RedHashing.emf
Ownership
Week 7
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Concentration
•It is important because it allows us to consider
•Democratic distribution of communication power
•Democratic safeguards against abuses of economic, political, and cultural power
•Open up paths for creative contributions
•Power (to influence policy, the market; within and between firms); Institutional investors
•Mode of ownership matters
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Corporations Matter
•Policy and regulation
•Quality of products
•Labour conditions
•Mutual reinforcement of power (interlocking boards)
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History
•1985-2000: Rise of the mega-corporation
•Acquisitions, mergers (profits for investors through conglomeration)
•Speculation around Telecom, Cultural Industries and IT
•Enron
•2000 onwards: IT mega-corporations
•GAFAM (“running the internet”)
•Continued corporate influence
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Conglomeration
Synergy to Convergence
•Synergy; mergers & acquisitions (outcomes ??); volatile and risky
•Contemporary Concerns: Lobbying/Content & Cross-Promotion
•Vertical Integration (undulations in response to new tech, policy, new business fashion, yet still
a significant factor in the market and media power of the major cultural industries)
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Interacting Mega-Corporations in 4 Sectors
•Enter IT after 2000 (Digital Disruptions);Crisis of financialization (disintegration)
•Cultural Industries, IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics
•First Tier (Global), Second Tier (Regional, National)
•Small companies and innovation
•Proto-markets and independence (spaces of innovation) vs. centralizing tendencies of cultural
industries
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Networks, interdependence, alliances
•Complex subcontracting/networks of interdependence
•Low Risk; High Return vs. creative autonomy/independence
•Intercorporate alliances/joint-ventures
•Share risks, power, rewards
•Co-opetition
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History
2010
•Telecom Mega-mergers
•Greater equality of access is less important than maximizing investment opportunities for
business/consumer convenience
•Mobile Telephony in the US (AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile): providing “service”
•Net Neutrality
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Cultural Industries: Growth?
•A matter of definition/politics
•Becoming more important as part of national economies; not the center of global business
•Market Capitalization (real value)
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Expansion of Commodification
•Ambivalent process (access)(labor)
•Fueled by discourses; corporate “pull”
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