Patterns of Media Problems

Particularly from a functionalist perspective, the institution of media has myriad benefits for members of society today. Media can strengthen our sense of community and belonging, expose us to global news events, make us more informed voters, allow us to locate information with a few clicks, entertain us endlessly, connect us with people across the world, and so on. Though, with media and technological developments we have witnessed new social problems that impact us as individuals, as whole social groups, and as society at large. For instance, our individual privacy and security can be violated, social inequalities for different areas of social location such as class and gender are reproduced, and violence and fragmentation are normalized. We cover these and other problems below. We cannot cover every specific problem related to the institution of media, though we do discuss several examples on this page.

  

Technological Inequality

With the development of media and technology, as with any improvement to human society, not everyone has equal access. For the past few decades, social science researchers have tried to bring attention to the digital divide, the uneven access to media and technology among different social groups such as by class, race, and geographic location. The digital divide involves access to computers, smartphones, and free or low-cost stable internet as well as digital literacy. We see the impact of the digital divide locally and internationally. If you would like to learn about the experiences of other students, watch: The Digital Divide: How does it affect young people in London?, which describes the intersection of poverty and technology.

The first known usage of 'digital divide' was in the mid-1990s. This was the point when personal computer use shifted dramatically, from 300,000 users in 1991 to more than 10 million users by 1996 (Rappaport 2009). In part, the issue of the digital divide had to do with communities that received infrastructure upgrades that enabled high-speed Internet access, upgrades that largely went to affluent urban and suburban areas, leaving out large swaths of the country.

This digital divide has led to the second concern: A knowledge gap, which is an ongoing and increasing gap in information for those who have less access to media and technology. Simply put, students in well-funded schools receive more exposure to quality media and technology than students in poorly funded schools. Those students with more exposure gain more proficiency, which makes them far more marketable in an increasingly technology-based job market and leaves our society divided into those with technological knowledge and those without.

Augmented reality devices, robotics and 3D printing labs, and creator spaces can significantly improve education. But due to their expense, they can also increase learning inequities.

No photo credit provided

The Pew Research Center reported that nearly one in five students couldn’t finish their homework because they couldn’t access the internet (Anderson and Perrin 2018). As mentioned above, social location is a strong predictor of who has access to technology and who doesn’t. For example, people in rural areas still own less technology than those living in cities or suburbs (see the figure below). Similarly, Census data released in 2018 showed that in the study period of 2013 to 2017, 78% of US households had Internet access, but that homes in rural and low-income areas were below that national average by 13%. The data were collected by county, and showed that "mostly urban" counties significantly outpaced "mostly rural" counties. "Completely rural" lower-income counties had the lowest rates of home Internet adoption, at about 60% (Martin 2019).

Despite growth, rural Americans have consistently lower levels of technology. This chart shows home broadband, smartphone, tablet, and computer ownership in urban, suburban, and rural areas. The dark blue bars indicate that rural Americans have less access to Internet and devices. 

“% of US Adults Who Say They Have or Own the Following” from “Some digital divides persist between rural, urban and suburban America” © Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. is licensed under the Center’s Terms of Use

Data from the Pew Research Center (Perrin 2019) suggests the emergence of yet another divide. Larger percentages of groups such as Latino and Black Americans use their phones rather than traditional computers to connect to the Internet and undertake media activities. Roughly eight in ten white people reported owning computers, in contrast to roughly six in ten Black and Latino people own them. White people are also more likely to have broadband (high-speed Internet) in their homes. But approximately one in four Black and Latino people reported being smartphone-only Internet users, a number that far outpaces white people's reliance on the devices. While it might seem that the Internet is the Internet, regardless of how you get there, there’s a notable difference. Tasks like updating a resume or filling out a job application are much harder on a smartphone than on a large-screen computer in the home. As a result, the digital divide might mean no access to computers or the Internet, but could mean access to the kind of online technology that allows for empowerment, not just entertainment (Washington 2011).

The issue of net neutrality, the principle that all Internet data should be treated equally by Internet service providers, is part of the national debate about the digital divide and Internet access. On one side of this debate is the belief that those who provide Internet service, like those who provide electricity and water, should be treated as common carriers, legally prohibited from discriminating based on the customer or nature of the goods. Supporters of net neutrality suggest that without such legal protections, the Internet could be divided into “fast” and “slow” lanes. A conflict perspective theorist might suggest that this discrimination would allow bigger corporations, such as Amazon, to pay Internet providers a premium for faster service, which could lead to gaining an advantage that would drive small, local competitors out of business. The other side of the debate holds the belief that designating Internet service providers as common carriers would constitute an unreasonable regulatory burden and limit the ability of telecommunication companies to operate profitably. A functional perspective theorist might point out that, without profits, companies would not invest in making improvements to their Internet service or expanding those services to underserved areas.

The final decision rests with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the federal government, which must decide how to fairly regulate broadband providers, and from a sociological perspective, without dividing the Internet into haves and have-nots. As Scientific American explains, in early 2025 a federal appeals court decided that the FCC "cannot classify Internet service providers, or ISPs, in a way that would prevent them from favoring certain content over others. Without net neutrality, providers would be able to slow down, or throttle, traffic to competitors’ websites. Or ISPs could demand payment for speedy connections to specific Internet destinations" (Guarino 2025). However, regulations may still be passed through Congress and individual states have their own net neutrality laws. 

  

Online Privacy, Security, and Control

As we increase our footprints on the web by going online more often to connect socially, share material, conduct business, and store information, we also increase our vulnerability to those with negative intent. Most Americans seem to accept that increased usage of online and related tools brings risks, but their perceptions of those risks are evolving. For example, people have different viewpoints on risks associated with individuals, companies, and the government. The Pew Research Center conducts frequent surveys on these topics. A recent publication indicated the following:

• 81% of respondents felt that they had little control over the data collected by companies, and 84% felt they had little control over data collected by the government
• 62% and 63% felt that it was not possible to go through the day without having data collected about them by companies and by the government (respectively)
• 79% and 64% were concerned about data use by companies and by the government (respectively)

Other elements of the research demonstrate that older Americans felt more concern than younger ones, and that Black and Latino people were more likely than white people to believe the government was tracking them (Auxier 2019). Moreover, Pew found that concern is increasing, especially among Republicans. In a 2023 study, 71% were 'very' or 'somewhat' concerned about how the government uses data collected about them, with 77% of Republicans having concern (Faverio 2023).

These attitudes may be revealed by practices or attitudes toward privacy efforts and safeguards. One person may read every word of the agreement and carefully deliberate over whether to proceed. Another person may be annoyed every time a privacy notice interrupts them, and they may simply sign the statement without thinking much about it. In fact, over half of Americans (56%) always or almost always skip reading privacy policies and instead simply click 'agree' (Faverio 2023). 

Online privacy concerns also extend from individuals to their dependents. In accordance with the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, school districts must consider and control certain elements of privacy on behalf of students, meaning they cannot require or encourage students under age thirteen to provide personal information. Likewise, online platforms such as Instagram do not let children under the age of thirteen register for their sites (by policy, at least). And where children are registered by their parents, sites like YouTube and, more recently, TikTok issue controls to prevent inappropriate portrayals by children or inappropriate behavior by other members. For example, YouTube often disables comments on videos produced by children (Moreno 2020). TikTok added privacy and protection methods in 2020, but shortly after was hit with allegations of violating child safety and privacy guidelines.

Although schools and companies are required to take steps to lower risks to children, parents and guardians are free to make their own choices on behalf of their children. Some parents/guardians avoid showing their children on social media; they do not post pictures, and ask family members to refrain from doing so (Levy 2019). On the other end of the spectrum, some parents/guardians run social media accounts for their children. Sometimes referred to as "sharents," they may share entertaining videos, promote products through demos or try-ons, or post professionally produced photos on behalf of clothing companies or equipment makers. A child's (even a toddler's) role as an influencer can be financially lucrative, and companies making everything from helmets to dancewear have taken notice (Allchin 2012).

Lessons from Other Societies

Governmental Authority and the Internet

In the United States, the Internet is used to access illegal gambling and pornography sites, as well as to research stocks, crowd-source what car to buy, or keep in touch with childhood friends. Can we allow one or more of those activities, while restricting the rest? And who decides what needs restricting? In a country with democratic principles and an underlying belief in free-market capitalism, the answer is decided in the court system. But globally, the questions – and the governments' responses – are very different.

Other countries take a far more restrictive and directive approach to Internet regulation. China, which is a country with a tight rein on the dissemination of information, has long worked to suppress what it calls “harmful information,” including dissent concerning government politics, dialogue about China’s relationship with Hong Kong, or criticism of the government’s handling of events. With sites like X, Facebook, and YouTube blocked in China, the nation’s Internet users turn to local media companies for their needs. Even so, the country exerts strong control by identifying and prosecuting some violators of the bans, and undertaking more far-reaching tactics. The nation blocks the use of certain terms, such as “human rights,” and passes new laws that require people to register with their real names and make it more dangerous to criticize government actions.

In early 2021, Myanmar's military launched a coup against its government. Elected leader Ang San Suu Kyi was arrested, and other top officials were detained or pushed from power. (Suu Kyi had previously spent years under house arrest.) Immediately, citizens launched widespread and persistent protests against the coup. Myanmar's military took immediate steps to quell the protests, including firing at and killing dozens of protesters and storming colleges and hospitals. But first, the government banned Twitter (now X), Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp in an effort to reduce coordination among protesters and restrain news about the crackdown. The government also arrested reporters, including foreign nationals, who were accused of violating a public order law. Social media companies replied in what ways they could, such as deactivating the accounts of Myanmar's military so that they couldn't share their own messages.

How should the US government balance the need for Internet regulations that protect its users with the risk of overreaching restrictions that could be understood as a form of repression and social control at the hands of the state?

  

Planned Obsolescence

Have you ever had an iPhone stop working properly after a few years? Chances are that the corporations supplying the devices you use to access media – your cell company, laptop makers, and other device makers – are all counting on their products to fail. Not too quickly or consumers wouldn't stand for it, but frequently enough that you might find that it costs far more to fix a device than to replace it with a newer model. Or you find the cell company e-mails you saying that you’re eligible for a free new smartphone, because yours is a whopping two years old. This strategy is called planned obsolescence, the business practice of planning for a product to eventually be obsolete or unusable. In other words, the devices that allow us to access media are built to crash.

Many people are incredibly reliant on their devices, and a failing smartphone or computer can have impacts on customers and revenues.

Rawpixel Ltd/flickr

To some extent, planned obsolescence is a natural extension of new and emerging technologies. After all, who is going to cling to an enormous and slow desktop computer from 2000 when a few hundred dollars can buy one that is significantly faster and better? But the practice is not always so benign. The classic example of planned obsolescence is the nylon stocking. Women’s stockings – once an everyday staple of women’s lives – get 'runs' or 'ladders' after only a few wearings. This requires the stockings to be discarded and new ones purchased. Not surprisingly, the garment industry did not invest heavily in finding a rip-proof fabric; it was in manufacturers' best interest that their product be regularly replaced.

Those who use Microsoft Windows might feel that like the women who purchased endless pairs of stockings, they are victims of planned obsolescence. Every time Windows releases a new operating system, there are typically not many innovations in it that consumers feel they must have. However, the software programs are upwardly compatible only. This means that while the new versions can read older files, the old version cannot read the newer ones. In short order, those who have not upgraded right away find themselves unable to open files sent by colleagues or friends, and they usually wind up upgrading as well.

Planned obsolescence is not always done ethically, and some companies can dictate the obsolescence after the user makes a purchase. Apple users took to social media to confirm that their older iPhones suddenly began losing power or were slowing down considerably. Many users bought new phones at high prices, and later learned that the slow downs were intended by the phone maker. Customers filed dozens of class action lawsuits, which are suits where a very large group of people can band together. Apple was found to have intentionally and improperly altered its phones through a software update in order to hide battery problems. While it never admitted guilt, Apple's $500 million settlement paid benefits to iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 users who had been affected, and a later $113 agreement with state attorneys general included provisions to behave more ethically and transparently (CNBC 2020).

  

The Impact of Advertising

Corporations also make decisions about what ads we're exposed to, and consequently, how we feel about ourselves and how we understand cultural expectations. The impact that media can have on us is heavy. Perpetual discontent is a two-pronged advertising theme which emphasizes: 1) how broken and flawed we are and 2) how we can buy hope in the form of a product being sold. Women in the US are bombarded with advertising images that point out their flaws, such as that they are too fat, wrinkled, dull, saggy, old, and so on.

Women’s and men’s magazines reinforce gendered images and ideals (Hesse-Biber 2007; Milillo 2008). Most of the magazines intended for teenage girls and adult women are filled with pictures of thin models considered beautiful by cultural standards, advice on dieting, cosmetics ads, and articles on how to win or please your man. Conversely, magazines intended for teenage boys and men are more often filled with ads and articles on cars and sports, advice on how to succeed in careers and other endeavors, and pictures of thin beautiful women. This pattern in magazine images again suggests that women’s chief goals should be to look good and to please men and that men’s chief goals should be to succeed, win over women, and live life in the fast lane.

A recent meta-study by Dai, Zhu, and Guo (2025) systematically analyzed 95 existing studies published between 2000-2023 that examined the influence of advertising on adult women’s self-perception, body image, or attitudes toward gender roles. The research team found that "traditional advertising, which often features idealized and stereotypical portrayals of femininity, continues to be associated with negative psychological outcomes such as increased body dissatisfaction and self-objectification" and that this appears to be "intensifying in digital contexts, where exposure is more frequent and pervasive." More specifically, studies consistently find that exposure to ads involving idealized depictions of women were associated with body dissatisfaction, self-objectification, an internalization of the ideal to be thin, lower self-esteem, and appearance-related anxiety. The researchers also report that exposure to ads portraying women in stereotyped roles (such as sexualized objects or as homemakers) has been correlated with stronger likelihood traditional gender roles and sexist attitudes. 

Some scholars argue that this has lead not only to discontent with our body images, but also discontent with every aspect of our spending life (products, house, cars, computers, clothes, etc). Every year, millions pay vast sums of money to acquire surgical beauty enhancements. Cosmetic surgeries have been on the rise over the past few decades, and have been found to be influenced by the advent of social media sites such as Instagram (Thawanyarat et al. 2023), on which cosmetic surgical centers have their own accounts, influencers have pushed an unrealistic beauty standard, and ads for beauty products bombard users. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, this trend appears to be global, with a steady increase in aesthetic procedures over the decade prior to 2024 and an overall increase of 40% between 2020-2024 (Triana et al. 2024).

Women’s magazines reinforce the view that women need to be young, thin, light-skinned, able-bodied, and wear many cosmetics in order to be considered beautiful.

© Thinkstock

Companies use advertising to sell to us, but the way they reach us is changing. Naomi Klein identified the destructive impact of corporate branding her 1999 text, No Logo, an anti-globalization treatise that focused on sweatshops, corporate power, and anti-consumerist social movements. In the post-millennial society, synergistic advertising practices ensure you are receiving the same message from a variety of sources and on a variety of platforms. For example, you may see billboards for Miller beer on your way to a stadium, sit down to watch a game preceded by a Miller commercial on the big screen, and watch a halftime ad in which people are shown holding up the trademark bottles. Chances are you can guess which brand of beer is for sale at the concession stand.

Advertising has changed, as technology and media have allowed consumers to bypass traditional advertising venues. From the invention of the remote control, which allows us to skip television advertising without leaving our seats, to recording devices that let us watch programs but skip the ads, conventional television advertising is on the wane. And print media is no different. Advertising revenue in newspapers and on television has fallen significantly, which shows that companies need new ways of getting their messages to consumers.

Brand ambassadorships today can be powerful tools for advertisers. For example, companies hire college students to be their on-campus representatives, and they may target for students engaged in high-profile activities like sports, fraternities, and music. (This practice is slightly different from sponsorships, and note that some students, particularly athletes, need to follow strict guidelines about accepting money or products.) The marketing team is betting that if we buy perfume because Beyoncé tells us to, we’ll also choose our workout gear, clothing, or make-up brand if an ambassador encourages that choice. Tens of thousands of brand ambassadors or brand evangelists work on college campuses, and such marketing approaches are seen as highly effective investments for companies. The numbers make it clear: Ambassador-referred customers provide 16% higher value to companies than other customers, and over 90% of people indicate that people trust referrals from people they know (On-Campus Advertising 2017).

Social media has made such influencer and ambassador marketing a near constant. Some formal ambassadors are sponsored by companies to show or use their products. In some cases, compensation arrives only in the form of the free products and whatever monetization the ambassador receives from the site, such as YouTube. Influencers are usually less formally engaged with companies than are ambassadors, relying mostly on site revenue to reward their efforts. Some influencers may overstate their popularity in order to get free products or services. For example, luxury hotels report that they are barraged by influencers (some with very few followers, and therefore questionable influence) who expect free stays in exchange for creating posts promoting the location (Locker 2019). Nevertheless, influences and brand ambassadors who have much influence are shaping many of our lives with the products we buy and how we feel about ourselves in response to their social media posts and ads. 

    

Media Violence

A glance through popular video game and movie titles geared toward children and teens shows the vast spectrum of violence that is displayed, condoned, and acted out. As a way to guide parents in their programming choices, the motion picture industry put a rating system in place in the 1960s. But new media – video games in particular –proved to be uncharted territory. In 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ERSB) set a ratings system for games that addressed issues of violence, sexuality, drug use, and the like. California took it a step further by making it illegal to sell video games to underage buyers. The case led to a heated debate about personal freedoms and child protection, and in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled against the California law, stating it violated freedom of speech (ProCon 2012).

Children’s in-person play has often involved games of aggression – think cops and robbers or fake sword fights. Many articles report on the controversy surrounding the suggested link between violent video games and violent behavior. Is the link real? Psychologists Anderson and Bushman (2001) reviewed forty-plus years of research on the subject and determined that there are causal links between violent video game use and aggression. They found that children who had just played a violent video game demonstrated an immediate increase in hostile or aggressive thoughts, an increase in aggressive emotions, and physiological effects that increased the chances of acting out aggressive behavior (Anderson 2003). In another meta-study (a study on existing studies), other researchers found that violent video games do increase aggression and related variables and that they decrease prosocial outcomes (Greitemeyer & Mügge 2014).

The American Psychological Association and other researchers have also found an increase in aggressive tendencies based on video game play, though other studies indicated less evidence that violent video games cause either physical violence or criminal behavior. Researchers have found correlations between those behaviors, indicating that violent people may be more likely to play violent video games, but that does not necessarily mean that video games cause violence. Nevertheless, violence itself is present within many video games. 

More recent research has found a "contagious impact" of violent gaming on aggression: Playing violent video games increases aggression not only the individual themself but also among those with whom the player is connected – their gaming friends. This was a longitudinal study that captured multiple points in time, which helps identify causality. The researcher concluded, 

"In particular, participants who do not play violent video games reported to be more aggressive the more their friends play violent video games ... Importantly, the impact of the participant's amount of violent video game play was controlled for, indicating that the relationship between friends’ amount of violent video game play and the participant's aggression is not due to the friends being similar to the participants" (Greitemeyer 2019). 

One of the most popular video games, Grand Theft Auto, has frequently been at the center of debate about gratuitous violence in the gaming world.

Meddy Garnet/flickr

Debate still exists over the extent and impact of broader media socialization and violence. A meta-analysis study covering four decades of research could not establish a definitive link between viewing media violence and committing criminal violence (Savage 2003). However, other research has found links. One study demonstrated that violent media content does have a desensitizing affect (i.e., it densensitizes us to violence) and is correlated with aggressive thoughts (Krahe et al. 2011). Another study concluded that watching violent TV in childhood predicts aggressive behavior in adulthood (Huesmann et al. 2003). Another group of scholars (Gentile, Mathieson, and Crick 2011) found that among children exposure to media violence led to an increase in both physical and relational aggression. Yet other researchers found that exposure to media violence among adolescents leads to cyberbullying, bullying that occurs electronically (Fanti, Demetriou, & Hawa 2012). 

  

Fragmentation and Worldviews

Despite the variety of media at hand, the mainstream news and entertainment homogenized, meaning that they became uniform. Research by McManus (1995) suggests that the major news outlets often told the same stories and used the same sources, resulting in the same message, presented with only slight variations. Thus, the coverage of national events like a major court case or political issue was likely near identical. However, the opposite process appears to be occurring today, which is increasing political divides in the US. 

With so many news media choices, people increasingly customize their news experience, minimizing their opportunity to encounter information that does not jive with their worldview (Prior 2005). For instance, those who are staunchly Republican can avoid centrist or liberal-leaning news outlets that may show Democrats in a favorable light. They know to seek out Fox News over MSNBC, just as Democrats know to do the opposite. Thus, our news experience has fragmented, separating off from each other. Further, people who want to avoid politics completely can choose to view media that deal only with entertainment or that will keep them up to date on sports scores, which is a far departure from the few cable channels that provided nightly news in the past. They now have an easy way to avoid information that they do not wish to hear. 

The fragmentation of the news has led to an increased amount of digital tribalism. Tribalism in this sense is the state or tendency to gather and reinforce ideas belonging to a group, and to do so out of a sense of strong loyalty. Digital tribalism is the tendency to do so online, and also to forge new tribes purely based on online personas or ideologies. Instead of basing these groups on the classic bonds of, say, ethnic culture or religious ideologies, they are based on politics, emotions, lifestyles, or even brands (Taute & Sierra 2014). 

In addition to news media, television and other mediums can influence our how we view the world. For instance, Communications Professor George Gerbner (1994) developed cultivation theory, which claims that the types of TV we watch accumulate within us and impact our worldview. In other words, if we only watch crime, detective, and forensic shows we would have the additive effect of these shows on our perception of how the world really is. The types of TV we watch passively yet persistently shape our worldview. In fact, the mean world syndrome is the tendency to view society as being meaner and more violent than it really is because of violent and harsh media watched over the years. Gerbner would claim that that a person preoccupied with watching 'reality TV' or soap operas would have a world focus that overemphasized melodramatic themes. The same could be said of anyone who watches mostly other genres such as police shows or high school dramas. 

Other research has demonstrated the concept of digital tribalism. In a report for a special interest group, Hawkins and colleagues (2018) argued that "the findings of a large-scale national survey of Americans about the current state of civic life in the United States ... provides substantial evidence of deep polarization and growing tribalism. It shows that this polarization is rooted in something deeper than political opinions and disagreements over policy" (2018: 5). They identify several segments of society, listed from 'left' to 'right' political ideology:

• Progressive Activists: younger, highly engaged, secular, cosmopolitan, angry
• Traditional Liberals: older, retired, open to compromise, rational, cautious
• Passive Liberals: unhappy, insecure, distrustful, disillusioned
• Politically Disengaged: young, low income, distrustful, detached, patriotic, conspiratorial
• Moderates: engaged, civic-minded, middle-of-the-road, pessimistic, Protestant
• Traditional Conservatives: religious, middle class, patriotic, moralistic
• Devoted Conservatives: white, retired, highly engaged, uncompromising, patriotic (p. 7). 

Hawkins and colleagues found that 'tribe' membership is reliable in predicting differing views across various political topics such as immigration, sexual harassment, feminism, and police brutality. The proportion of survey respondents falling into each of these segments is represented in the image below, presented in the report. 

 

This image illustrates various segments of society identified from a large-scale survey on national civic life. Can you identify people in your own life that fit into these categories? 

Source: Hawkins et al. 2018

Digital 'tribes' can lead people to a greater sense of belonging as individuals interacting with media locate and bond with others of similar experiences, values, and belief systems, but they can also fuel division in society. The researchers of the study above found that the majority of survey respondents selected, "The people I agree with politically need to be willing to listen to others and compromise" over "People I agree with politically need to stick to their beliefs and fight," particularly for those in the middle of the list above who are "more ideologically flexible" (Hawkins et al. 2018: 12). This ideal of compromise may seem hopeful, though ideals are often not realized in practice. 

  

Media Globalization

Lyons (2005) suggests that multinational corporations are the primary vehicle of media globalization, and these corporations control global mass-media content and distribution (Compaine 2005). Globalization is the increasing political, economic, and social interconnectedness of the world. It is true, when looking at who controls which media outlets, that there are fewer independent news sources as larger and larger conglomerates develop. In the early 2000s, there were about 1,500 newspapers, 6,000 magazines, and a whopping 10,000 radio outlets (Bagdikian 2004). By the end of the 2010s, the number of book publishers and radio outlets generally remained static and the number of magazines increased, but there had been a dramatic reduction in newspapers with only 1,000 newspapers remaining (BBC 2019).

On the surface, there is endless opportunity to find diverse media outlets. But the numbers are misleading. Media consolidation is a process in which fewer and fewer owners control the majority of media outlets. This creates an oligopoly in which a few firms dominate the media marketplace. In 1983, a mere 50 corporations owned the bulk of mass-media outlets. Even more recently, just five companies controlled 90% of media outlets (McChesney 1999). In 2023, the world's largest media companies included (in order of assets): Comcast Corporation, Walt Disney Company, Charter Communications, and Warner Bros. Discovery (Dellatto 2023). What impact does this consolidation have on the type of information to which the U.S. public is exposed? Does media consolidation deprive the public of multiple viewpoints and limit its discourse to the information and opinions shared by a few sources? Why does it matter?

Oligopolies (and monopolies, where only one firm controls the market) matter because less competition typically means consumers are less well served since dissenting opinions or diverse viewpoints are less likely to be found. Media consolidation may result in the following dysfunctions: First, consolidated media owes more to its stockholders than to the public. Publicly-traded Fortune 500 companies pay more attention to their profitability and to government regulators than to the public's right to knowledge. The few companies that control most of the media, because they are owned by the power elite, represent the political and social interests of only a small minority. In an oligopoly there are fewer incentives to innovate, improve services, or decrease prices. While some social scientists predicted that the increase in media forms would create a global village (McLuhan 1964), current research suggests that the public sphere accessing the global village will tend to be rich, white, and English-speaking (Jan 2009). 

Similarly, someone using a conflict theorist approach might focus on technological growth. In theory, technological innovations are ideology-free; a fiber optic cable is the same in a Muslim country as a secular one, a communist country or a capitalist one. But those who bring technology to less-developed nations usually have an agenda, whether they are nongovernment organizations, businesses, or governments. With this reality and the control that the power elite and other powerful figures have over media, globalized media carries the risk of cultural imperialism, the loss of local culture as the dominant culture imposes their own values, ideologies, traditions, and styles on less powerful cultures. 

Other problems come with the benefits of a more interconnected globe. One risk is the potential for censoring by national governments that let in only the information and media they feel serve their message, as is occurring in China. In addition, core nations such as the US risk the use of international media by criminals to circumvent local laws against socially deviant and dangerous behaviors such as gambling, child pornography, and the sex trade. Offshore or international websites allow US citizens (and others) to seek out whatever illegal or illicit information they want, from 24-hour online gambling sites that do not require proof of age to sites that sell child pornography. These examples illustrate the societal risks of unfettered global information flow.

The media is perhaps one of the most underestimated of the social institutions. At the personal level, people think of it in terms of convenience and entertainment rather than political influence, power, and control. The media is mostly controlled by wealthy people and at the national and world level is tightly controlled in terms of political ideologies of those who decide what we get to watch, hear, and read. The owners and managers seek profits while promoting their own political agenda, selecting and shaping advertisement, and for providing exposure to political and special interests groups they favor.

  

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This page incorporates the pages 8.2: Technology Today, 8.3: Media and Technology in Society, and 8.4: Global Implications of Media and Technology from the OER textbook Introductory Sociology 3e (OpenStax), shared under a CC BY 4.0 license.