The media plays a crucial role in a democratic society. The public must be informed of issues relevant to society. The public must be knowledgable of all the possible alternatives before making an effecient decision or supporting proper legislation. The media should provide the public with this information. There is no other institution or group capable of carrying out this function.
A society lacking an objective media system will also lack democracy. There are many examples of societies such as this. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union come to mind. The media systems of those nations served the government and the status quo. The public was misinformed and in turn, was incapable of participating in any significant form of democracy.
Is the American public in danger of losing it's democratic potential because of the concentration of media ownership in America? Many people argue that when fewer and fewer people control the flow of information to the public, the potential for a conflict of interest increases dramatically. The concentration of media ownership allows at great convenience the influence of the media by corporate interests.
This is a troubling scenario. The media in the Soviet Union was tightly controlled by the government. Inevitably, the media distorted reality. The information line to the public was first channelled through a filter which removed any information that was harmful to the government's image. The public's perspective was shaped to accept the status quo.
American media has a legacy of advocating watchdog journalism. Journalist's scrutinize the government and inform the public of any wrong doing. Essentially, journalism is thought to be an objective set of eyes, guarding the public from a tyranical government.
But what happens when a very large portion of the media is owned by a few corporations? After all, CEO's are amongst the elites of our society. Could the media be used as a tool to distort reality and shape the publics perspective? It has happened numerous times throughout history in other nations.
Noam Chomsky, the head of the linguistics and philosophy department at Massachusetts Institution of Technology, is one of the most prominent critics of the U.S. media. Edward Herman and Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent. The book refers to different world events in the 20th century, such as the Vietnam War and America's involvement in Latin-America. They use statistical and empirical evidence to support their argument that the U.S. media failed to convey fair and balanced information to the American public. The public was incapable of making a sound decision on government policy. The public was denied the right to voice their opinions about supplying American guns, ammunition and bombs to dictators in El Salvador and Guatemala. Without a critical public, U.S. weapons manufacturers could keep selling guns and ammunition to dictators accused of human rights abuses.
Other folks argue that media consolidation is not a problem. According to the text book, Issues In Media, media executives argue that consolidations allows massive corporations to stay competitive and create more media outlets. They argue that there is still many different voices and opinions in the media and that massive media conglomerates promote a diversity of material. They point to the explosion of technological advances in the past decades. The internet allows citizen journalists to express diverse viewpoints to a huge audience.
Today, media consolidation has reached an unprecedented peak. The textbook, Mass Communication by Ralph E. Hanson cites Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Ben Bagdikian's assessment of media consolidation. Bagdikian wrote that in the 1983, the media was dominated by 50 corporations. In 1987, there were only 29. By 2004, the number of corporations dominating the media shrunk to five.
I see this as a direct threat to American democracy. Of course America is not a direct democracy. It is a representative demacracy with elected officials making legislative decisions. But an uninformed public lacks the knowledge to elect officials that will benefit society. An uninformed public leads to an undemocratic society.
Are we headed down this road?
Dylan
An article about Walter Cronkite was recently published in The Nation, in which the "the most trusted name in news" talked about his views on the consolidation of media and the future of the news industry. He mentioned that "the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy." In others, consolidation of media is a threat to a democracy. 
