Media ownership: what really matters ?

It is clear that media plays an important role in people’s life especially in this digital era. Beside providing information, media enables us to develop our own perspectives since we interact with different points of views in various aspects. However, media is experiencing a significant transformation as they are converging to the ownership of fewer individuals and private organisations. Opinions have been proposed of whether this change makes any difference.

First of all, let’s take a look at the benefits this change brings about. Media concentration also means that regulation is less strict so it stimulates democracy and the freedom of speech. Communication channels convey the opinions of not the government but the people owning it and those people represent the grassroots so the contents are less filtered. Media is an industry so its main purpose is to serve the customers – the audiences. Therefore, people are able to see what they want. In this way, the consolidation proves to be positive.

Does this shift result in a negative outcome ?

As mentioned above, the opinions transmitted are those of the people owning the media. Those ideas are personal ones of those people or of others that are supported by them. Consequently, media contents are not contested. People’s mind is directed in certain ways that media owners want. Moreover, because media belongs to private owners and it is becoming an industry, its main target is profit so the contents selected are those can generate great revenue rather than those with high values. Under these perspectives, media ownership change is not beneficial.

But does it matter  and create any differences ?

Let’s take the example of Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, the media godfather. It is undoubtful that he is one of the most powerful people of the media world as a huge communication system is under his procession. And Murdoch also shows that he does use his tool to convey his personal points of view which are really controversial such as denying climate change. He even bought the National Geographic Channel to support him in this debate. However, the evidence of climate is so obvious that people do not have a blind trust in this case. It proves that people are not absolutely affected by the change in media ownership instead they have their own reasoning.

It does not matter who own the media, but the views they hold and the purpose they want media to serve. The most important, is people’s interpretation of media.

Reference:

Goncalves, R 2016, SBS FINANCE | Government discusses media ownership, online video, Youtube, viewed 26th March 2016,

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUO4KwBTVyo&gt;

Jardin, X 2015, Climate change denier Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic, which gives grants to scientists, Boing Boing, viewed 26th March 2016,

<http://boingboing.net/2015/09/09/rupert-murdoch-just-bought-nat.html&gt;

Nuccitelli, D 2014, Rupert Murdoch doesn’t understand climate change basics, and that’s a problem, The Guardian, viewed 26th March 2016,

<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jul/14/rupert-murdoch-doesnt-understand-climate-basics&gt;

Solanski, P 2016, Pros and Cons of Media Consolidation, Buzzle, viewed 26th March 2016,

<http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pros-and-cons-of-media-consolidation.html&gt;