Right-Wing Influences in American Media :: Essays Papers

Right-Wing Influences in American Media Since the advent of television networks, Americans have relied on local and national newscasts to inform them of the worlds happenings. In the 1950s there were no other mass informational outlets besides the network news and newspapers. Today we have the internet, which allows in reckonent research, but the majority of Americans still depend on network and cable newscasts for their local, political, and foreign news. With the responsibility and power of informing an entire country, are television newscasts as reliable as most Americans learn them to be? Most Americans dont consider where their news is coming from or who is producing it. Network and cable news are owned and operated by throng and thus are not as objective and unbiased as we would like to think. In light of the war in Iraq and the most recent presidential election, critics of television network administration are voicing their concern for todays presentation of the news. Increasingly more Americans are demanding a rehabilitation of newscasts, startle with ownership. News Ownership Before examining media practices, lets establish what the major news networks are and who owns them. As most Americans know, ownership of media outlets is largely centralized roughly 6 main networks or mergers. Since 2000 the Big Six conglomerates (as they are often referred to) account for ninety percent of all media ownership including television, radio, newspapers, internet, books, magazines, videos, wire services and word picture agencies. (Adams) In 2001, America Online (AOL) and Time Warner merged to become the worlds largest media organization. AOL Time Warner accounts for twelve television companies including Warner Brothers, 29 cable operations companies across the reality including CNN and Time Warner Cable, 24 book brands, 35 magazines including Time and Fortune, 52 record labels, the Turner Entertainment Corporation which owns four professional sport s teams, and provides AOL internet services to 27 million subscribers in fourteen countries. In addition, the conglomerate owns multiple theme parks and Warner Brothers stores in thirty countries across the globe. AOL Time Warner is chaired by Steve Case, with Gerald Levin as chief executive officer and boasts 79,000 employees worldwide. AOL Time Warners multi-faceted conglomerate brings in $31.8 billion in revenues annually. (New Internationalist)The second-largest media conglomerate is the Walt Disney Corporation, which has come a long way from its cartoon industry decades ago. The Disney Channel broadcasts in eight countries, with its sister sports channel ESPN broadcasting to 165 countries on three continents.