Media conglomerate
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A media conglomerate describes companies that own large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet. A conglomerate is a large company that consists of divisions of seemingly unrelated businesses. It is questionable whether media companies are unrelated, in 2004. Therefore the term media group may also be applied.
Some of the largest media conglomerates include:
- AT&T
- Berlusconi Group
- Bertelsmann AG
- Canwest Global
- General Electric
- Hearst Corporation
- Lagardère Media
- Liberty Media
- News Corporation
- Sony
- Time Warner
- The Times Group
- Viacom
- Vivendi Universal
- Walt Disney Company
Critics have accused the larger conglomerates of dominating media, especially news, and refusing to publicize or deem "newsworthy" information that would be harmful to their other interests, and of contributing to the merging of entertainment and news at the expense of tough coverage of serious issues. They are also accused of being a leading force for the standardization of culture (see globalization, Americanization), and they are a favorite whipping boy of left-wing groups (for example, in the United States, anti-corporate activist Ralph Nader routinely vilifies them).
In response, the companies and their supporters state that they maintain a strict separation between the business end and the production end of news departments, and note that consumers enjoy their products. They also argue that in a world where there are so many outlets for information, it would be impossible for one company or group of companies to dominate media.