Research Guides: Question Everything! Reading the News with a Critical Eye: Systemic Issues: Who Controls the Media?

Media Ownership

Media and Advertising
Considers audience as product vs. audience as consumer; political and corporate influences on news coverage; and other issues surrounding advertising and the media. GlobalIssues.org, 3/4/2012
Spiked: Fighting in-house censorship when media managers can’t handle the truth
By an investigative journalist; an account of how stories can get "spiked" in order to appease corporate interests, with news coverage of tobacco companies as an example. American University School of Communication Investigative Reporting Workshop, 1/21/2015
War or No War on Syria: Conflict of Interest of “Experts” who Commented in Favor of Military Intervention
Report documents the industry ties of Stephen Hadley, 21 other media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. Public Accountability Initiative, 10/10/2013
Wash. Post Doesn’t Disclose Writer Supporting Syria Strike Is A Lobbyist For Tomahawk Missile Manufacturer
Media Matters, 4/11/2017

Media control: the spectacular achievements of propaganda by Noam Chomsky
Call Number: 300 Op2 No.10
ISBN: 1888363495
Publication Date: 1991
This first volume in the Open Media Series addresses the issue of propaganda and examines the varieties of mind control and behaviour modification that result when government and business use image manipulation and disinformation to influence events.
Understanding media: the extensions of man by Marshall McLuhan
Call Number: 301.243 M266u
ISBN: 1584230738
Publication Date: 1964
This 1964 classic made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.
Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media by Edward S. Herman; Noam Chomsky
Call Number: 302.23 H426m
ISBN: 0679720340
Publication Date: 1988
An intellectual dissection of the modern media to show how an underlying economics of publishing warps the news.
The New Media Monopoly by Ben H. Bagdikian; Den Emeritus
Call Number: 338.4 B1462
ISBN: 9780807061879
Publication Date: 2004
Rich media, poor democracy [videorecording] by Media Education Foundation
Call Number: DVD 302.23 R375
Publication Date: 2003
Demonstrates how journalism has been compromised by the corporate bosses of conglomerates such as Disney, Viacom and AOL Time Warner to produce a system of news that is high on sensationalism and low on information.