My Nana use to tell me I'd get square eyes for looking at my phone too much... anyone else?
As a society and as an individual the way we have consumed media and news has changed drastically over time. With age, maturity and evolving social constructs, media and news adapt to its viewership and preferred societal medium. In today’s day and age with the heavy use of smartphones majority of media and news companies have converted their outlets to app form and typically through this medium is the way in which I receive my news. Through accessing editorials and articles from the ABC, New York Times and News.com and receiving multimedia resources via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tik Tok. Through incorporating American and Worldwide news via the “New York Times” and “Tik Tok” I feel as if not only am I broadening my range of news but also my own personal knowledge. So when asked who ‘owns’ or ‘controls’ my access and use of media and news, I feel as if this is a double-barrelled question.
Media within Australia however has seen many changes throughout the years and according to Johan Lidberg in “The distortion of the Australian public sphere” there were 3 “pivitol” moments within Australian media. The first being towards the end of the 1900’s, when media corporations began online publishing, at the time articles and news were made free to the public; Fairfax was a key competitor within the early stages of online publishing. In 2006, Liberal Helen Coonan navigated through parliament media regulation ownership reforms, allowing increased ownership across media platforms. Finally in 2017, the Turnball government repurposed Coonan’s initiative by loosening media restrictions to further allow for ownership across multi-media platforms.
In response to who “Owns” the media I access, to me it is the figureheads of each company for example; the ABC is technically funded through the Australian Government and as a result I believe the Australian Government therefore owns the media I consume through this resource. Facebook on the other hand was founded by Mark Zuckerberg under the parent organisation of Meta.
Meta currently has brought its way into many social networking companies including Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Novi and Workplace. As controversial as Mark Zuckerberg and Meta may be, it is hard not to recognise that without Zuckerberg’s findings in 2004 where social media may be today.
However, does this actually affect me? I would like to stay neutral, I feel uncomfortable knowing the amount of data these social networks discover about me and the way in which they harvest said data but I also understand that what I put out into the social network universe is under my control. I trust that news corporations will do the right thing by the media in publishing correct and fact checked articles but what are the limits to this…. After all they are just a business as well.
In terms of who “Controls” the media and news I consume, I believe that is solely my responsibility. No multimillion dollar company nor the Government could force me to only consume one type of news and media, it is in my control as to which apps I download, what multimedia I watch or listen to and the way in which I choose to consume this; whether that be via smartphone, TV or print. I do understand as my views on certain aspects such as politics, pop culture and worldwide news evolve, that they way in which I consume media will also develop over time.
References:
Lidberg, J. (2019). UOW Library resource access. [online] ezproxy.uow.edu.au. Available at: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2166664243?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:primo&accountid=15112.
www.abc.net.au. (2017). Government’s bill to relax media ownership laws passes Senate. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-14/media-law-changes-bill-passes-senate/8946864.
Bloomberg (2013). Mark Zuckerberg: Building the Facebook Empire. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WiDIhIkPoM.
IVANOVA, I. (2019). Status update: How Facebook is dealing with a year’s worth of crises. [online] www.cbsnews.com. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/facebook-federal-investigations-data-privacy-criticism-updating/.
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