Media Monopolies

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, citizens of the United States of America saw a series of laws put into place to limit the ability of any one company to establish a monopoly over any one portion of the market. This had been done in response to the recently ended Gilded Age, during which corruption reigned supreme, and also to give unions a better chance at being able to negotiate for their members. For a very, very long time, these laws abated the growth of many already large corporations, and prevented total monopolies. While these laws were not extremely effective, they were at least an attempt to stem the tide. Unfortunately, we have recently seen the passing of the Telecommunication Act of 1996, which, according to the case study in this week’s reading, removed most of what little restrictions media companies once had on how much of the market they could own, and completely obliterated minority ownership of media companies, giving rise to the possibility of a very one sided representation of the world around us by media companies.

These larger companies are now able to use their even more ludicrously large amount of resources to buy out what few companies they do not yet own, in order to more completely ensure that their message is the only one that reaches the ears of their audience. They have removed almost all minority opinions, as well documented by Campbell, Martin and Fabos. A loss of all but less than 10% of all media corporations to the majority, when the minority represents almost 40% of the country is unacceptable. This is not a capitalist democracy at work, it’s a totalitarian oligarchy, a few individuals (read CEOs) within a small number of companies retaining complete power over what information is fed to the masses, and knowledge is power. This terrible turn of events has marked a period of American history where our voices have become increasingly smaller, and less easily heard where we are bombarded by the same series of thoughts and ideas that likely do not align with our own thoughts and opinions of important matters. We are bombarded and assaulted until our mental barriers protecting our original thoughts are brought low, and we are converted.

We live in a sad age where we rely so completely on media corporations for our news, and they hold an amazing, unchecked power to influence what we see and hear, with absolutely no transparency. While we might like to think that we’d stand up to this, that we would not let someone so completely dominate our thoughts and our national discussions, we see it every day, and honestly, some of us are happy to oblige. It’s easy when they don’t have to think for themselves, when they can just blindly believe what they are told on television, or via chain emails. But this does not a true democracy make. Eventually, and hopefully sooner than later, we will finally, as one people, realize how intolerably we have been wronged, and we will rise up and take back our democracy from those who would subvert its purpose.