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ASK AN EXPERT: What do you want to know about media consolidation in America? |
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What would you like to ask a media expert on the issue of media consolidation in America?
On May 10th I will be interviewing Eric Klinenberg, author of “Fighting For Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media,” an in depth look at media consolidation in the print, radio, television, and Internet industries and the effects these consolidations have been having on American freedom of information and democracy.
As most of you are well aware, the media has been consolidating at an alarming rate. Today, a handful of companies control the only news outlets in America, some holding a virtual monopoly in certain geographical areas. Industry lobbyists argue that media consolidation has lowered costs, increased profit margins, and allowed media outlets to disseminate unprecedented amounts of information and advertising on a national scale. Media reform advocates argue that the consolidation trend has drastically reduced local reporting in media, homogenized the news across the country, allowed media executives to push their own politics through their news sources, eliminated meaningful competition and diversity, and destroyed the media’s ability to respond quickly to broadcast information in the event of a local disaster. The two sides have been battling it out with regulatory meetings with the FCC, civil lawsuits, and legislation from Congress, and there have been winners and losers on both sides.
The book is fascinating and leads to a lot of compelling questions about the role of media in today’s society, the importance of media literacy, the role of the public trust in a broadcasting license, and the disruptive power of the Internet in the media landscape. I know readers of The Seminal have felt the effects of media consolidation. Who has not bemoaned the lack of quality programming on the radio or remarked at seeing the same news stories in dozens of different newspapers? I know you have ideas and opinions on this issue and I would love to relay those questions to Professor Klinenberg when I sit down with him. Please leave your question in the comments and stay tuned for an answer later this month.
Well, I know entertainment and the mass media isn’t quite what his book deals with, but it seems like a parallel phenomenon to me. So my question is, does Prof. Klinenberg thinks that media consolidation is having a negative effect on the quality of entertainment (music, television, movies, books, etc) in America, and if so has that meant that large numbers of Americans are starting to look for their entertainment elsewhere?
Don’t you think the wide majority of Americans are clueless as to who owns their local newspapers, radio and TV stations? Doesn’t their ignorance matter?
@Ish
There is definitely discussion of the arts in the book, so your question is very pertinant.
@Frank
Great question as well, I’ll be sure to bring it up.
Keep them coming!
What role does Kliniberg think is going to be the role of independent media in this age of media consolidation? Will it be able to survive/make a difference?
Good question John, any relation to Frank? ^^
I’d say that independent media can still thrive in niche/smaller communities such as this one. As corporate media become further conglomerated an opening a market is created by those who are just fed up.
I’d also point out that corporate media tend to gloss over subjects and don’t give every issue the attention it deserves. That is a gap that independent media can and does gladly fill.
I’d be interested to see what the professor has to say on this as well.
Fantastic.
I’d like to ask the professor why the fear of media consolodiation when the media landscape has changed dramatically just in the last couple of years?
Frank Ahrens of The Washington Post put the call for more regulations in perspective:
“Imagine it’s 1875 and a virtually unregulated railroad industry is crisscrossing the country. At the same time, Washington is busily crafting close and careful rules governing the canal business.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/22/AR2007 022201507.html
(working with the national association of broadcasters)
Very interesting read. I will add it to the list!
I guess my response off the bat would be that while many media companies may have split up, I haven’t seen an uptick in the kinds of local, focused journalism that Klinenberg wants to see. Instead, mainstream media has just been losing customers. So why, even with the breakup of these companies, have we not seen a return to local journalism that would probably fare better in todays fractured marketplace?