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Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt.
This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.
Part I: Overview
Introduction, by Anya Schiffrin
1. How Silicon Valley Copied Wall Street’s Media Capture Playbook, by Rana Foroohar
2. From Media Capture to Platform Capture, by Nikki Usher
3. Media Capture and the Crisis in Local Journalism, by Philip M. Napoli
4. Nobody Home, by Noam Cohen
Part II: Examples of Problems
5. A Serf on Google’s Farm, by Josh Marshall
6. The Rise and Fall of Blogging in the 2000s, by Felix Salmon
7. Digital Payola: Policing the Open Contributor Network, by James Ledbetter
8. Media Capture and the Corporate Education-Reform Philanthropies, by Andrea Gabor
9. Using Old Media to Capture New in Turkey, by Andrew Finkel
10. A Loud Silence, by Raju Narisetti
11. The Capture of Britain’s Feral Beast, by Mary Fitzgerald, James Cusick, and Peter Geoghegan
Part III: Solutions
12. A Global Strategy for Combating Media Capture, by Mark M. Nelson
13. The Hamster Wheel, Triumphant: Commercial Models for Journalism Are Not Working; Let’s Try Something Else, by Dean Starkman and Ryan Chittum
14. Building Trust (and a Trust), by Andrew Sullivan
15. Defending Vanguard Journalists, by Joel Simon
16. Do Technology Companies Care About Journalism?, by Emily Bell
List of Contributors
Index
Description
Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt.
This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.
