In recent years there has been a growing problem in the media and how ownership works within it. There are many different types of media including music, film, books, games, etc. The main type of media that has been affected has been the film industry. In the film industry there are both vertical and horizontal ways of ownership which work together in order to grow for the main corporation/conglomerate company. The most recognizable example of this is with the Walt Disney Company, who owns Marvel, ESPN, Lucasfilm's, ABC, and a lot more. This means that Disney (one company) has ownership over all of these different studios/programs.
Although this can be cool to think about, this is actually a big issue that is happening. This is because when one parent company has such a wide-range of ownership of other companies it starts to become a monopoly. This means that the corporation who has a monopoly has a lot of control of the means of distribution and it is very hard to fight back against this. This also creates less competition for companies who start gaining a monopoly which means that the level of production effort can go down. Another problem when it comes to media ownership and large conglomerates is with subscrete, but expansive self-advertisement. This can be seen when a Disney owned company like ABC advertises a new Disney owned Marvel movie. Although this can be good for the companies themselves, this can become bad for audiences who get advertised to watch something even though it isn’t good. Furthermore this begins to create less diversity in the industry as companies owned by a conglomerate begin to blend together, both creatively but also ideally. Ideologically companies begin to have no diversity as if a parent company has certain ideological beliefs, then this will be transferred down into their child companies. This means that if a conglomerate has a left or right political view, then audiences will be forced to watch it, or they won't have anything to watch at all. This can also influence the type of news people watch as if the parent company owns CNN then they will also try to influence their viewers to be democratic, while if the parent company owns Fox News, then they will try to influence their voters to be republican. To conclude the biggest issue in today's film industry has been the rise of conglomerates in media ownership. This rise has caused (or has the potential to cause) a monopoly in the film industry which can create scarce competition, little diversity, and overall bad film making.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorAndrew S Burke, P7 AICE Media Studies, Cambridge student Archives
April 2021
Categories |