Based on the Chapter one readings
I believe the digital media will further concentrate into a more corporate,
commercialized, and centralized media outlets. As it says on page thirteen of
our textbook, “The trend is clear; analog and digital media are rapidly being
consolidated into the hands of a few, very large, very powerful, and very rich
owners.”
Companies such as Time Warner
Cable, The Walt Disney Company, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, and General Electric
form the big six media conglomerates. The big six control 90% of American
media, in comparison in 1983, 90% of the American media industry was owned by
fifty companies. As technology becomes more and more important to us we will
continue to feed these media giants, as well as technology giants such as Apple
and Microsoft, and they will have more power to force weaker competition out of
the market.
Today’s media is becoming more
and more digital, magazines and newspaper are a dying art, and online news and
media is completely taking over and the media giants are investing in
technology more than ever. One thing that this facilitates, which we touched on
in class is that now, anyone can publish articles that the world can access,
and although this may seem like the media is diversifying, these rouge poster
do not hold media power over the large media giants. Another huge change
associated with media largely becoming digitized is that the media is shifting to
“real-time” acknowledgement of events. No longer do people need to wait for
their morning paper to learn about world news, media outlets can upload news
live, all around the world.
The large media conglomerates
have gained the trust of their readers, their customers believe that what
they are reading is credible and truthful, this would be a large obstacle for
any new comers in the market because they will have no media credibility, as
well as not nearly the amount of resources that the media conglomerates do. As
we shift to a more global economy you will see these media giants gain even
more strength in the market, for example, CNN, which is owned by Time Warner
Cable, is pushing more towards a world news source and not strictly American.
Today, anyone in the world can
log on to the internet and check in on news all around the world. We are
quickly becoming a global society and the companies with the resources to
switch their focus towards this world view will be the companies that control
the market. I believe the big six media conglomerate will continue to lead the
pack and make it difficult for possible new entrants in the market solely based
on their massive capital and resource base. In order to dilute the market
share, new entrants would need to come up with some sort of competitive advantage
over the large media conglomerates, and I think the only way they would be able
to do that would be through a massive technological advancement, and even then
those with the most amount of resources are the most likely to produce such an
advancement.
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