12) Newscorp

Do you think companies such as News Corporation are good for the media market place or do they mean that the products we are offered do not adequately reflect our needs?   


Rupert Murdoch leads a series of leading companies, including The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sun. From its creation in 1979, it is now estimated to be worth around $12.1 billion. Its influence matches its worth, shown by the reach and number of consumers it holds. Newscorp resides in the oligopoly of media, rivalled by few others. 

The gigantic power and wealth the company hold implicates that it is not good for the media market place. This is due to the fact that other media outlets cannot metaphorically grow because of the well established name of News Corp.  Outlets and merchants will fail to buy brand new products, because of the stated oligopoly. This speaks to the idea that the authority of the company will never falter, due to the fact there is no others that can challenge it. Thus, a potentially very dangerous scenario is created. If there are no opposing beliefs to that of the media outlet, then only one voice will be heard; the voice the paper wants you to hear. Media is biased, and has been known to sway the truth of purposly miss out key information. The term propaganda comes to mind, as constant ideology is instilled into the population. An instance of a danger would be when a parting affair takes place, (war, racial conflict etc); the companies input will be monumental. It would break down to the core belief that a single organisation holds the populations mindset in their hands. In the wrong hands, it would prove catastrophic.
Companies like NewsCorp scale into the idea of globalisation due to the fact that the company has gone global and grown to a worldwide scale. The media industry is controlled by four major companies; Disney, Time Warner, Viacom and CBS. These companies control what the consumer takes in, dictating that the content consumed will have similar one sided views. Through this people are only getting the news that the major companies are providing. Because of this there is deregulation as there is oligopoly in the media industry.
However, many large companies (NewsCorp) have introduced a number of smaller start-ups and local companies because they want to appeal to a larger audience. This is therefore achieved by making your content more diverse.  
To conclude, I believe that the companies  such as News Corporation are not good for the market place, due to the fact that: their opinions are biased;which can have devastating effects and also the fact that they control most media means the public see what they want us to see. This could skew the public eye against an entity without being given all the information.




Sources:

  [1] http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/news-corp-limited