Is media democratization a social movement?

Abstract

As media markets are becoming globalized, as the public service ethos is displaced by hyper‐commercialism, and as media ownership falls into the hands of fewer and fewer multinational conglomerates, the prospects for the media system supporting a progressive and democratic political culture are becoming dimmer. Many people in the U.S. and other countries know the limitations of the commercialized corporate media, and the systematic ways the media system blocks progressive social change—progressive in the broad sense of a project of sharing material wealth, cultural status and political power. In response, a new kind of social movement may be emerging—a movement that seeks to transform the media themselves.