Out of the 6 main features written in chapter two, three of them I looked at a little closer and thought about examples of these main features. Below I have the main feature listed with my thoughts and an example with it.
1) The emergence of and continued dominance of the global media industry by a small number of transnational media conglomerates.
This main feature is mainly talking about how big companies own many little ones under it and we do not even realize this unless we truly look back at who owns some of these businesses. The example in the book talked about Time Warner and how it owned many different companies and unless we know what they own we could never tell the difference. A down side to one company owning so many things especially in the media is because it influences us is many ways. All different types of media impact us so the fact that one company controls all that means that they can control how we think about things without us even knowing it. These companies are growing to be so big and are spreading all over the world through media globalization that it seems like they are taking over the media worldwide one way or another.
2) The use by these media conglomerates of new information and communications technologies (ICT's).
This main feature points out that the rapid growth of technologies is changing how we see the world and how the spread of media globalization can grow even faster than before. I see this mainly as how so much can be done on the internet today and then thinking about how many different countries have access to the internet to look at what others are posting, selling, and what new is happening in the world. The fact now that anyone can go to yahoo.com and on the main page click on a video links to watch the latest news story is crazy. The clip online can be on news from anywhere in the world also as soon as a new crew can put something together it can go right up on the internet for all to see simply with the access to a computer with the internet. Even though many in the world do not have the Internet, still many countries do have it even if just in their main cities. I think any news website is a good example of this main feature.
3) The promotion of the ideology of consumerism, which is therefore bound up with the capitalist project.
This last main feature I will be talking about had to do with the media being a form of advertising and how that advertising then is all connected to the capitalist project. In other words the media is used to sell its viewers something. This is not only in one place but all over the world which is why it's a part of media globalization. This media advertising is used all over the world to help sell a consumer product and therefore is all about making money and adding to the growth of capitalism. Examples brands selling to the consumer all over the world are companies like Coca-Cola and Nike. Ads for these companies' products can be seen all over the world and they are selling to countries all over the world to try to grow and make more and more money.
There are some concerns and worries about all of these main features and what they are doing to the media and media globalization. As our book says, "North American mass media industry in the postwar period has now given way to growing worries about the domination of the global media industry by a small number of powerful, transnational, vertically integrated media conglomerates." This does tie back into the first main feature that talks about how big companies are taking over so much of the media and are such a big part of media globalization that bad things may come of it. It is not good that so much power is in the hands of so few corporations. If these corporations are controlling so much of the media then it just shows how everyone all over the world will be influenced by this mass media. It is hard to say what can be done about such things though because we are a world that feeds the media like crazy because all we want is more of it. The more power we give the media, the more the media, will control what happens in the world.
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