Is Democracy Possible When a Few Corporations Dominate the Airwaves?

The Federal Telecommunications Act has created an oligarchy of corporate giants - always with something to sell - which dominates radio and television on the publicly owned airwaves in the United States.

For the first time in U.S. history, the country’s most wide spread sources of news, commentary and entertainment are controlled by only 6 firms, among the largest in the world.

Ben Bagdikian
The Media Monopoly
6th ed, Beacon, Boston 2000
Former Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley

The striking structural feature of the U.S. media system is ‘concentration and conglomeration’.

Powerful interests have constructed it so that citizens will not be involved in the key policy decisions that have shaped it.

Prof. Robert W. McChesney
Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Communication Politics in Dubious Times
University of Illinois Press 1999