Who Owns the Media?

Media has progressed over the past century from using radios to broadcast news all the way to having the headlines sent directly to your phone. Media is all around us, it stalks us everywhere we go and there is no way we can hide from it. Even though media is beneficial to the economy, our social lives and development, media statistics can be frightening. In America 40%, almost half the population, watches TV while eating and 25% fall asleep on the couch around three times a week. Surprisingly, we see around 3,000 advertisements a day (uwm.edu) and most of us are oblivious to it. Is this really healthy for our society? Are the large corporations going overboard with advertisements? Ultimately the question is asked, “Who owns the media?” and consumers stare at each other in awe and don’t know what to say. In reality, it is the ten major companies but with society in the way, we become responsible for the media expanding as it has today.

The media is addictive and every consumer can agree. It is easily accessible to most people and is a global phenomenon. Medias, such as interactive mediums and mass media like the internet can help us communicate quickly with fellow relatives or friends. People have relied so much on different types of media, that we feel lost or hopeless if we lose a phone or forget to bring a laptop. Because the media is so effortlessly available and affordable almost everyone can buy some type of media. Another media such as the internet has left a lot of consumers unintentionally knowing that we are thieves because movies, books, and images are exposed and illegally leaked on the internet. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the media is expressed significantly with shadows to define from what is right and what is wrong. We look to media to see what clothes we should wear, which politician we can trust and what car to drive but is it all real? Are we able to trust what we called so called “news”? We are so dependent on the media today and we are all solely responsible for what the media has developed into today.