Review: The media monopolyEditorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsVeteran media watchdog Bagdikian has gone a long way--probably the farthest yet--toward pinning down the causes and consequences of media concentration. On some scores, he'll catch even the knowledgeable unawares. It doesn't come as a shock, though maybe it should, to read that 50 ""giant corporations"" control the majority of American media; it is discomfitting, however, to see the extent to which they ""exchange directors, and therefore have common policy views, with nonmedia corporations."" It's not startling, either, to be told that conglomerates resist anything that tarnishes their public image-until Bagdikian cites books canceled and reporters fired. The alarm bells go off and keep ringing, however, when he moves into his second major area of concern, the effect of mass advertising. From New Yorker editor William Shawn, Bagdikian learned that publication of Jonathan Schell's 1967 report on the village of Ben Suc (and subsequent, early anti-Vietnam War pieces) cost the magazine a 40 percent drop in advertising by 1970; as Bagdikian and Shawn observe, only a closely-held ""anomaly"" like The New Yorker could have held to its course under those conditions. (The advertising eventually came back.) Next, Bagdikian shows how mass advertising, concentrated in front-runner newspapers, creates one-newspaper cities--and then makes those very papers less responsive to a variegated public (and more attuned to high-income markets). Publishing for selected, affluent markets also results, on the political fronts, in ""a disparity between citizens' and merchandising needs""; the content becomes a vehicle for selling the goods. Looking around, Bagdikian foresees ""a collision between independent journalism and American corporate power."" Rousing, old-fashioned American reformism--on a topic that no one knows better than Bagdikian. Review: The media monopolyEditorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsVeteran media watchdog Bagdikian (The Information Machines, etc.), has gone a long way--probably the farthest yet--toward pinning down the causes and consequences of media concentration. On some scores, he'll catch even the knowledgeable unawares. It doesn't come as a shock, though maybe it should, to read that 50 ""giant corporations"" control the majority of American media; it is discomfitting, however, to see the extent to which they ""exchange directors, and therefore have common policy views, with nonmedia corporations."" It's not startling, either, to be told that conglomerates resist anything that tarnishes their public image--until Bagdikian cites books canceled and reporters fired. On Gannett and other newspaper chains, he wraps up the charges--decline in hard news and editorial vigor, increase in ""soft"" features and uniformity or blandness--that have been appearing in Columbia Journalism Review and such. The alarm bells go off and keep ringing, however, when he moves into his second major area of concern, the effect of mass advertising. From New Yorker editor William Shawn, Bagdikian learned that publication of Jonathan Schell's 1967 report on the village of Ben Suc (and subsequent, early anti-Vietnam War pieces) cost the magazine a 40 percent drop in advertising by 1970; as Bagdikian and Shawn observe, only a closely-held ""anomaly"" like The New Yorker could have held to its course under those conditions. (The advertising eventually came back.) Next, Bagdikian shows how mass advertising, concentrated in front-runner newspapers, creates one-newspaper cities--and then makes those very papers less responsive to a variegated public (and more attuned to high-income markets). Publishing for selected, affluent markets also results, on the political front, in ""a disparity between citizens' and merchandising needs"": the content becomes a vehicle for selling the goods. Looking around, Bagdikian foresees ""a collision between independent journalism and American corporate power."" The muckraking magazines, he recounts (contrary to recent scholarship), were systematically taken over by Morgan and other interests. (They didn't simply expire in the death throes of progressivism.) Today, however, ""the large corporations can do what they did eighty years ago. . . openly and legally because they now own most of the media."" And how to get them to ""relinquish their giantism""? Rousing, old-fashioned American reformism--on a topic that no one knows better than Bagdikian. User reviewsReview: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Brett - GoodreadsThis one I read while I was in Journalism school...unfortunately I was a senior when I stumbled across it. It was rather disconcerting to find out my chosen profession was a bullshit PR function of ... Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Mr. Mullins - GoodreadsI read this awhile ago, but I continue to turn to it as a reminder that Ben's predictions were clear and not nearly alarming enough. I see there is a "New Media Monopoly" that I must look into now. Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Diane - GoodreadsEssential reading for any communication's scholar or anyone interested in the shrinking number of firms who control our nation's media output. Bagdikian adeptly shows why it's happening and why we should care. Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Parapraxis - GoodreadsEssential. Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Nathan - GoodreadsOne of the few college books I read that I really liked Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Craig - GoodreadsOne of the more complete analyses of the media monopoly and the possibility of such collusion. Chilling! Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Kate - GoodreadsA lot of interesting things to consider regarding corporations and the bottom line, and the ways in which "news" has been commodified. I gave up reading this the first time but returned to it with ... Read full review Review: The Media MonopolyUser Review - Matteo - GoodreadsThis should be a part of every citizen's understanding of how our society works. Media ownership and concentration matters - we ignore it at our own risk. 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