Media Ownership: Crash Course Media Literacy #8
We’ve talked about how broad a concept “the media” really is - and given that, it can be hard to keep track of all the different forces that constitute “the media.” It can be tough, but it’s not impossible. Today we’re talking about how all those big players fit together and why all those mergers and acquisitions matter to being a media literate citizen.
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Resources:
NEW ERA FOR THE TELEPHONE: OWNERSHIP REPLACING RENTAL www.nytimes.com/1982/12/16/bu...
AT&T BREAKUP II : Highlights in the History of a Telecommunications Giant articles.latimes.com/1995-09-2...
BELL SYSTEM BREAKUP OPENS ERA OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND GREAT CONCERN www.nytimes.com/1984/01/01/us...
The Federal Communications Commission and the Bell System: Abdication of Regulatory Responsibility www.repository.law.indiana.ed...
The Knight Foundation: How Youth Navigate the News Landscape knightfoundation.org/reports/...
Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks www.pnas.org/content/111/24/87...
Facebook and Twitter are being used to manipulate public opinion www.theguardian.com/technolog...
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I'm 30 years old and have been wanting to learn about media literacy for a long time. Now I can learn in 12 minutes a week! Even with my busy schedule, I can handle that. I can't believe such a crucial subject wasn't given any priority in the public education system I was a part of. Thank you Crash Course for all you're doing to make important subjects like this so accessible.
Cora Lee Yes me too. I've really wanted to become more savvy in my media consumption.
This is fantastic
You guys realize you literally could have learned this at any point in your life.
I've been saying for years that journalism should be required curriculum in public schools. Media literacy is a better term though. It's a little bit of mass communication, debate, journalism, psychology, history and probably more. Democracy requires informed citizens.
Love this course - you're so charismatic, funny at times "... ruin it with completely the wrong casting oh my god why" and then time all your seriousness perfectly for engaging, informative, easily understandable and poignant performance. Really appreciate this delivery considering your subject, it really reflects the importance, complexity and yet kind of fun of media literacy - not to mention the information itself, and how great it is that Crash Course has introduced this! Wonderful work :)
This is such an intriguing topic. I was just talking about this very thing with my friend earlier this week
You sound like a sped up Bill Cosby. If you don't believe me, play it at 75% speed. It's amazing.
Endyo nice catch. Your absolutely right he does sound like Cosby. Even if he doesn't want to admit it.
Nice
I feel like this works more when he's at 50%. :P
lol yup the 50% is the ne that sounds like cosby
holy cow you're right.
This is just so good. Well presented and informative. I'm so glad I found this. Thank you.
Times are a changing - back in the day I worked at cable company as face to face customer service. People would come in and pay their bills and communicate loudly about the lack of quality programming with their 100 channel packages. I would listen patiently and the argument closer for me was, “I understand your frustration. We here at the cable company only deliver the content. We don’t produce the content.” After watching this that argument no longer applies. Hehehehe
beautiful,beautiful,so you through this video confirm people like options but they dont care weather one or multiple persons gives that option.Only healthy competition has to be hold strong as the personal moral giving constant upgrades to the society at large.I like your team.
Keep it up. Love your courses.
Love this series! Just one quick note: Amazon doesn’t own the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos does. He is also the CEO of Amazon, but he owns the Post personally. This definitely has potential effects on how both Amazon and the Post operate, but it’s not quite the same as Amazon directly owning the newspaper.
Blessed for this series
Huge thank you for this course!!
Excellent video. Great mix of info and humor.
Yes, he talked about Bell too Thank you sir
Well done. Nice video as always!
These are great! Keep it up!
Monopolies exist in the US and I don't see anybody regulating it. I lived in NYC for a while and the main internet provider was Timer Warner, recently Optimum online was creating a bit of competition. I now live in Pennsylvania and Comcast is the only internet provider.
This is not an accurate description of net neutrality. Internet companies can already charge you a higher price for faster Internet. That by itself isn't terribly concerning: you pay more for better service, just like with lots of other stuff. What they can't do (or, in the US, couldn't do until recently) is charge you a higher price for specific content, or conversely slow down specific content if you don't pay them. That's why it's net neutrality: the idea is that the infrastructure of the internet should be content neutral. Among other things, this prevents Comcast from setting up their own video service (they already have Hulu, like the video points out) and forcing people to use it instead of KZhead or Netflix if they want to watch videos in a reasonable amount of time. This also prevents Comcast from censoring the Internet by blocking criticism of themselves, or by blocking services like BitTorrent which Comcast as a media company disapproves of.
Brian B. He said that he explained it like u did
Andres Correa The graphic was a bit misleading. There should have been company specific cars in fast and medium lanes, and everyone else in the slow lane.
Thanks for saying that. The fast lane/slow lane part only seems bad if there is no competition. If there is competition then that should increase speeds overall even if there are tiers.
I thought that the USA ditched net neutrality. If it's so good, how come?
@@MusicalRaichu Because our current president serves corporate interests and not the public's interests.
That was awesome
Informative!
Media's really scary and kinda terrible but you make it a little less scary and terrible.
Answering machines have been around since the 70's. The cold open for The Rockford Files was always a message on his answering machine.
I was hoping you would go into more depth about public interest and choice theories and talk about state and government funded media since there were new guidelines set out for KZhead recently. I feel internet neutrality kind of deserves its own episode to be covered in greater detail because the arguments are more about possible censorship concerns over monopoly price.
This is a awesome video I just found from 4 years ago! Is there an update?
The door was buoyant enough for two people
So interesting.
Educational!
Great episode, it really gave me a lot more understanding about the corporations fighting against net neutrality. However, I really wish this episode was a little bit less USA-concentrated, a few examples from other countries would be nice. Also, I wish you mentioned what countries don't have net neutrality, it kinda puts it into perspective. But I totally understand the topic is already hard to fit in 12 minutes.
This is my favorite show on crash course
when he did the joke about casting he was thinking about Johnny Depp as Grindelwald and you c a n n o t convince me otherwise
CC, can you bring back crash course astronomy?
More important than knowing who owns "the media" is to know the people that run them, and who are they friends with...
Crash Course this may be the most important content to the modern age that you have released up to this point.
i'm surprised no mention yet of the term "the fourth estate"...
The internet should be a public good, like water.
Ya
How about the whole crashcourse ecosystem? How is it structured? (Im just curious)
BEST. THOUGHT. BUBBLE. EVER.
too good too short
Woooooo! Let’s go Comcast Corporation Flyers!!!
Interesting to see where crash course truly lies on this particular issue because here we are late 2019 net neutrality has been gone for a year now and my internet speeds are just as fast if not faster than they were under net neutrality
As a patron of Crash Course it annoys me that - for this course in particular - it is soooo USA cetric. Your consumers are global. And a global perspective is needed! The world is not the USA - even if Trump wishes it so.
My point is that this is a global platform for a global audience and Crash Course should be delivering a global perspective.
Guess where the vast majority of Crash courses audience lives?
Given there are 1.3 billion people in India most of whom speak English and whose middle class have access to fast broadband, likely India. But that doesn't matter. The point is Crash Course is designed to be a global offering on a global platform.
Robert Watson Crash Corse never claimed to be aimed at a global market. Most of their audience lives in America and they made this series but to the current political climate in America.
Not really. In many of their videos they make comments that make it clear that they take their global audience in consideration, not only Americans. I agree with +Robert Watson, but I think that people who aren't from the USA can relate and understand what's being said even though only examples and stories from the USA are given. That's my case, at least. I'm from Brazil and I've never visited another country, and I still have no problems understanding the videos. Of course, that's just me, I don't know about others.
Good Info For People's over The World Thanks for Upload great Content To make better world because we are in live Lie Society and Sleep walking Appreciate your team
I thought John Green is a smart guy He was my idol I wanted to become a John Green when I grow up But the guy from this course is amazing, very smart guy, respect 👍
Can someone explain what ISPs is, in an easy way?
Nice shirt.
The 96 telcom act allowed for vertical integration and complete monopolization.
"When one company dominates the means of production" Hahahahah them smooth Socialism undertones. Do a video on subconscious/subliminal targeting (even if it doesn't work).
I got a ad for us airforce talking about every hero has a origins story whatnot I first thought it was ad for superhero movies considering mentioned about every hero has a origins story it only until it said said something about us airforce do I realize it about talking about real life heroes?
Wait, I thought Disney owned Hulu. That's why you have that Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle.
Wait. Are Internet speeds in America all universal? In my country you have to pay more for faster speed.
Way to go J smooth
When they conglomerate you really get one point of view - the owner's
Do these companies own media in other countries too?
Alan Telemishev I believe so
No (maybe except for Google), in fact, I believe that significant portion of world's media market is dominated by different national state-owned companies, as about 50% of world's population currenrly lives under some form of autocracy.
these companies have a worldwide reach
Yep , Telemundo is in almost all latin america .... So yes and no ,
Newscorp is British and owns Fox "News."
They should have edited this to bring up Sinclair trying to buy Tribune
Ugh, I misplaced my corporate manifesto.
why didn't you mention maker studios mcn under Disney
Why don’t most Net Neutrality supporters care about other tech monopolies? Why should we let few multinational corporations decide what we’re allowed to say or monetize on social media? Why not treat social media monopolies as public utilities? Your power company can’t turn off the lights because they don’t agree with your politics. Twitter, Facebook, KZhead, etc. should be no different.
Because Facebook etc don't have de jure monopolies the way that ISPs do. Anyone can start a Facebook competitor, or failing that just publish their thoughts on their own private blog, and if nobody will host that blog they can run their own web server off their own computer and host it themselves, but if their ISP won't transmit their message they can't just run their own wires over to the public internet; there is no choice but to go through that ISP, so the ISP must be made non-discriminatory.
ISPs are de-facto monopolies, not de-jure. In principle, anyone can start an ISP. Yes, there are massive barriers to entry, but aspiring social media companies face similarly impossible obstacles when competing with monoliths like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Like it or not, people today spend more time on social media than they do outside. >90% of social media traffic is controlled by a handful of companies. The removal of legal content from one or all of these sites constitutes a level of censorship most repressive regimes could only dream of. In the current year, if a tech monopoly de-platforms or de-monetizes a creator, that's tantamount to being banned from town. The debate over net neutrality isn't over whether ISPs should be able to forestall the transmission of certain types of content, but concerns whether companies should be allowed to determine the _speed_ that users can access said content. When tech monopolies censor content, it's absolute, full stop, not a sliding scale. Look, I fully support net neutrality. However, if the principles underlying net neutrality are consistently applied, then NN-supporters should favor new or existing anti-trust legislation to regulate tech giants as public utilities. Social media and advertising monopolies should not be the gatekeepers of what we're allowed to see and hear.
ISPs are de jure monopolies, in most of America. Each city sells line access out to one company only. They won't let just anyone run another set of lines, for good reason, and in many states there are even laws (paid for by ISP lobbies) prohibiting the city itself from running its own lines and leasing out access to them. The only reason why there are duopolies in some places is because historically phone lines and TV cable were different services that had to have different lines, even though now it's all just internet access and you can get phone or TV over either kind too.
Some ISPs in particular cities have de-jure monopoly status, and some don't. Are you implying this point somehow negates the broader point being made? If so, what's the argument?
That the possibility of competition eliminates the need for regulation, and ISPs (in most cases in the United States) have no real possibility of competition, while particular websites like Facebook completely do (go ask MySpace or LiveJournal or Friendster how competition-proof they were), so special regulation in those cases is not necessary.
10:26 reclaim the means of production confirmed, of course comrade 😏
Well that was a huge spoiler about Titanic T_T
Who is complexly owned by?
Buttermilk Love Nugget Hank Green. It also receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Squarespace, Audible, Alphabet’s subsidiary KZhead and a bunch of people through Patreon (which Hank is either a shareholder of, or received a significant payment from when they purchased Subbable)
Sometimes I forget our lovable Hank is a real businessman
Wait! But where's John in all that? :O
Mendicant Bias on the phone while hank was doing stuff
Why not mention Hearst’s newspapers?
It is scary how ill informed my generation is....like a bunch of puppets. Stay educated guys, knowledge is POWER!
I remember when Southwestern Bell was the only game in town. If your phone broke it could take a week or more to get somebody out there to fix it. They didn't care. They didn't need to. If we lose net neutrality, just remember who you voted for.
If you're going to focus on the US, you should really do an episode on ownership consolidation in the radio stations everybody listens to. Basically one owner there, and that's kinda problematic. Certainly enough to fill a 10 minute KZhead ep
It's crazy: That mouth - That sound
I love you shirt color
I got my TV from GALLAXY and most of the phones of my family are Apple iPhones others are Samsung and ALL OF my computers are windows
Your explanation of net neutrality is terrible. It's completely consistent with net neutrality to sell higher-speed access for higher prices and lower-speed access at lower prices. What makes a network non-neutral is when the network operator gets to decide *whose content* will be prioritized (e.g. giving Hulu faster delivery to you than they give Netflix), instead of delivering whatever content the customer asks for at the same priority.
To adapt this to your roads analogy: it's like if the roads were privately owned, and the road operator set different speed limits for FedEx trucks vs UPS trucks, or gave FedEx trucks access to the HOV lanes while UPS trucks have to sit in traffic.
So it would restrict access based on money and bias, and you don't see anything wrong with this?
I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that non-neutrality is okay. I'm saying that the description given of it in this video doesn't clearly-enough show why it's bad, or even what it is. The internet has and probably always will have different amounts of speed available at different price points: Netflix needs to buy more bandwidth for all of their servers to reach all of their customer than I need to stream one show from them, naturally. That's a normal thing, and that's not what (non-)neutrality is about. Neutrality is about making sure that, if Netflix pays enough for their bandwidth, and Hulu pays enough for their bandwidth, and I pay enough for my bandwidth, Time-Warner (my ISP) doesn't get to say "sorry but Netflix and us have a special deal, so your access to Hulu will have to take a back seat to Netflix use". I'm paying for access from my ISP, Hulu and Netflix are paying for access to their ISPs, and that should be that. If it is that, then that's neutral, and good. When my ISP starts shaking down the sites I want to access for extra money, beyond what they're already paying their ISPs, then that becomes non-neutral, which is bad.
"e.g. giving Hulu faster delivery to you than they give Netflix" - Ummm...they even used this exact example in the video....
Yeah, they get around to mentioning that as a footnote, after spending much more time laying out their terrible road analogy. The "lanes" metaphor was invented by the ISPs who want to abolish net neutrality; we shouldn't be buying into their broken metaphor to try to explain what's really going on, which is nothing like that.
Iq squared is having a debate on this today.
This entire course doesn't mention Noam Chomsky, which is very disappointing considering the fact he wrote a brilliant book on the inner workings of the mass media.
Censorship shouldn't exist. Give a rating/warning and let people decide what to watch.
Media companies are amongst the richest companies in the world. Would be useful to let them use their money to spread my Outlook
so nbc has harry potter rights when ABCFamily/Freeform aired them constantly for ten years and then CBS owns CW/the WB (that’s how supergirl went to cw with all the other dc shows where it was probably developed for anyway) honestly any of those would be better to use the property for the Marauders-era teen tv show i am desperate for.... sigh i didn’t realize nbc was universal either i think i thought it was WB which is dumb bc i know their characters are at six flags or were at some point. did nbc once own nickelodeon or did they have a similar deal with viacom? because nick studios used to be universals main draw and it’s not now. (also in reading the wiki on that I found out that nickelodeon the cable channel does not have rights to most of the nickelodeon feature films like Harriet the spy, how weird is that?) now speaking of universal and cooperate ownership google the deal between disney and universal re: Marvel properties at theme parks. it’s truly bizarre. . the book DisneyWar covers the disney acquisition of ABC and then-foxfamily and is really interesting
Way too fast to understand the full picture
What do you have against spiders!?!
You completely glossed over TimeWarner.
while correct, this was a 12 minute video covering the basics, they had to cut somewhere. There is also the fact that too many examples would render the video far from evergreen.(this is my read on their creative decisions : ] )
orrin ellis, there's no way around the evergreen issue, as was said in the video.
I bet it's because they get Time Warner money.
Pablo Herrero, while still correct wouldn't the Times warner merger be better served by a video dedicated to it? I am all about awareness of big issues but, sometimes facts can be hurt by brevity.
They "may" not have been able to script good prolonged segment on the issue, while keeping their original thesis in sight. (Of course this is speculation, It is impossible to know outside of a formal statement)
Hi
Bezos owns the Post, not Amazon.
You are confusing what is a human right and what is a commodity... Among our rights is the freedom to pursue commodities through the free market. The internet, Mr. Smooth, is a commodity. My position is that Internet Service Providers should be allowed to throttle their customers’ internet speeds based on how much they charge them, PROVIDED that there is competition in that market…which there is. On your desk there you have mug. Let’s pretend that you have some good old H2O in there. Do you have a right to that water? Well you certainly have a right to go get it from nature, to capture it from the falling sky to drink it or to dip your mug into the ocean…but what about the water from the tap… THAT water and it’s quality and accessibility came at an expense to another who sought to provide it to a consumer….so if you take the tap water on the basis that it’s your human right then you’re stealing it. We have, thank God, human rights established in this country and they include the freedom to speak and worship how we wish, and then there are commodities like food, housing, clothing, …the internet... all of which took decades of investment and development to bring them to the current standards you and I enjoy every day. The government can’t prevent us from perusing these commodities but the commodities can’t be labeled as rights because once they are then everyone can claim hold to them, i.e. the air you’re breathing right now. (The distinction must be clearly drawn between the right to something, and the right to pursue something.) Imagine if people lined up outside a department store demanding the goods on the inside for free based on the belief that it was the people’s right to take them…after all if we have a right to clothing, then you have claim to it just as you claim the air you breathe. Remember that the only reason goods like clothing and literature and the internet exist is because someone created it for profit in the free market, and when competition abounds everyone benefits. So, provided that completion is protecting the consumer, then sure, the ISP’s have a right to increase or decrees internet speed based on how much they charge their customers. IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, START YOUR OWN ISP AND GIVE AWAY HIGH SPEED INTERNET FOR FREE, ALL WHILE PAYING YOUR EXPENSES, NOT TAKING GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES, AND NOT MAKING A PROFIT…BECAUSE PROFITS ARE EVIL.
Telephone service is also a "commodity" in the sense you are using the word, for that matter, so is electrical power; yet they are both regulated by public service commissions.
Arsehole
But didn't disney buy fox
Disney doesn't own Miramax anymore. They sold it in 2010.
i rent a modem!?
He totally could've fit on the door
Chewing tobacco is not about to change madonna or the other women who are not in a position to be qualified to do so
To me it feels like fb and other tech companies are more consistent with individual accountability and individual liberty than anything else which is just fine by me
Missed the most important issue; how media conglomerates ally with political parties to sell political agenda as "news".
I'm not sure that the bill is out on supporting anti-trust laws. Wouldn't a monopoly that refuses to offer competitive prices or innovate eventually be overtaken by a new actor? I just don't think we foster competition by forcing companies into non-ideal groups.
Like even if a good can't be innovated upon and the particular monopoly requires huge investment, any huge investor in another sector could overtake them at less cost, so it's bound to happen eventually. Consumers aren't required to put up with monopolies even on goods they need; they're capable of starting services in the same field with enough support.
"the means of production" ☭
I felt like some of this was biased toward the free market, neglecting to really mention the benifits and focusing more on the draw backs. Thats why i gave this video a thumbs down and i hope that doesnt become a reoccuring pattern as general i feel the show to be rather fair!
U tube has free movies..
DAMN YOU VIACOM, YOU’VE RUINED NICKELODEON!!!!
Yay capitalism! 😃💵
8 minutes in
CBS own 120 radio stations. FALSE! Entercom now owns all the former CBS radio stations. I work for them.
"I guarantee that this ownership web is already obsolete as new deals have gone through."
This video is disturbingly inaccurate on so many points. I used to think Crash Course wasn't politicized but clearly I was wrong.
It's easy to criticise and say "This video is disturbingly inaccurate on so many points. I used to think Crash Course wasn't politicised but clearly I was wrong." , but a lot harder explaining the "many points" you claim are disturbingly inaccurate. Sorry but your statement holds no weight if you can't back it up with facts.
T-series
They need to make eveyone that is being bad just disappear. That way people aill have to be good.
He kinda sounds slightly like President Obama😄
this stresses me out. 1984 is coming true
What do you mean? Can you explain? It would help me out on my test :)
at least google pays me for my data. i got 1.30!!!11
That is the worst explanation of net neutrality I've ever seen. Net neutrality has nothing to do with consumer internet speeds. It has to do with content discretion. Net neutrality means that you get the speeds you pay for, regardless of what you're using it for. Without net neutrality, Comcast can speed up Hulu for its internet customers, which Comcast owns, while slowing down Netflix, which they compete with. With the roads analogy, it's more like UPS made a deal with Amazon to make every package from Barnes and Noble sit in a truck for an extra week before delivery.
icedragon769 Did y'all watch the same video I did, because that's exactly the same point he made.
He literally said in the video that without net neutrality, a company like Comcast could slow down competitors to Hulu like Netflix. His explanation was fine, you would do well to pay better attention.
There was no "before net neutrality" for the internet. There were some new rules about it that were written during the Obama administration because the Bush FCC weakened the rules, but net neutrality has been the rule since the internet began.
Christ, I *wish* late night comedians were telling people this! So many people wrongly think Obama invented it and they wonder (like you) why we even needed this rule when ISP's were all voluntarily acting as if the rule existed, anyway. Regardless, why would telecom companies have spent tens of millions of dollars fighting to end a rule that you think they never intend to violate?
@@markperniciaro5489 That was not what he said in the video. In the video he said that net neutrality is when you have to pay more for higher speed internet. The video discusses "the internet" being provided in a slow lane, not "particular internet hosts" being forced into it. Consumer prices don't change in a world without net neutrality, only the speed at which they recieve content from different hosts.