Depending on the conclusion, each new academic study that attempts to measure the impact of media consolidation seems to lead to: a) cheers from management and jeers from consumer policy watchdogs; b) groans from the bosses and applause from the consumer groups; and/or c) funding for a new study from groups with the opposing point of view.
The most recent attempt to make sense of media research finds that the amount of locally focused content can increase following acquisitions by a larger company, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student and a sociology professor at the University of San Francisco. The News @ UW-Madison site tells us:
…conglomerates have created niche markets that provide information of interest to particular demographic groups, write the authors. The Black Entertainment Television station, the People en Espanol magazine and the television show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ all are owned by media giants, including Viacom, Time Warner AOL and NBC.
Media activists can grab hold of this anti-consolidation comment:
But the findings show that media giants wanting to turn a profit also can influence the material and perspective presented in media. [Co-author Pearl] Latteier says that a television show owned by a company that also owned a tobacco company presented a pro-tobacco bias, and a news program owned by the Walt Disney Company devoted a two-hour show to the Orlando theme park’s anniversary.
Ultimately, the research review, published in a journal called “Contexts,” tells us something we already knew:
The issue is much more complex than simply assuming limited ownership of media leads to limited coverage. In other words, there is no predictable outcome.
