Why and How Large Media Corporations Still Matter

• In Event: Media Ownership and Funding in the New Communication Environment

Abstract

Many studies of the media point out, or merely assume, the increasing presence of large corporations in media industries over the last century. But there has been surprisingly little explicit normative discussion of why the corporate form matters, and remarkably sparse dialogue between studies of media corporations and studies of corporations in general. Drawing on this wider literature, this paper identifies and discusses four major intertwined problems associated with corporations, providing examples from the media sector, including “platform” corporations. The problems are as follows: 1) Influence on policy and regulation; 2) Influence on the prevailing quality of products; 3) Influence on prevailing labour conditions; 4) How interlocking directorships or directorates may mean that corporations in different industries and sectors may mutually reinforce each other’s power and those of the elites that own and control them, thus extending corporate power, and elite power generally.

Author

• David Hesmondhalgh, U of Leeds