• Media concentration / Conglomerates / Globalisation (in terms of media ownership) – Conglomerates are massive multimedia companies that own multiple subsidiary companies.
• Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration
• Gatekeepers – term used to refer to those with authority who can give access to people and ideas based on their preference and whether it could gain them profit.
• Regulation / Deregulation – Regulation of industries usually prevents companies from becoming too powerful and/or prevents companies harming the environment and/or to stop companies pushing specific agendas to people.
• Free market vs Monopolies & Mergers – Monopolies are companies that control their industries fully.
• Neo-liberalism and the Alt-Right -Right wing ideologies promoting the value of capitalism, free markets and de-regulation.
• Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR – The General Data Protection Regulation is a law designed to protect the personal data of everyone. Companies usually want data because it allows them to more effectively market products and even ideologies towards people by targeting their specific interests and schedules.

David Hesmondhalgh and media industries:

“in its utopian presentation, creative work is now imagined only as a self-actualising pleasure, rather than a potentially arduous or problematic obligation undertaken through material necessity” 

David Hesmondhalgh among other academics propose that the media companies that people work for are often made to do arduous tasks in which freedom is little because of the capitalist structure of media industries in which bosses exploit the workers in media industries and people working in these industries are doing their jobs not out of a desire for creativity, although they may have it, but rather because of material necessity – they need their jobs to fund their lives. This contradicts the romantic and essentially propaganda-like presentation of media companies as creative work that is done as a self-actualising pleasure

Murdoch Media Empire:

THE MEDIA INFORMING/COERCING POLICY AND DECISION MAKING:

• Chomsky – manufactuing consent, making sure the media keeps the status quo
• New Labour party election 1997 – Rupert Murdoch using media to manipulate the public into voting for the candidate that suited his interests.
• Brexit – Media used to make people vote to leave the EU which would benefit the upper class and business owners because of EU regulations.
• Althusser and ISAs – the media acts as an internal state apparatus, making the sure the status quo is kept to benefit the owners of media corporations
• Murdoch dynasty – Influences the new labour party election to his benefit
• Bombshell – shows how large media corporations coerce policy to keep the employees or other outside entities from threatening the positions of those high up in the media industry. Using media corporations can influence public opinion about them and discredit anyone who stands against them.