"The Media Ownership Monitor found that a high degree of concentration in ownership and audience share prevails in the media industry in Pakistan and a professionally weak regulatory system poses a threat to media pluralism and freedom of expression in the country." (http://Pakistan.mom-rsf.org/en)
"A hostile takeover of Egypt’s media is under way, leaving the influence on public opinion to be controlled by the state, the secret services and a few wealthy owners loyal to the regime and with close ties to the former president Hosni Mubarak. In a move to gain influence over the State-owned med
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ia, the media giant Egyptian Media group signed several deals with the National Media authority on 20 January 2019 extending its control and increasing the influence of the General Intelligence over the Egyptian media landscape. The coordinated attack on media freedom and pluralism is facilitated by a set of new laws restructuring the media sector in 2018 and by the ongoing pressure on journalists and media workers by the state." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/egypt)
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"Nos encontramos ante un hecho incuestionable: desde hace décadas el proceso de concentración mediática es la norma en los estados contemporáneos y el poder político se ve supeditado a las líneas editoriales de los oligopolios mediáticos que tratan de conducir y representar a la opinión púb
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lica desde la opinión publicada. Así, las corporaciones de medios se han convertido en armas de propaganda de un modelo que se resiste al cambio y son el sustento del imaginario imperante en torno a la felicidad proporcionada por el consumo. La ausencia de regulaciones efectivas y la concentración mediática rompe el equilibrio de poderes que define a los sistemas democráticos. Transparencia mediática, oligopolios y democracia ¿Quién nos cuenta el cuento? pretende desvelar esta situación mediante la aplicación del Indicador de Rentabilidad Social en Comunicación (IRSCOM®) desarrollado por Laboratorio de Comunicación y Cultura (COMAndalucía) de la Universidad de Málaga, una herramienta que busca hacer transparente el comportamiento de los medios y permitir la introducción de mejoras mediante el reflejo de sus fortalezas y debilidades, posibilitando asimismo la implementación de políticas públicas eficaces en pos de la transparencia mediática y la rentabilidad social de la Comunicación. La obra acomete en una primera parte el estudio de la situación del mercado de medios radifónicos y de televisión en España y, en una segunda parte, el diagnóstico de situación en buen número de países latinoamericanos y de la Europa mediterránea que permitan la aplicación de este indicador en sus respectivos países. «Relevar los déficits democráticos, resaltar sus fallos normativos y de control, es ya iniciar el camino para la fijación de unas alternativas democráticas en políticas públicas de comunicación." (Prólogo de Enrique Bustamante)
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"There has been a decline in trust in the media in the LAC region. While in 2004 nearly two-thirds of individuals reported having high trust in the media, this result dropped to only half of individuals in 2016/17. Individuals who perceive the media as representative of different viewpoints or who h
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ave high trust in the media are more likely to report being satisfied with the way democracy is functioning in their country. Citizen evaluations of media pluralism and ownership concentration do not correspond with expert evaluations of media environments in the LAC region. While experts might hold that greater concentration of ownership inevitably erodes pluralism, the public does not make this link." (Key findings)
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"The boundaries between media, politics and business have always been blurry in Albania. However, because of the small size and the high number of outlets the market was perceived by some local observers as vibrant and plural. However, a joint research project between Reporters Without Borders and t
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he Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania, reveals that the Albania media scene is highly concentrated in the hand of few major owners, who have strong political affiliations, and control more than half of the audience share and nearly 90% of the market share." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/albania)
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"Mexico’s booming media industry is controlled by some of the richest businessmen on earth. While the sector grows at a rate three times that of the overall economy, an alarming concentration of media ownership goes hand in hand with the well-known lack of safety for Mexico’s journalists, many o
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f whom cannot even make a living from their precarious salaries, increasing their vulnerability to pressures of all kinds. The almost traditional concentration of a lot of power in the hands of very few media magnates and politicians also comes as a result of blatant regulatory flaws." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/Mexico)
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"2017 was marred by the assassination, in Malta, of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, an event which represented the darkest hour for media freedom and media pluralism in the European Union since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in France. This crime has profoundly shaken Europe an
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d has had an impact on its image as a bastion of human rights and democratic values. Publishers continued to face significant economic pressures, and 2017 confirmed the decline in the revenues of the press sector and of many local and community newspapers across Europe, a worldwide trend signalling continued job losses in the sector and the lower viability of the media business as organisations struggle to find sustainable business models in the face of digital transformation. The spread of online disinformation and hate speech, including concerns about their impact on elections and referenda in 2016, represented major areas of debate during 2017. States, international institutions, and private enterprises have discussed or adopted measures – both legislative and non-legislative – to address these phenomena, and several of these measures have, in turn, raised concerns about their impact on the freedom of expression and respect for the rule of law. Due to the aforementioned concerns with regard to the economic difficulties faced by publishers, as well as online hate speech and disinformation, 2017 was noteworthy for an increased interest in the analysis of the influence of major online platforms in both public debate and public opinion. Queries over accountability, transparency and the overall effect on democracy in relation to the digital platforms have escalated. In 2017, several stakeholders expressed concerns about such platforms’ use of machine learning and algorithms in personalising news feeds, as well as their use of the end-users’ data for targeted advertising purposes." (Executive summary)
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"Only a few media companies have a predominant market position and thus a potentially high influence on public opinion in Tanzania. Whereas the regulatory framework should in theory safeguard media pluralism and prevent media concentration, it shows considerable gaps in practice. Moreover, the legal
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environment restricts data collection and research." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/tanzania)
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"Viewership, listenership and readership in the Sri Lankan media market is highly concentrated among a few media owners, many of whom have political affiliations. Limited access to ownership information and a number of regulatory shortcomings pose a further threat to media pluralism in the country."
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(http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/sri-lanka)
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"The seemingly buzzing Lebanese media market is, in fact, controlled by only a few highly politicized owners that are either directly affiliated with political parties or belong to Lebanese dynasties. Additional threats to media pluralism arise from clear editorial lines defined by politics, close t
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ies among the dynasties, and a number of regulatory shortcomings." (http://www.mom-rsf.org/en/countries/Lebanon)
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"To study the effects of consolidation and ownership on news diversity, we model the diversity of Chilean coverage on the basis of ownership records and social media data. We create similarity networks of news outlets on the basis of their ownership and the topics they cover. We then examine the rel
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ationships between the topology of ownership networks and content similarity to characterize how ownership affects news coverage. A network analysis reveals that Chilean media is highly concentrated both in terms of ownership as well as in terms of topics covered. Our method can be used to determine which groups of outlets and ownership exert the greatest influence on news coverage." (Abstract)
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"The idea of rules limiting concentration of media ownership is often cast by media owners as a restriction on their right to freedom of expression. Unfortunately, the behaviour of States in Latin America has often lent support to this perspective, especially when States abuse for political ends the
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ir power to provide for regulation of the media. International law has a clear answer to both of these problems. By protecting the rights of both the speaker and the listener, international law provides an alternative view of the claim that limits on media ownership are simply restrictions on freedom of expression. Instead, by promoting a plurality of voices in the public sphere, such limits enhance the right of listeners to receive a diversity of information and ideas, which is essential to the exercise of full citizenship, political participation, robust cultural expression and many other important values in society. Thus what at first blush may appear as a restriction on the expressive rights of speakers is also a form of protection for the freedom of expression rights of listeners." (Conclusion)
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"Hasta 2014, eran cinco los principales grupos que operaban en la región con capacidad de liderazgo y expansión más allá de las fronteras geográficas y de sectorización industrial: en orden de importancia a partir de su facturación, se trataba de Telefónica, América Móvil, Globo, Televisa
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y Clarín. Por entonces, las dos telefónicas mencionadas se ubicaban en un nivel muy superior al de Globo y Televisa, dado que facturaban diez veces más que los multimedios de Brasil y México. Estos, por su parte, duplicaban los ingresos del Grupo Clarín de Argentina. Desde entonces, hubo modificaciones en la estructuración de estos grupos, nuevas sociedades entre algunos de ellos y fusiones que alteraron su jerarquía económica y que potencian aún más el cuadro de concentración que se documenta en este libro. Cabe destacar que, si se considera solo a Telefónica y América Móvil, estos grupos se encuentran presentes en 18 de los 35 mercados analizados en esta investigación, con participaciones que tienen –al menos– el 30% de los mercados. Si la muestra abarca a los cinco grandes conglomerados de la región, se comprueba que estos están presentes en 28 de los 35 sectores. Pero también se puede apreciar que el tipo de presencia es completamente diferente si se considera a las telefónicas o a los grupos provenientes del sector de medios. Las primeras muestran una presencia secuencial, con dominio sustantivo en la televisión de pago, la telefonía fija y móvil, y la provisión de servicios de acceso a internet. Los grupos de medios tienen una presencia más diversificada, ya que han comenzado el proceso de convergencia hacia el sector de las telecomunicaciones (en especial Televisa y, fuera del lapso del presente estudio, Clarín), pero con una participación acotada a su territorio de origen. De esta forma, las telefónicas son grupos de carácter internacional o panregional con fuerte presencia en la región y una facturación muy superior a la de los grandes grupos de medios. Por su parte, los medios tradicionales han aprovechado su capacidad de influencia en la agenda política para promover sus intereses e iniciar el camino a una diversificación plena (presencia en todos o casi todos los mercados infocomunicacionales) antes que las telefónicas. De cómo se resuelva esta disputa con intereses claramente diferenciados entre medios y telefónicas, dependerá la evolución de la concentración en la región." (Conclusiones, página 193-194)
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"El presente artículo analiza la participación de los medios comunitarios y su importancia para la democratización de la comunicación en Ecuador en el marco del Concurso Público de Frecuencias de Radio y Televisión de señal abierta, convocado en 2016. Este concurso cobró importancia en la ag
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enda pública por ser la primera vez que el Estado utiliza un mecanismo público para otorgar concesiones de frecuencias, abriendo a concurso 1 472 frecuencias de radio y televisión, lo que modificará el panorama mediático por 15 años –tiempo que dura cada concesión–. Este concurso, además, tomó relevancia por desarrollarse en medio de un proceso electoral ya de por sí agitado, por la permanencia o no del Gobierno de la Revolución Ciudadana liderado por Rafael Correa, después de 10 años en el poder. En este contexto, este análisis propone otra visión: desde la mirada del sector comunitario, un actor casi ausente en el debate público, a pesar de ser uno de los grupos que mayor implicación tiene en este proceso. Este documento plantea una comprensión del sector comunitario y de los “medios comunitarios” no como una totalidad cerrada, sino como una categorización que debe ser debatida, diferenciando aquellos medios comunitarios de grupos religiosos de aquellos nuevos medios comunitarios de organizaciones sociales, que como se verá, tienen características y demandas diferenciadas." (Página 1)
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"Power in Brazil means family business, both traditionally and to this very day. Dynasties of landowners known as “Colonels” extend their territorial claims to the airwaves, combining economic and political interests with tight control of public opinion. Neither digital technology and the rise o
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f the internet nor occasional regulatory efforts seem to pose a serious challenge to these oligopolies. A joint investigation by the Brazilian NGO Intervozes and Reporters Without Borders between July and October 2017 now shows who are the key players and what are their respective other interests. The investigation comprises the 50 most important media outlets in Brazil and the 26 corporate groups owning them. Transparency about ownership of media companies remains low as there is no legal obligation for companies to disclose their shareholder structure." (http://www.mom-rsf.org)
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"The Media Ownership Monitor (MOM) reveals a high level of audience concentration in various media sectors. An almost maximum concentration was found among the printed press, where the top four media companies (Graphic Communications Group Limited, New Times Corporation, Western Publications Limited
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, Business and Financial Times Limited) together reach 95.9% of the readership. Three out of four readers (72.1%) choose a state-run newspaper for information or entertainment. Private companies on the other hand dominate the broadcasting sector. A high concentration exists in the TV segment, where the top four owners (Multimedia Group, Osei Kwame with U2 Company Ltd. /Despite Group of Companies, TV3 Network/ Media General Ghana Limited, state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) represent an audience share of 77.4%. The radio market is more diverse and ‘market leaders’ differ from region to region. Again the Multimedia Group and the Despite Group of Companies have a considerable market position by operating several nationwide outlets. All in all, radio shows a medium level of audience concentration around the four market leaders that together deliver news to 44.8% of the listenership." (http://www.mom-rsf.org)
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"Nine of the 36 media companies involved in Morocco’s most influential media are directly linked to the state, the government or the royal family. Four of them – SOREAD, SNRT, EcoMedias and Horizon Press – are among the most important media companies in terms of turnover and show the potential
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influence of politically linked media owners. The royal family itself is a leading media owner. Its holding company, the Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI), has shares in four media companies, three of which are among the top five media companies (SOREAD, EcoMedias and Radio Méditerranée Internationale). One of the key questions raised by the MOM’s findings is why leading figures from the business and financial world invest in newspapers that make no profit. Some of Morocco’s richest businessmen have stakes in five of the nine French-language publications examined by the MOM: Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, La Vie Eco, Les Inspirations Eco, La Nouvelle Tribune and L’Economiste. Two of these businessmen, Aziz Akhannouch and Moulay Hafid Elalamy, are also government ministers." (http://www.mom-rsf.org)
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"Este artículo expone los principales rasgos del mercado de la radio y la televisión de señal abierta en el Perú, y hace hincapié en los niveles de concentración de la inversión publicitaria, el control de las frecuencias y el marco regulatorio hecho a la medida de los grupos mediáticos más
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poderosos del país. También analiza las posibilidades de sostenibilidad económica, crecimiento y modernización de buena parte de los medios locales y regionales en un contexto mundial caracterizado por acelerados cambios tecnológicos y transformaciones en los hábitos y estilos de consumo de las audiencias. Asimismo, describe algunas fortalezas y estrategias desplegadas por las radios y televisoras locales, comerciales y con objetivos de desarrollo social (educativas y comunitarias), orientadas a posibilitar su permanencia en el mercado y sentar las bases para el complejo tránsito hacia la digitalización de la producción y distribución de contenidos multimedia." (Sumilla)
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"The Center for International Media Assistance and Deutsche Welle Akademie have launched a series of regional consultations with media stakeholders–civil society and media watchdog NGOs, broadcast regulators, academics, media industry representatives, government officials, and others in the media
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and development sectors–to diagnose the problems facing independent media in the world today. The first of these conferences took place in Bogota, Colombia, in November 2015. CIMA and DW Akademie are pleased to publish Media in Latin America: A Path Forward, a summary of the discussion and the findings. We hope it will serve to foster more discussion about how independent media around the world can best be supported." (CIMA website)
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