Intro to Communication

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Intro to Communication

• AK/SOSC 2410 9.0/6.0
• Summer 2006
• Course Director Pierre Ouellet
• www.atkinson.yorku.ca/sosc2410/

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Media Ownership in Canada
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Lecture Outline

• Defining globalization
• Trends and patterns of globalization
• Convergence as a concept
• The case of Can-West Mediaworks
• The problems of convergence
• The concept of fragmentation
• Political economy of the news
• Media monopoly broadcast challenges.

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Globalization

• The increasing world-wide integration of markets
  for goods, services and capital that attracted
  special attention in the late 1990s.
• Also used to encompass a variety of other changes
  that were perceived to occur at about the same
  time, such as an increased role for large
  corporations (MNCs) in the world economy and
  increased intervention into domestic policies and
  affairs by international institutions such as the
  IMF, WTO, and World Bank.
• 3. A set of processes leading to the integration
  of economic, cultural, political, and social
  systems across geographical boundaries.?

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Trends and Patterns of Globalization

• Background
• complimentary ownership of assets
• vertical expansion of the corporate chain of
  production
• horizontal expansion of retail market.

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General Trends Patterns of Globalization

• 1955-60 - development of concentrated national
  media ownership (see Bagdikian - Shiller) i.e.,
  Paramount - Viacom - CBS
• 1979-1990 - Broad movement towards deregulation
  - persuasive neo- conservatism - privatization
  FREE MARKET ARGUMENT for strength of
  concentration - occurs through the development of
  the 'endless chain' - corporate purchasing
  practices always testing the limits of existing
  regulations - SCC - Trust laws - Control of all
  aspects of production - development of broadcast
  delivery systems that circumvent national control
  - i.e. satellites - national media require
  offshore outlets in order to continue to grow
  (New-York Times in Toronto)
• 1990s - see development and deployment of global
  investment capital
• (money freed from obligation to stay at home)
• 2000s - neo-liberal market agenda - emphasis on
  de-regulation/re-regulation - increased
  international agreements (NAFTA - GATT )
  supercede national control

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Forms of Corporate Integration

• Horizontal Integration
• Vertical Integration
• Internal or external synergy
• General goal ownership and control over
  production, distribution, exchange and
  consumption in order to increase profit

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Patterns of Investment

• 2 Patterns of Investment
• single sector investment - (heavy) CANADA
• accumulation across all sectors - America - Japan
  - Germany - notion of parasitic relationship -
  viral in nature.

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Four Requirements of Multinational Global
Corporate Expansion

• 1- denationalization of industry
• 2- liberalization competitive access to new
  markets
• 3- commercialization of public sector
• 4- de/re-regulation shift from public to
  corporate interests.

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Media Globalization

• Increased territory and audience size
• Worldwide neo-liberal media model
• Worldwide corporate control over media
• Power over decision-making on inter/national
  government communication policies
• Technology and digitalization of content,
  management and control of information and labour.

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Effects of Media Concentration on Content

• Corporate-censorship (products, advertising,
  artists, content)
• Organizational conflict of interests
• Risk contracted out (labour organizational
  creativity)
• Content focused on -making formulas for
  commercial success.

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Globalization More than Meets the Eye

• Globalization as myth multiple meanings
• Catch-all phrase for trends of circulation and
  integration (technology finance people
  ideas)
• Ien Ang Post-global discourse
• Re-examine the distinctions between global and
  local - local and regional
• The concept of geolinguistic markets and
  audiences.

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Media Globalization

• Increased territory and audience size
• Worldwide neo-liberal media model
• Worldwide corporate control over media
• Power over decision-making on inter/national
  government communication policies
• Technology and digitalization of content
• management and control of information and labour.

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Other Related Concepts
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The Concept of Privatization

• Privatization all forms of public/corporate
  intervention that increase the size of the market
  sector in the communication and information
  industries (and others) and promote the power of
  ownership and media through de/re-regulation.
• 2 features of privatization are
• - not exclusively conservative but also
  neo-liberal
• - nearly always irreversible.

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Cultural Imperialism

• Concept dates back to the 1960s and exists in 2
  dominant versions
• 1) US is the villain
• 2) Whole world is the villain - Eurocentrism
• Concept has 2 dominant conceptualizations
• Conspiracy theory Schiller Parenti
  Bagdikian - Mills
• assumes that the elite are coherent, organized
  effective and goal oriented
• cultural dependency theory
• loss of diversity
• Mediazed process involving cultural loss rather
  than imposition
• Focuses on processes that cause authentic local
  culture
• Loss results from unequal power relations
• Inability to compete.

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Critique of the Conceptual Value of Cultural
Imperialism

• Four unhelpful themes
• Victim/villain dichotomy
• Simplistic solutions
• Limited understanding of their world contexts
• Conspirational elite.

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The Concept of Convergence

• Convergence is a complex economic and
  technological phenomenon which does away with the
  traditional conceptual and material distinctions
  and boundaries between various print, broadcast
  and telecommunication-based mass media, such as
  television, radio. newspapers and magazines.
• Convergence is the aggregation of a variety of
  content producing and content distributing media
  assets under a single corporate owner.

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Structures of ConvergenceCan-West Global
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The Four Realms of Convergence

• The four realms of convergence occur at the
• level of
• technologies
• corporations
• information and entertainment
• cultures.

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Operational Convergences

• 1. Integration of back office functions
• 2. Convergence of consumer-related activities
• 3. Cross-promotion
• 4. Cross-media advertising sales
• 5. Sharing and repositioning of content.
• (Goldstein, 2002, June 14, 10)

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The Problems of Convergence

• Increased debt load
• Makes corporation more vulnerable to markets
• Less able to take chances to invest heavily
  in order to alter media landscape
• Problem with integrity of content erosion of
  Public Sphere loss of open debate.

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Fragmentation as a Concept

• As technologies evolve and merge, the costs of
  production and distribution diminish and the
  effect of this can be seen in the proliferation
  of markets and products as well as the
  disintegration of traditional audiences and
  consumer demographics and markets. This
  phenomenon is know as market fragmentation.
• It has been argued that convergence has
  occurred, in part at least, as a response to
  fragmentation in order to maintain economies of
  scale and compete in media markets.

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Political Economy of the News

• Examine historical trends
• 3 step formula for profit
• Cheapening content
• Content to audience
• Eliminate non-profitable audiences.
• Effects of Mergers
• Treat news as any other product/content
• Budget cuts - fewer staff - closing foreign
  offices
• Rebranding the news --- for preferred audience
• Adjusting content and delivery to lifestyle.

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Five Effects of Media Monopoly On the News

• Dominance by few in local and regional markets
  distorts advertising rates
• Pressure of corporate self-promotion
• Content shift to infotainment and soft news
• News not seen in terms of public interest or
  prestige but as product
• Innovation in packaging and branding disguises
  loss of diversity in content.

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Broadcasting Challenges

• Convergence of Digitalization Ownership
  Concentration (Winseck 2002)
• Foreign ownership
• Diversity Quantity or Quality?
• Conservative Federal Government
• Neo-liberal ideology
• International Trade Agreements.

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