How Media Ownership Matters

Abstract How Media Ownership Matters provides a new approach to understanding news media ownership, going beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls to examine the influence of different forms of ownership on the production of news. The book identifies four broad ownership forms—market, private, civil society, and public. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews of top executives and editors, an original and extensive collection of industry data, and a comprehensive content analysis of more than fifty news outlets in the United States (US), Sweden, and France, the book analyzes how these ownership forms—along with associated funding models and the social and political characteristics of owners and audiences—contribute to three civically consequential modes of power: public service orientation, political instrumentalism, and economic instrumentalism. It finds that civil society ownership is associated with the strongest overall focus on public service; public ownership is distinctive in providing public service information for a broad omnibus audience. The book counters previous research by showing that particular owners, as well as audiences, influence the direction and intensity of partisan slant in the news. Economic instrumentalism is associated most strongly with stock market-traded outlets, especially conglomerates with non-business interests. Challenging previous claims that media ownership research has been “inconclusive,” the book’s findings and review of the literature show that media ownership does indeed matter and in patterned ways. This book provides a road map to understanding how ownership is shaping the future of journalism and democracy.