Media Ownership Across Various Platforms

Blog 3: Less than a dozen corporations control the entire media landscape; making it virtually impossible to escape influence as a viewer, listener, and reader. Not only do these institutions control what we view on television, but a corporation such as Clear Channel is the largest radio station owner in the country. These media conglomerates have ownership in television, film, and print where consumers have no choice to be bombarded with relentless campaigns that don’t fulfill community needs.

Women comprise over 51 percent of the U.S. population but hold less than 7 percent of all TV and radio station licenses. People of color make up over 36 percent of the U.S. population but hold just over 7 percent of radio licenses and 3 percent of TV licenses. Of the 1,349 commercial television stations in the United States: 4.97%, are owned by women and 3.26%, are owned by minorities. Women and minorities make up 51 and 33% of the population, respectively. Lack of media diversity leads to poor coverage of issues regarding minority groups, limited availability of roles for minority actors which allows more opportunities to represent more than the common stereotype and it reduces amount of information available to non-English speaking communities.

Very few companies have a tight grip over the services we like to use. The public i disillusioned with the idea that they have choices as to what services they can purchase, when in reality, it’s all the same thing.

In addition to the oligopoly of ownership, media companies use different different platforms to expand their respective stories and use this as well as synergistic storytelling as an economic ploy that ensures ownership of the specific intellectual property across the multiple platforms. The Matrix movie trilogy is a great example of such because, with great success, the story is told through the video game, a number of animated features, and comic book short stories. A story does not necessarily have to be told across different platforms as unique experiences are offered to the audience. The nationwide scavenger hunt launched prior to Batman: The Dark Knight generated record breaking buzz even before the movie was released.

The Viral Campaign seen around the world

Companies use the technique of multimedia storytelling to allow their content to be displayed over a variety of media platforms. A lot of the time, however, they do not necessarily have to tell a story or experience. It does not necessarily have to remain coherent in that sense. It, more than anything, offers the audience options to interact with the specific product/service. And ultimately, it ensures the company has covered its entire basis as to how it can reach its audience. For example, ESPN broadcasts the SportsCenter on television, but viewers can also stay up to date through their ESPN SportsCenter app on the phones, ESPN Magazine, ESPN Radio, and they also have Watch ESPN online for those on computer.

The Halo video game franchise is one of the most successful franchises across multiple platforms. The bread and butter, of course, are from its award -wining video game series. The games expanded into best-selling novels, comic books, anime, live-action short-films, online parodies, and possibly film.

The original Halo video game trilogy began in 2001 on PC and Microsoft’s Xbox video game console. The game itself pushed the sales of Microsoft’s hardware. In between the sequels, novels were with and released they told he stories of other characters in the games. While not canon, each book old a story ta helped expand he Halo universe. And because the franchise is still such a world phenomenon, fans have he ability to produce their own web-shorts fueling the Halo fire even more.

 

Notice

All imagery are copyright of their respective owner. I do not own or am affiliated with these companies, and do not condone the use, or distribution of these images and/or videos. Use is solely restricted to informative and educational purposes.

 Bibliography

Hooks, Bell. “Cultural Criticism and Transformation.” Media Education Transcript(1997): n. pag. ]<https://www.mediaed.org/assets/products/402/transcript_402.pdf&gt.

Lutz, Ashely. “These 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America.” Buisness Insider.Published June 14, 2012. Web. http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6.

“Who Owns the Media?.” . National Conference for Media Reform, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. <http://conference.freepress.net/ownership/chart&gt;.