Media Mergers :: essays research papers

Merging Media Corporations are in recent days becoming ever more controversial for the fact they control a massive amount of information reaching the public. With the recent merging of ABC and Disney, concern has grown about whether the information from all the news programs and magazines might not be telling the whole story all of the time. Picture this: An ocean full of small fish, all competing at the same level. All of a sudden a larger fish swallows up a few of the smaller fish for lunch. And to the surprise and dismay of the first large fish, an even larger second fish swallows it whole. This process repeats itself again and again, in the shape of an upward spiral. Media corporations are now exactly like that ocean of fish. But instead of an ocean full of many competing fish, there are now only five powerful ones. With these five â€Å"big fish† of media corporations, the communication of truth may be thrown off balance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Time Warner merges with Turner. Viacom merges with CBS. Disney merges with ABC. Merger mergers with Merger. Tongue-Twister? - Or a large fear from the public? Mergers have become rampant throughout the United States and all around the globe. Large media corporations are being gobbled up by even larger media corporations in a matter of months. With all this in light, conspiracy questions are rising to the surface, as to how much power and information these â€Å"mega-merged† companies hold. One more merger could mean massive control by only a few men over what is sent into American’s households. Now that networks are allowed to own their own programs, information flow could be corrupted beyond recognition. Should the people of the free world be wary of what these mergers have in store? I would have to answer that with a definite yes, (unless of course I was hired by one of the big five).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Scenario: A crude oil tanker crashes into a port off the coast of Africa. The oil spills into the water, killing millions of animals, land and sea alike. These sea animals are vital to the ecology of the world, but nothing can be done to save them now. If it just so happens that ABC reporters are the first and only ones to find out about this catastrophe, nobody will ever know it happened in the first place. If ABC willed it so, they could cover up the evidence as best they could.