to operate internationally.

  eg. News Corp owns media outlets in several different countries
• Diversification is when media companies branch out into non media areas

  eg. Virgin media owning trainlines and insurance
• Synergy is when a media product is sold in several different forms which is a form of marketing

  eg. A company produces a film for a cinema and a soundtrack to download
• Technological convergence is where a traditional media company brings previously unrelated technologies together

  eg. Smartwatch combining with fitness tracking
• There is concerns over media ownership being owned by a small amount of people that they may be spreading limited ideas of dominant ideology which protects the needs of the upper class creating biased views