Do you ever feel like radio stations all seem to play the same songs with identical playlists on a loop over and over again? Or that even with hundreds of shows available with cable TV options, you can't ever find anything to watch? I believe that we are facing these problems partially because of the limitations caused by the monopolistic culture of media.
In 1983, 90% of US media including books, music, movies, news feed, magazines, radio, and television was controlled by fifty companies. Today, 90% of what we see is controlled by only six companies including:
- Comcast-major holdings include NBC, Universal Pictures, other small cable channels such as The Weather Channel, USA, Bravo and E!
- Disney– ABC, ESPN, Pixar, A&E, Lifetime and Marvel Studios
- News Corporation– Fox, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, FX, Barron’s, HarperCollins publishing
- Time Warner– CNN, Time Magazine, Warner Bros, HBO, Cinemax, the CW, TBS, TNT
- CBS Corporation– CBS, Simon, and Schuster
- Viacom– MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount Pictures
With as much competition that the "Big 6" faces by other independent outlets in smaller companies, I don't think the main problem is the six companies themselves. I believe the real issue that we often limit ourselves to content that supports only what we know. So we're restricted to reading mostly what we agree with. We subject ourselves to see what we relate to and with social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, this statistic makes us even more limited by culture. These corporations easily shape opinions so it's true that we can be limited by these outlets; but only if we allow ourselves to be. We need to understand that these six large media companies have the true power to show you whatever they please. It's the same reason that most media sounds similar and repetitive. That's why it's so important to take what you see in media with a grain of salt. When we are knowledgeable of the power these "Big 6" companies really have, then we can better prevent them from altering our perspective to support their agenda.
