The thesis discusses the integration of news media in the political economy and the effects of concentration of media ownership within the news media. The main focus is placed upon the situation in The United States of America.
Trends in the media industry in the last two decades are globalization, digitalization, networking and deregulation. Nowadays, the media are very profit driven, there is a lot of concentration of media ownership and the key players on the market are big media conglomerates, which own companies all across the various media sectors.
Even the development of the internet in the 1990’s has not brought significant changes to the media industry. There have not been many new, diverse voices since the internet has gained prominence. Bigger and wider distribution of communication power did not materialize, because the most visited news websites on the internet are those that belong to traditional media owned by huge media conglomerates.
The Internet has taken over a significant share of audiences from the more traditional media such as radio and newspapers and it is also increasingly relevant in connection with the American elections. Not only that the following is increasing with every single election. Politicians are aware that the internet is very important. They have the chance to persuade smaller, specific groups of voters.
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