It is the second largest global media conglomerate, after AOL Time Warner. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Ltd. has media holdings in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Latin America and Asia. This privately-owned German media conglomerate has interests in 600 companies in 53 countries. It's the third largest global media conglomerate. Seventeen years ago when Ben Bagdikian first published his book Media Monopoly, there were 50 dominant mass media corporations.
Today there are five.
Here is Bagdikian's assessment of the ramifications of this merger trend, taken from the introduction to the sixth edition of his book. He is research professor in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois. Jack Shafer's counter arguments for Robert McChesney and other critics of the media mergers. Michael Kinsley's wry perspective on just what it all means.