Who Owns the Media?

In our world today, I believe that the wealthy and the big companies are the ones who really own the media. This is because, in our world today, where money is extremely critical, it can buy just about everything. Not only can these influential people and colossal companies “bend” the truth, but they can also adjust the media to be suitable for them, and present their perspective. On the other hand, the audiences, who have total control of their ‘media’ usage, are vital, as they come from various different backgrounds and are unaware of the amount of media they consume.

There are a countless number of examples of large companies and influential/wealthy individuals who tend to ‘own’ the media. A great example is AOL/Time Warner, an extremely large, prominent, and prosperous company. This prodigious company owns various different forms of media. Receiving total revenue of $32.6 billion, AOL/Time Warner indeed own quite a bit of media, including various different companies such as HBO, Warner Bros, etc.

Moreover, A great way to visualize what big companies such as AOL/Time Warner is with the allegorical example of this is from Plato’s philosophy and his example of the Cave from The Republic. He points out that the prisoners in the cave try and understanding objects according to its shadow, is extremely important that the prisoners in the cave only get to understand objects according to its shadow, rather than spotting the actual thing, and knowing that the truth isn’t what it seems to be. As we can see here, the prisoners only manage to grasp every object with its shadow reflected from a fire (which the prisoners aren’t aware of). The prisoners are convinced that the shadow is the reality, and aren’t aware that there is an actual, physical representation of it. When, one of the prisoners attempt to change, and tries to go against what he sees, and seeks the reality, all the other prisoners criticize him and threaten him. It is extremely easy to put this allegory into what media has done to us in today’s world, where the shadow, would represent the media we encounter; the fire representing the big companies and lucrative individuals; and finally, the prisoners, representing the audience.

In conclusion, it is evident that media is all around us, and is utilized greatly. In every day life, without even noticing it, we tend to use media, as it is available to us in various different forms. However, not many are aware of the fact that all media are owned, are constructions, and are tampered in such away that is mostly beneficial to the rich. We can clearly see that with the example of AOL/Time Warner, which is a large company, owning media in various different forms. With the help of media, every year they get a revenue around $32.6 billion. It is very important, that we, the audience should be alerted about this. Finally, one can conclude saying that media is owned by the affluent.