In the new age of media, there are many different organizations and brands. Many are household names even if you don’t watch a lot of television. However, most people don’t know that most organizations and brands are under a parent company. These parent companies have many different organizations under their names. Almost all organizations fall under a parent company and most fall under the same parent company. This issue of media ownership and funding is becoming more and more of a problem. It’s safe to say that these conglomerates have too much power and control.
Some conglomerates own tons of companies. Parent companies like Time Warner, Disney, and GE own over 33 companies individually. This leads to little to no competition and can ruin the market in those genres. It can be like a monopoly of many different companies. If a terrible person comes into power in the parent company, they can blacklist people if they don’t do as the person says. This can be a scary thing, especially if you want to become an actor or personality for that business. The conglomerates have control of what their companies put out and can hold a bias over what they release. News channels like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are owned by different parent companies. Fox is known to be more conservative and CNN and MSNBC are known to be more liberal. These values may transfer over to what other companies under the same parent company may put out. Examples of bias parent companies may have are inclusion, revision, and omission. Inclusion is when information is included that fits the interests of the parent company. Revision is when information is changed that can hurt the parent company. Lastly, omission is when the parent company withholds information that could be hurtful. With conglomerates, the rich stay rich. Parent companies can use the companies it owns to advertise for other companies they own. This cuts the costs of advertisements drastically since they don’t need to pay for ad space if they were to be on a different channel. This is why some advertisements seem like they don’t belong on that channel or stick out. This also works with actors and personalities. Parent companies can reuse actors and personalities to cut costs where new people would need to be hired. Conglomerates own a majority of the companies and organizations we know. They have monopoly-like groups, they control what their companies put out with bias, and the rich stay rich. However, there can sometimes be some good things that come out of conglomerates like a better quality production.
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