C. Edwin Baker, Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters

摘要

As this review is being written, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has just relaxed the 32-year-old Cross-Ownership Ban that prevents one entity from owning both a television station and a newspaper in the same local market. The sanction is something major media companies including News Corporation and Tribune have targeted for several years. Throughout 2007, the five FCC commissioners held meetings in six US cities and heard from a cross-section of America's electorate - thousands of concerned citizens who almost without exception spoke out against the heightened deregulation and concentrated ownership of media industries. Subsequently the US Senate Commerce Committee together voted in favour of the bipartisan Media Ownership Act of 2007 (MOA) that would require the FCC to wait at least 90 days for the public to comment before taking such actions. After all was said and done, in defiance of citizens and before their representatives in the Senate could vote on the MOA, Republican FCC chairman Kevin Martin called a vote of FCC commissioners to loosen the ban, with the relaxation passing 3:2 along party lines (Kirchgaessner, 2007).