Media Ownership and the Political Economy of Research in US Media Policymaking

Abstract

In United States media policy, issues of media pluralism and diversity have been tightly intertwined with the issue of media ownership. In the US, the media ownership issue involves not only concerns about ownership concentration and its anti-competitive effects in the economic marketplace and in the marketplace of ideas; but also concerns about the levels of media ownership amongst historically disadvantaged groups such as women and minorities. In this regard, then, the media ownership issue in the US becomes interconnected with pluralism and diversity-related concerns about a robust marketplace of ideas and minority and gender representation in both the structure and content of the media system. And, of course, these social and political dimensions coexist with economic concerns about the relationship between the ownership structure of media markets and the economic functioning of these markets. From a policy standpoint, all of these concerns need to be addressed within a media environment that has, over the past two decades, been in a period of tremendous volatility and ongoing technological change.