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Democracy Dialogues: Media Consolidation: A Threat to Democracy?

University of Pennsylvania Law School

C. Edwin Baker Date: Wednesday, 13 June 2007 Time: 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) View Webchat Transcript

As early as 1947, a major study predicted that media consolidation would be one of three factors to threaten freedom of the press in the United States. Today that threat has intensified with only 14 cities operating competing, separately-owned daily newspapers in 2002 compared to 180 in 1940. Nor is this an exclusively American problem. According to Media Channel, six global corporations currently dominate world media, dabbling in publishing, television broadcasting, radio and mass entertainment.

While on the surface fewer privately owned newspapers might not seem to pose a threat to press freedom and democracy at large, critics warn that fewer media outlets means fewer voices heard and fewer opinions expressed. Critics also allege that consolidation translates into more emphasis being placed on profits than on content, something that ultimately does the public a disservice. Join Professor Ed Baker for a web chat on how media consolidation affects the public’s right to know, and its implications for democracy as a whole.

Guest Biography:

Ed Baker is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the First Amendment and on mass media policy. His book, Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech, (Oxford 1989), defends interpreting First Amendment freedom of speech as concerned primarily with individual freedom and autonomy rather than the more traditional understanding of it being about a marketplace of ideas. During the 1990's, Baker turned his scholarly attention largely to media policy.

His book, Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters (Cambridge 2006), evaluates economic and democratic reason to oppose media concentration. Although continuing to write about both free speech and media policy, Baker's current scholarship focuses more on jurisprudential questions concerning the egalitarian and libertarian bases of constitutional theory.