Media Reform Information Center - Great links/info about the multinational corporations takeover

[DKRC]

Media Reform Information Center

Links and Resources on Media Reform


In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

( More info at Media Reform Information Center )

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WE know to pull the curtain back to expose who is controlling the propaganda machinery, but are we getting the word out? I have RWingers in my immediate family who have told me pointblank they never click a link I send because they don't want to read the information.
Willfully ignorant people are beyond my ken completely & I'm related to them!
:shrug:


Anyone else having better luck?

[camero]

1. I never had any luck

With family or friends. I guess people just find it much easier to keep the blinders on and go about thier daily lives as usual.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. are you kidding? just check the procorporate Chavez-phobes ranting

continually here

need any further proof of supposedly informed people EAGERLY swallowing the worst of the right wing corporatist media bile, and SUPPORTING the same POV/MO of the BFEE?

simply astounding

[Gabi Hayes]

3. BTW, check out Robert McChesney's "Rich Media/Poor Democracy"

he has other books on media concentration, but this one is a good starting point, and provides excellent historical background