10: Media Consolidation

Media Consolidation is defined as the "concentration of media ownership."  This means that fewer people and organizations are starting to control increasing shares of the mass media.  A recent study coauthored by Gregory J. Martin at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Joshua McCrain at Emory University analyzed the Sinclair Broadcast Group.  This company owns 191 television stations, which reach roughly 40% of Americans.  They noticed that as the company bought more stations, their news began to focus more on national news rather than local stories.  They saw that "a corporate take over also made stations slant more to the right politically."

Most people see television news as a reliable source, and this allows these media channels to set an agenda whether they purposely do it or not.  Having their stories skewed by a large company to only read certain stories or support a political candidate with their stories over another is a big deal.  This also creates an echo chamber because if one company owns 191 stations, they are all saying the same thing.  It makes it hard to find news sources with different perspectives to develop an opinion based on well-rounded reports.

Another example of media consolidation is Disney.  They are a large organization that owns many different companies.  They own ABC, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and many more companies.  Along with these companies, they own Disney World and Disneyland.  They do not necessarily advertise all of the companies they own as Disney, but they control a lot of them and many of them are significantly large companies.