Problems

In the past decade, national and international media systems have been commercializing and concentrating at a lightning speed, threatening to destroy participatory, public-oriented media. At the top, AOL Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Viacom, Bertelsmann and a handful of other companies now control the majority of media content in North America. You can switch from CNN to HBO to the Cartoon network, read from Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated, watch a movie, and even attend a baseball game - and never leave the domain of AOL Time Warner.

The effects of this media concentration have been overwhelmingly negative. Editorial diversity suffers, commercial interests suppress news, local-interest content is cut back, cross-promotional advertising is integrated into news content, and public-interest is ignored as governments cut public radio and television funding. Powerful commercial lobby groups are drawing up international media laws and regulations, creating a new system that is even more exclusive and self-serving.

These changes to our media system have far-reaching implications. They fuel pro-war rhetoric, bring advertising into schools and other public domains, encourage excessive consumption, increase cable and Internet user fees, censor or filter out non-mainstream views, support neoliberal, pro-business government policies and further racist, sexist, ethnic and other stereotypes. In many developing countries the media's role as a tool of government and elite interests directly inhibits democracy.