Kyle Myers
Professor Jennifer Martin
MIT 2371
Living in the Information Age presents several different views on key issues in global media, one specifically being that of media convergence and concentration. While some, like Robert McChesney, believe that increasing concentration causes media content to become stale and homogenized, others, like Benjamin Compaine, believe that it can instead have the opposite effect, and in fact encourage competition and unique programming. Compaine makes several points which I believe to be either false or misleading, and this paper will critique Compaine’s arguments, namely those that claim that consolidation of power diversifies content, that globalization and consolidation do not affect local content, and that unregulated markets act in the public interest.
In his piece Global Media, Compaine argues against those who believe that the deregulation of the media, and the corresponding growth of enormous media conglomerates have left the global media landscape a world of monotonous and homogenized content. Compaine argues that the global media landscape we live in today, dominated by media conglomerates, does little, if any, to drown out local media outlets and influence. Compaine believes that “media – like politics – [is] inherently local”, and uses the example of MTV in Brazil, which “plays a mix of music videos and other programming determined by local producers, even though it shares a recognizable format with MTV stations elsewhere” (Compaine 99). While this fact may be true, and Compaine may be correct in saying that some media types, like music, are local, he ignores the fact that it is only local content which agrees with the overarching view of the media conglomerate which will be reproduced.
Since Compaine has used MTV, I will follow his lead. It is an oft-cited fact that MTV (the music television network) has strayed far from music programming, opting instead for brainless reality shows such as Jersey Shore which rely on ethnic stereotypes for entertainment value. Jersey Shore is an effective example to use, for it is produced in the U.S., and ridicules Italian culture in New Jersey for our entertainment. Does Compaine truly believe that if an Italian MTV outlet proposed a new reality show which parodied Americans living in Italy, that said show would be picked up and aired on that network? If he does, I would vehemently disagree. This is the problem with a single group owning networks which produce entertainment for a wide range of views: not all viewpoints get along. There is an inherent need for producers who work for American networks abroad to appease their American bosses, and sometimes this can mean censoring content. I find it highly unlikely that a program airing anti-American sentiment, no matter how harmless, would be aired on an American network, regardless of what market it was produced for. In this sense, while it may appear that consolidation and globalization do not affect local content, it in fact does, albeit in a way so subtle that it may not appear so at first glance.
Another argument Compaine puts forward in defence of consolidation is that it can often result in a diversification of content, and cites the example of News Corporation finally bringing a fourth broadcast network to the U.S. as evidence of this. Compaine believes that without the deep pockets provided by consolidation, News Corporation would not have had the funds required to begin the network (Compaine 99). While this is undoubtedly true, the fact remains that without the pre-existence of consolidation in the media, the required funds to create a network would in fact have been substantially lower. It works like this: consolidation has made media conglomerates significantly richer, thus making the cost to join the conglomerates much richer. Without consolidation padding the pockets of the media companies, the cost to own a major media network would be significantly lower. The market then has been inflated due to the ability of major corporations to team up and keep smaller companies from challenging their dominance.
Finally, Compaine believes that deregulation and consolidation can increase the amount of media which is produced in the public interest, and uses newspapers as examples. He states that “media concentration may be in the public interest if it provides a publisher with greater profit margins and the wherewithal to spend some of that on editorial content” (Compaine 101). Compaine in making this argument ignores another side-effect of consolidation: homogenized content. Simply having more editorial content does nothing to aid the public interest if they are all subscribing to a single ideology. A healthy public sphere contains many different views all receiving equal time and consideration, and when one organization owns the majority of newspapers in a city or country, their viewpoint will likely be the one which is most often reproduced.
While Compaine does make some valid points about possible advantages of consolidation in global media, in making these points he often ignores other downfalls of the process, and thus his arguments often fail. While there are some advantages of the way that contemporary media organizations are aligned, these advantages are all too often only monetary, and when one takes into account the negative effect it can have on the public sphere and public interest, one sometimes wonders if worldwide society will ever realize the dangerous slope they are on towards complete monopoly of the media.
Works Cited:
Compaine, Benjamin. "Global Media." Living in the Information Age. Ed. Erik P. Bucy. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Print.
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