A shift in the mechanics of the Media Monopoly
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Ben Begdickian (sp?)has an interesting book called The Media Monopoly in which evidence of an interesting twist on Moore's law is presented. Basically, in the same amount of time it takes for the power of computing to double, the number of corporations controlling ~90% of the mass media is cut in half. (He does not explicitly state this correlation with technology, but the numbers work out very closely.) The last time I read this book was '94 or so. I think it was the 4th edition. The number of major media strongholds was at 12 I believe. What I find interesting is that since then, there seems to have been a shift in focus. As we approach "absolute zero", we find that this is actually occuring more slowly than origionally anticipated. Instead, what we are seeing is that more powerful and diverse names are getting in the mix. In the past, big players included (and still include) GE, AT&T, etc. It was easy to finger these guys, but what was difficult was tracing down the "family trees" of these companies. This is becoming increasingly difficult as the gene-pool is becoming rather homogenized. As it becomes easier to play "Six degrees of separation" with large companies, corporate incest is making it more and more difficult to trace the impact of a media monolopy.
I'm glad to see there's more fodder for us Sandman fans to gobble up. Earlier in the year, I had the oportunity to speak with Neil, and I asked about all the movie talk that's going on. He says that the "Sandman" film that is supposedly in the works doesn't look promising (he does not have creative control over the Sandman Series). The script he read start with something like, "Foolish mortals.....What fools you are to think you could defeat me!" (I'll pass, thanks.)
He does, however have control of other characters (namely, Death), and he said there's a strong possibility for a movie deal there. Keep your eyes out.
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Ben Begdickian (sp?)has an interesting book called The Media Monopoly in which evidence of an interesting twist on Moore's law is presented. Basically, in the same amount of time it takes for the power of computing to double, the number of corporations controlling ~90% of the mass media is cut in half. (He does not explicitly state this correlation with technology, but the numbers work out very closely.) The last time I read this book was '94 or so. I think it was the 4th edition. The number of major media strongholds was at 12 I believe. What I find interesting is that since then, there seems to have been a shift in focus. As we approach "absolute zero", we find that this is actually occuring more slowly than origionally anticipated. Instead, what we are seeing is that more powerful and diverse names are getting in the mix. In the past, big players included (and still include) GE, AT&T, etc. It was easy to finger these guys, but what was difficult was tracing down the "family trees" of these companies. This is becoming increasingly difficult as the gene-pool is becoming rather homogenized. As it becomes easier to play "Six degrees of separation" with large companies, corporate incest is making it more and more difficult to trace the impact of a media monolopy.
I'm glad to see there's more fodder for us Sandman fans to gobble up. Earlier in the year, I had the oportunity to speak with Neil, and I asked about all the movie talk that's going on.
He says that the "Sandman" film that is supposedly in the works doesn't look promising (he does not have creative control over the Sandman Series). The script he read start with something like, "Foolish mortals.....What fools you are to think you could defeat me!" (I'll pass, thanks.)
He does, however have control of other characters (namely, Death), and he said there's a strong possibility for a movie deal there. Keep your eyes out.