Media Control

Media in all its forms is made available to all citizens to inform, to teach, and to entertain.  Whether it is to a newspaper or an electronic source, it today’s technological world everyone is hooked to some kind of media outlet. As much as media is available to the whole population, media outlets are incapable of diffusing the viewpoints of all and do take side, even though they claim impartiality. The media are a series of false constructions serving minority political interests.  They will publish content that will go with their own beliefs and values and those of the people that are helping them generate profits. All media type (newspaper, television, radio) is owned by a handful of people that will broadcast information for a very specific minority.  It is a two way street, political leaders will remain in power due to the positive impact that media has on them and media owners will keep their hold on the media world.  This reality is made clear when one considers the nature of the media owners, the nature of profits generation, and the use of media outlets, especially news reporters, as pawns for political agendas.  

The identity of those who own the media is the key factor that determines the nature of the broadcasted news.  In their article “Who Owns the Media,” the authors explore media ownership in 97 countries and come to the general conclusion that broadcasting media is more governmentally regulated than is printed media and government regulation translates into government pervasiveness into the political and economic matter of the media (Djankov, Mckliesh, Nenova, and Shleifer 341).  The authors explore one theory they name “public choice theory” in which government ownership of media outlets has a negative impact on the information transmitted to the audience as the government “would distort and manipulate information to entrench the incumbent politicians, preclude voters and consumers from making informed decisions, and ultimately undermine both democracy and markets.” (Djankov, Mckliesh, Nenova, and Shleifer 342). The authors claim that this theory is the most widely spread in their case study. They conclude that government control of media outlets is maintained for the goal of increasing chances to remain in power rather than to provide political and economic benefits to the general population (Djankov, Mckliesh, Nenova, and Shleifer 369).  

It is extremely important to have non-government operated media outlets and it would be even better if these outlets are independent of any political view or position.  If there are multiple ownerships of media outlets, then there will be competition which will in turn reduce the amount of biased information transmitted to the audience as different media outlets present different views and opinions.  This is an ideal but not the reality in many different countries.  From the sample of 97 countries studied, 57 percent of newspapers are family-owned while 29 percent are state owned while, 34 percent of television stations are in the hands of families and 60 percent are state controlled (Djankov, Mckliesh, Nenova, and Shleifer 357).^[1] With ownership comes control.  In the hands of the owners lies the type of information provided to the viewers which in turn influence social interactions and political affiliations.  When one owner is put in control of a media outlet, be it the government or a private individual, the media outlet in question only broadcasts one side of the coin.  In a world where technology is as pervasive as it is in ours, it is extremely difficult for people to turn a blind eye to those biased messages.  While television and newspapers are but two types of media outlet, when combined, they are extremely important and pervasive.  For instance, newspapers are distributed in metro stations for free and metro stations broadcast news on televisions almost at every stop.  It is almost impossible for travelers, who number by the hundreds of thousands daily, to ignore those messages.  

Whether it is a private ownership or governmentally owned does not make a very big difference in terms of news delivery since both types of owners invest money and time in those media outlets to receive public recognition and build an audience.  Once that is done, they will maintain their political stands and views and thus end up broadcasting one side of the coin.  In her article “Media use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure,” Natalie Joumini Stroud argues that certain topic such as politics are more likely to inspire selective exposure (Stroud 341). She focuses on the different media types such as newspaper, political radio talk, cable news and internet to see whether they have an impact on selective exposure or not. The results are that people’s political beliefs are related to the type of media outlet that they use. The author provides as an example the 2004 elections in which the choice of the newspaper was based on the electoral candidate it endorsed (Stroud 348).  A second example is that at least one conservative media is followed by 64 percent of Conservative Republicans compared to 26 percent of Liberal Democrats while at least one liberal outlet is followed by 43 percent of Conservative Republicans compared to 76 percent of Liberal Democrats (Stroud 358).  It is this reality of selective exposure that makes it important for some entity, usually serving minority political interest, to have control of the media.  By taking control of as many outlets of mass media as can be done, a limited number of entities are able to propagate their political interests to as many people as possible.