Who owns the media?

Private Organisations? The Government?

“JOURNALISM IS PRINTING WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DOES NOT WANT PRINTED. EVERYTHING ELSE IS PUBLIC RELATIONS.”

George Orwell

Welcome to today’s blog. Get your coffee, wine or tea ready because we’re about to dive into the topic.

There’s a saying that comes to my mind when I ponder on the question, it goes along the lines of “Who funds the media, owns the media and your mindset.”

What do you make of it?

Personally, for the mindset part; I believe it to be true to a certain extent but not completely. As we saw in Blog Post 1, there are a lot of factors influencing one’s thinking and behaviour, including but not limited to psychological, social, cultural, one’s up-bringing and critical thinking.

So, we’re left with.. Who funds the media? And those who fund the media, do they own it and what gets published? We’ll be talking about this in the later segment.. first..

Let’s look into Singapore. Who funds the Singaporean media, and do they own it?

Government VS Private ownership of media

Singaporean Media (Owned by the Government)

It is largely dominated and owned by the Singaporean Government. The Govt. takes care of the content regulation, making sure it abides by the laws.

There are 2 main companies by the title of “SPH or Singapore Press Holding” and “Media Corp”. The former is owned by a State Investment Agency and runs on TV + Radio Stations. The latter is owned by Tamsek Holding which is a State company owned by the Government and has a near-monopoly of the press and publishes newspapers, magazines, + websites.

With the ownership being in State’s hands, there are certain advantages such as :

1. Unification of the masses of Singapore
2. Reliability and verifiability of the news.
3. More focus on providing news than being profit-driven.

However, with pros come cons, such as :

1. Lack of Diversity in opinions and voices.
2. Little to No freedom of speech as content has to go through the higher ups before getting published.
3. Propaganda by making use of Govt’s laws to manipulate the views of people to support the Govt.

The American Media (an example of Private Ownership)

Certain pros are :

1. Freedom of Speech & Press
2. Freedom of Expression
3. Diversity in opinions and voices

Cons are as follows :

1. Sensationalisation of news to get more viewers thereby generating more profit
2. Lack of Unification of the masses of Singapore
3. Unreliable in comparison to Govt owned media, might mould news into something that fits their narrative.

Is America really as ‘free’ or is it more of..

AN ILLUSION OF CHOICE?

6 media giants control 90% of what is being watched, read or listened to. – This is known as ‘Media Consolidation’.

These prime 6 are : Comcast, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.

Shocking, isn’t it? This goes out to show the need for more distribution and expansion in this area.

My Take + Answer to the question + A task for you 😀

Personally, I believe in Private ownership. To justify my stance, I’d like to bring fourth the classic saying “There are always three sides of the story – two of them are subjective and one is objective, or the real story”. To truly understand and form an opinion, one should weigh and analyse all the sides. The diverse range of voices and takes on things is one of the major bright sides. This is not to say that Private Media is more “objective’ than Govt. owned, but more so, it neither hesitates from showing the controversial information that goes against the authorities nor moulds information that’s related to the critical issues of society, issues that challenges Government’s policies.

Back to the question discussed above.. The World Press Freedom Index shows Singapore in the 160th position out of 180. Singapore has been coloured black on their map. We’ve seen that much of Singaporean Media is owned, funded and controlled by the Government. What the audience reads, watches or listens is thereby, filtered by the State.

At last, I’d like to end this blog by asking you, the reader to reflect on the Quote cited by George Orwell. How do you perceive it?

That’s it for today. Have a good day ahead.

References

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https://mediaculturesociety.org/2013/01/30/media-convergence/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media_in_Singapore