Impact of Media Ownership on marketing and content strategies

 

Media ownership has remained a thought-provoking aspect in understanding media content and marketing strategies. Various studies show that ownership influences have a big bearing on what finds space in media. The said influence takes various forms including direct censorship and intimidation of media staff. Owner interests interlink with those of advertisers and government, which is the biggest advertiser, thereby creating propulsions into market-driven but government-controlled media.

Within an organization, factors on the organizational level are the key to understanding the presence of a certain type of content. Decisions about the target audiences and type of content are made on this level. Ownership structure, as one of the factors on the organizational level, also affects the content of mass media messages. Research usually indicates three basic types of mass media ownership: government owned (or government party owned), privately owned, and own both by government and private organizations or individuals.

Government-owned media outlets usually seen by social scientists as pursuing goal of social welfare and harmony, while privately owned media are seen as pursuing Interests that are determined by desire to make profit, although it is not always the case. The fact that media are (partly) owned by government does not mean that channels and content are totally controlled by government. Usually, if not subsidized, these channels have to make profit which means independence to certain extent from government. Ideological interests’ effects of ownership on serving the public interest are part of a bigger theme of effects of mass media ownership on content There are number of studies that were able to determine effects of ownership on content, although there are some that present the

opposite view. These studies looked at different effects in different areas.

One of the areas of research that examined media ownership effects on content deals with consolidation of media, which occurred in order to pursue economic and organizational advantages. Chain ownership in the newspaper industry received a lot of attention.