Media Concentration and Democracy Why Ownership Matters [Paperback]

This book provides a normative critique of mass media ownership concentration.This book provides a normative critique of mass media ownership concentration. It emphasizes a democratic need to distribute communicative power more widely and to prevent abuse of media power. It also shows why ownership dispersal can be expected to improve the quality of media content.This book provides a normative critique of mass media ownership concentration. It emphasizes a democratic need to distribute communicative power more widely and to prevent abuse of media power. It also shows why ownership dispersal can be expected to improve the quality of media content.Firmly rooting its argument in democratic and economic theory, the book argues that a more democratic distribution of communicative power within the public sphere and a structure that provides safeguards against abuse of media power provide two of three primary arguments for ownership dispersal. It also shows that dispersal is likely to result in more owners who will reasonably pursue socially valuable journalistic or creative objectives rather than a socially dysfunctional focus on the 'bottom line'. The middle chapters answer those agents, including the Federal Communication Commission, who favor 'deregulation' and who argue that existing or foreseeable ownership concentration is not a problem. The final chapter evaluates the constitutionality and desirability of various policy responses to concentration, including strict limits on media mergers.1. Democracy at the crossroads: why ownership matters; 2. Not a real problem: many owners, many sources; 3. Not a real problem: the market or the net will provide; 4. First amendment guarantee of free press - an objection to regulation?; 5. Solutions and responses. Among the many First Amendment theorists in America's law schools, Ed Baker stands out for combining a comprehensive theory of the media that democracy needs to thrive with a thorough examination of the empirical economil³½