Examining the influence of Media Ownership Concentration on Radio Programming Diversity

Abstract

According to Edwin Baker, the greatest threat to freedom of expression is the possibility that private entrepreneurs will always tend to monopolies the marketplace of ideas in the name of economic efficiency and private profit (Baker 2007). The mass media industry is crucial for the creation of reliable information, knowledge, ideology and propaganda in contemporary capitalist societies. As Strinati, (1995) argues, its structure of ownership and control are equally crucial. Marxist critical studies claim that the mass media assume an all encompassing conspiracy by monopolist (Gomery 2006). Political economists like Golding and Murdock (2001) see the relationship between ownership and control as an indirect and mediated one