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When I was growing up there were only 3 television stations: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Today, we are bombarded with cable, satellite, and HD broadcasts from around the world. Given that only 6 corporations own all this broadcasting power, is there the likely potential that the news we receive is being manipulated? 

On the surface, there seems to be an endless opportunity to find diverse media outlets to receive news and entertainment. But the numbers are misleading. Media consolidation has resulted in fewer and fewer owners controlling the majority of media outlets. In 1983, a mere 50 corporations owned the bulk of mass-media outlets. Today in the United States just five companies control 90 percent of media outlets (McChesney 1999). Ranked by 2014 company revenue, Comcast is the biggest, followed by the Disney Corporation, Time Warner, CBS, and Viacom (Time.com 2014).

Monopolies matter because less competition typically means consumers are less well served since dissenting opinions or diverse viewpoints are less likely to be found. Media consolidation results in the following dysfunctions. First, consolidated media owes more to its stockholders than to the public. Publicly traded Fortune 500 companies must pay more attention to their profitability and to government regulators than to the public's right to know. The few companies that control most of the media, because they are owned by the power elite, represent the political and social interests of only a small minority. In an oligopoly, there are fewer incentives to innovate, improve services, or decrease prices.

The darker side to this global media control comes from the ability of the power elite to share disinformation and lies globally. They have the power to change worldviews and trade scientific facts with fiction. Real news gets suppressed and people are often manipulated to give up freedoms due to a manufactured health scare, or threats of world war. Another risk is the potential for censoring by national governments that let in only the information and media they feel serve their message, as is occurring in China.

In addition, core nations such as the United States risk the use of international media by criminals to circumvent local laws against socially deviant and dangerous behaviors such as gambling, drug smuggling, child pornography, and the sex trades including child sex trafficking.