1. American Media

2. Major characteristics of American media
Concentration of ownership
6 largest media conglomerates own approx. 90% of media outlets
Comcast
Disney
21 Century Fox
Time Warner
CBS
Viacom
In comparison: in % of the media outles were owned by approx. 50 different companies
Convergence and cross ownership
Deregulation (recent mergers, history of FCC regulation)
USA continues to drop in the Press Freedom Index (currently around 41st – 48th place out of 180 ranked countries)
(btw Poland – 48th in 2016, 18th in 2015)

3. Media Bias vs. Culture Wars
All sides of the political spectrum report media bias favoring the opposite sides
Race
Welfare reform
Environmental protection
Gun control
Liberal bias
44% of Americans see the media as ’too liberal’ accordig to recent polls
Which outlets?
Conservative bias
Which outlets
War on christmas

4. Press The numer of daily newspapers declines steadily
The traditional model: ’two newspaper towns. Now most weaker newspapers have folded
Largest titles by circulation:
USA Today (’McPaper’)
The Wall Street Journal
The New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Reasons for the decline (slower than the media themselves often report)
Circulation declines as readers choose other media. With circulation falling the advertisment content rises and quality lowers.
Staff cuts – hence quality changes, particularly if staff moves to other media as well - (think Huffington Post - in 2012, HP became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.)
Investigative journalism and muckraking that sold a lot of newspapers moved to other media – not only the Internet, but also TV. Newspapers organizations now often edit separate

5. TV The Big Three The fourth network PBS Delivery
National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
the American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
The fourth network
Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX)
PBS
Delivery
National over-the-air networks / Affiliates
Free-to-air satellite television
Direct-broadcast satellite television
Cable
Premium Cable
Pressure from VOD and IPTV
Netflix
Amazon Video
Hulu (a joint venture VOD service)
Time shifting
Bias accusations

6. ’Alternative media’
The medium of choice: online blogging, Youtube, but also radio
Yet – ’alternative media’ logic has a lot of screen time in conservative and liberal media alike
Participatory journalism
Controversies
The subaltern – true and false
Think what labelling as alternative does
Democracy Now! And Infowars.com both classified as alternative media?

7. Radio National Public Radio Conservative talk radio
Broadcast by commercial radio, often nationally syndicated
A national phenomenon. Conservative talk radio do extremely well in the national listeners rankings.
Rush Limbaud
Sean Hannity
Glenn Beck
Alex Jones
Michael Savage
Mark Levin
Progressive talk radio
Reaction to conservative talk radio