Controlling the Delivery of Information: Cross-Media Ownership

Media Hegemonies

One of the major media companies in Canada is CanWest Global Communications. It is one of Canada’s largest international media companies. CanWest currently owns twelve major newspaper companies, three publishing groups, thirteen television channels, and three other individual companies. In addition, CanWest owns the nation’s capital’s largest newspaper, as well as one of the larger television networks, Global Television, which reaches 94% of English-speaking Canadians. With such a hold on these media companies, the relation of news through these networks is regulated by CanWest, and in effect, the stories and views become very uniform.

Cross-media ownership – where a single company owns companies in multiple media forms – reduces the amount of diverse editorial voices in the same market. As a result, one entity can effectively control the delivery of programming throughout that market. When cross-media ownership is present, there is a decrease in independent voices and views in that form of media. Companies are able to force their views upon us from multiple angles. If the same company owns multiple radio channels, television channels, and newspapers, the news we get will be standardized. Only one side is heard because the information is all coming from the same source.

Some restrictions have been made on what companies can own, such as how many different sources can be owned by a single company within one market. These types of restrictions on markets can ensure that the flow of information is unbiased and is coming from multiple sources, rather than a single one. However, as long as there is cross-media ownership, there will still be flaws in the flow of information in different forms of media.