William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

Political media today 237

politics.^12 And many websites, some run by ordinary citizens, provide their own

insights and information about American politics. Finally, Facebook, Twitter, and

other social media sites provide users with links to coverage written by others; people

also use these sites to report and comment on political events themselves.

These changes have dramatically increased the amount of information about

politics that is available to the average American. Imagine yourself in the late 1940s.

Suppose you wanted to learn about President Truman’s State of the Union address.

If you couldn’t go to Washington to hear it in person, where could you have gotten

information about the speech? If you lived in a big city, the speech would probably

be covered in the next day’s newspaper. If you lived in a small town, your local paper

might or might not run the story. If it didn’t, you would need a subscription to either a

big-city paper (which would arrive a week after the fact) or a weekly or monthly news

magazine, or you would need to have access to a radio that could pick up a station

broadcasting the speech.

Now consider the modern era, in which major political events saturate the media

and a virtually unlimited amount of information is available on the Internet. Suppose

you want to know about President Trump’s State of the Union. You can tune in to one of

the four major television networks, numerous cable news channels, public television

stations, or radio stations. Most television stations will feature pundits’ commentaries

on the speech and will interview prominent politicians and commentators. Jimmy

Fallon and other late-night hosts will probably make jokes about Trump on television,

NUTS

& B O LT S

7.1

Fox Television Stations Film Companies Books and Magazines

32 U.S. stations 21st Century Fox

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Television Studios

Blue Sky Studios

11 other film companies

45 book publishers (including HarperCollins)

worldwide

3 magazines

Satellite and Cable Holdings Newspapers Other Holdings

Fox News Channel

Fox Sports

More than 60 other cable channels in

and outside the United States

6 satellite television channels

New York Post

Wall Street Journal

Barron’s

4 UK newspapers

19 Australian newspapers

30 local U.S. newspapers

Over 50 news and entertainment websites

Many other businesses

Holdings of News Corp/21st Century Fox

News Corp/21st Century Fox* is an example of a media conglomerate, a company that controls a

variety of media outlets throughout the world. It owns cable television networks, television and

radio stations, newspapers, movie-production companies, magazines, and even sports teams.

This structure allows the company to rebroadcast or reprint stories in different outlets and thus

operate more efficiently, but opponents are concerned that conglomerates might expand to control

most—or even all—of the sources that are available to the average citizen, making it impossible to

access alternate points of view.

*These two companies were created in 2013 by dividing the operations of the News Corporation. However, the founder of the News Corporation,

Rupert Murdoch, is the chairman and CEO of 21st Century Fox and the executive chairman of News Corp, and his family trust still holds a controlling

interest in both corporations.

67%

of American adults report they get

at least some of their news from

social media.

Source: Pew Research Center

DID YOU KNOW?

Newspaper circulation

per capita has declined

66%

since 1970.

Source: Pew Research Center

DID YOU KNOW?

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