Media Consolidation vs. Fragmentation: Action Steps for Government Communicators?

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Permalink Reply by David B. Grinberg on December 26, 2012 at 3:04pm

Awesome post, Dannielle, and great infographic!

What are your answers to the questions posed above? Can you kindly elaborate?

An important point -- which I've noted repeatedly -- is that Corporate America controls most major media outlets today.  This is an unfortunate development in journalism because it detracts from a free and independent press at the time we need it most -- due to the proliferation of "infotainment" via digital/online news, social media and the blogosphere. Corporate ownership also means the C-suite may surreptitiously exert undue influence, or even malfeasance, over the manner by which news is covered and reported.  Rupert Murdoch and his cohorts at News Corp. present a good example.

DBG

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Permalink Reply by Dannielle Blumenthal on December 26, 2012 at 4:05pm

To me the data tells a consistent story.

* Many in the public actively mistrust government - there is always tension between the federalists and the anti-federalists. See recent Gallup numbers below.

* Mistrust of government combined with aversion to "corporate owned media"  fuels the development of alternative news, blog, social media, etc. by the public. (Free technology also enables as does culture of self expression through social media.)

* The appropriate response from a communications point of view would be to do things that increase trust in government (obviously) by increasing the quality of information provided to the public. (This from the public's perspective) AND making sure they know about it and can access it.

* Sample areas of focus could include making government data "mashable," customer service as Amazon provides it - email, chat, or phone options; and developing FAQs based on visiting social media sites and then responding both there and at the original government site.

* In general I would move the focus away from the government website and toward the interactive model where the site mainly holds data and repositories of information posted on social media sites.

* I would also form a cadre of virtual information ambassadors who would reach out to the public to provide information.

These are just some ideas, but I hope that others here who are engaged in projects of this nature can add.

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Screenshot sources: Gallup (Annotations by Dannielle Blumenthal)

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Permalink Reply by Peter Sperry on December 26, 2012 at 7:45pm

Sorry, but media is much more diverse than it was in my youth. We had NBC, CBS and ABC for tv; The majority of print media simply rewrote AP or UPI wire feeds and radio was about the same. All of these press outlets were essentially carbon copies of each other. There was zero diversity of outlook or opinion. The 3 networks reported the same stories in the same way and it was considered unprofessional for one reporter to challenge the stories of another in print or on the air. We now know that "Uncle Walter, the most trusted man in America" regularly lied through his teeth on the air but was never challenged on it for over 40 years. He would never get away with the same type of duplicity today, as Sam Donaldson has learned.

It was not until the debut of CNN and later Fox News that most people had access to alternative news or opinion. With the addition of MSNBC and the business focused shows, we are finally getting some real diversity. The majority of MSM print media still recycles AP stories but we can check them against a host of web outlets.

Even the corporate diversity of broadcasters at the local level was more of an illusion than a reality. Local broadcasters were tightly bound by franchise agreements with the big 3 with almost no ability to edit or challenge what was spoon fed to them from New York. And it was the big 3, not the big 6.

If media in 2012 is more consolidated than it was in 1982, than maybe consolidation is what we need to get more diversity of viewpoints into public discussions.

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Permalink Reply by Henry Brown on December 27, 2012 at 5:26am

MY OPINION!

We as "tellers" of the government story, are going to have to learn how to deal with the DIFFERENT political "slants" when the different media outlets covers our organization.

An RANDOM example would be:

An organization is required to lay off 200 employees which is 2 percent of the workforce; Some media will carry the story 200 employees laid off, some media will carry the story 98 percent of the employees jobs are saved and others will carry the story 2 percent of employees lose their jobs..

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