Media Consolidation- One-stop-shopping for ideas

The opening of XRAY-FM is a small victory for the free flow of information, but why?  Why should a small, community radio station matter at all?  It’s because the overwhelming trend in media since 1996 has been consolidation… six companies now control almost all the information we receive through all media.  They’ve taken a vibrant, chaotic marketplace of ideas and forced it through a single spigot as a putrid slurry of corporate propaganda.  Why, it’s enough to make you Furious, if you check out these stories or even just the chart below on MEDIA CONSOLIDATION!

NOW webpage on Media Consolidation– Excellent starting point with timelines, rule changes, and ownership records.  Constantly updated.

The Media Brokers- Concentration and Ownership of the Press– Ben Bagdikian, The Multinational Monitor-  This prescient article by Ben Bagdikian appeared in 1987.  He lays out a terrifying future of media stranglehold.

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America– Business Insider- Includes excellent infographic if you’d like to share it around

Cease to Resist:  How the FCC’s Failure to Enforce Its Rules Created a New Wave of Media Consolidation– Free Press report

Timeline of media consolidation laws and events– Moyers on America

Deregulation Has Created Monopolies – And That’s Why Your Internet Sucks– Ring of Fire Radio

Media Consolidation holds Journalism at Knifepoint– Kytoh blog

Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age– New America Foundation

Free Press webpage on Media Consolidation

Visualization map of media takeovers, 1996-2013– Free Press

Citizens Speak: The Real World Impacts of Media Consolidation– Common Cause

Former FCC Commissioner Warns About Comcast-Time Warner Merger, “Mindless” Media Consolidation– Video- Democracy Now

The changing face of local TV: Impacts from media consolidation– St. Louis Post Dispatch