Table of Contents
Issue #1 as well as supplement added at the end.
Communication Research Trends:
Concentration of Media Ownership
vol. 4 no. 1 1983
Research Trends in Religious Communication:
Christian Alternatives to Media Control
vol. 4 no. 1 1983
Abstract
Multi-channel cable, direct broadcast satellite and immediate access to computer data banks promise an immense variety ofinformation at our finger tips. But many are questioning whether this will mean real diversity of public access or simply many more channels in the hands of fewer and fewer industrial giants. Tne rapid introduction of new communication technologies is bringing to the fore all of the old policy dilemmas regarding concentration of economic power in the mass media. In the background are the perennial concerns to guarantee the right to communicate and to encourage diversity of opinion in the debate of public decisions.
Some argue that the new multi-channel technologies will automatically solve the problems of spectrum scarcity in broadcasting. What is needed is the profit incentive and free competition to attract large investments for rapid expansion of new services. In this view, the world economic crisis demands that we race to create new information industries to solve unemployment and other problems. Developing countries, too, must open the doors to transnational investment in order to catch up with the technology of the industrial world.
Others contend that this rush to modernise at any cost is destroying the principle of the media as a public trust and is making information a commodity that only those with buying power can have.
This issue reviews some of the rapid changes that are currently taking place in research on economic concentration in the media.
Recommended Citation
(1983)
"Concentration of Media Ownership,"
Communication Research Trends: Vol. 4:
No.
1, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/crt/vol4/iss1/1
