Page 101 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

80 Critical investigations in political economy

alongside market openings and expanded provision. The issues of media ownership
have particular weight because governments in most market economies have,
over the last thirty years, moved to liberalise media ownership rules to facilitate
the creation of large media firms and argue that market expansion of itself can
better achieve goals formerly justifying regulatory intervention, such as media
plurality. Media regulation is examined further (chapter eight) but the market
patterns examined in this chapter and the next are vital considerations in assessing
such policies.
Today, media concentration of ownership coexists with ‘flexible’, increasingly
non-unionised, production, decentralisation of corporate decision-making and
niche marketing, yet it remains of central concern because ownership concentration
‘can restrict the flow of communication and information by limiting the diversity
of producers and distributors’ (Mosco 2009: 162). Here, CPE enquiry pursues
three overlapping concerns:

1 Media ownership: how does the specific character of ownership and control
influence the organisation of labour, media production, strategies and
operations of media institutions?
2 Concentration of ownership: the tendency across converging media sectors
for a small number of firms to control the majority of output.
3 Corporate dominance: concern about the media being privately owned and
organised according to a market-based system driven by imperatives of profits
(commercialism) and commodity exchange (commodification).

Another strand of analysis pursued by Herbert Schiller (1989), Naomi Klein
(2000) and others examines how processes of commodification have extended
into places and practices once organised according to a different social logic
based on universality, access, social participation and citizenship – what Schiller
calls the corporate takeover of public space – processes analysed in very many
quarters such as universities, the Olympics, shopping malls and city streets, as
well as media ‘spaces’ such as the Internet.
The first part of this chapter considers the processes and dynamics of media
concentration and conglomeration but also assesses evidence of counter-trends
and reconfiguration of media firms. This account is then used to review critical
debates and reassess arguments about concentration and problems of media
ownership. Those critical debates include the following questions: Is there media
concentration? What is the evidence? What are the appropriate ways to measure
concentration and media plurality? Does media concentration have detrimental
or beneficial effects in regard to the following?

information, opinion and perspectives
the range of media products and services available to consumers at competitive
prices
cultural expression and diversity.