Media Company Holding

News Corp. currently owns 27 television stations (FOX TV Stations, Inc., 16 July 2008) most of which are recognizable under the name FOX. Some popular networks/channels that it currently owns are: FOX News, National Geographic, ESPN, SPEED, STAR, and FOX Business Channel. I remember that back in high school, my history teacher once stated that when you watch the National Geographic channel, especially when Africa is being showcased, only the poorer parts of a nation are highlighted. This helps enforce the perception of Africa as an all-around impoverished nation. Finding out that News Corp. owned the aforementioned National Geographic channel was revelatory. I find that the masses are indeed gullible. My family and friends often mention Africa’s impoverishment when food is being wasted, or Africa’s primitiveness concerning women’s rights. I am quick to point out to them that not all of Africa is as poor or as primitive as the channel demonstrates. Perhaps, my being a Communications major and media literate have prevented my views on Africa from being manipulated so by National Geographic and News Corp. Even some of the shows I watch on FOX (Family Guy, New Girl) fail to impact me in the same way they’ve seemed to influence my peers. I recognize Family Guy for the satire that it is, a brand of humor often wasted on the masses. This has led to outcries of insensitiveness, misogyny or racism towards Family Guy, when the goal of the show is not to perpetuate those shallow morals but to poke fun at them (“Did Family Guy’s 9/11 Satire Go Too Far For A Laugh?”, Newsfeed, 04 Feb 2013). I can recognize how overly dramatized Hell’s Kitchen is and that a real restaurant probably does not have a tyrant chef spewing spit over the food while ranting at his employees. Thus, I can definitely denote News Corp.’s influence in the television medium. However, I find its influence in the movie medium, Internet and publishing medium most fascinating.

   News Corp. owns 20^th Century Fox, arguably the biggest American studio. Being a cinephile, I am aware of the major influence that studios had over their stars and the general population prior to their deconstruction in the 60s and 70s. They manufactured their star’s stories and hushed any of their wrongdoings in the papers. The public then fell in love with a star’s image and not the actual person behind such an image. A major example is Marilyn Monroe, one of 20^th Century Fox’s most bankable stars and reigning celebrity throughout the 50s. During her last award appearance, she was reportedly drunk and quite visibly so. Yet, the story was never reported because 20^th Century Fox fought to keep the image of their star intact. While with the advent of television, hushing such a story nowadays would be impossible (also due to the fact that the studios no longer contractually own their stars), I could see News Corp. finding a similar way to manipulate the media in its favor. After all, News Corp. also owns publications like the Daily News, New York Post, the Times, and Wall Street Journal. News Corp. certainly is not going to place anything detrimental to itself in such publications or in the movies that 20^th Century Fox produce, not even satirically as the TV show 30 Rock did with its producer NBC. News Corp. caters to what its audience’s wants and not its need for factual information or other forms of entertainment. Celebrities’ feuds or personal lives are over-sensationalized in their publications; blockbuster film franchises such as Star Wars and X-Men prosper, eclipsing other film genres. This ties in with the lack of diversity that critics often reprimand media conglomerations for. One of News Corp.’s other studios, Blue Sky Studios, specializes in animated films targeted at children and families. A third studio, Fox Searchlight Pictures, produces mostly independent cinema. Hence, News Corp., while indeed suffering from a lack of diversity and from biases, does own other subsidiaries in a bid to appeal to other parts of the population. I’ll have to say it is successful in that bid, for I am a major fan of some of Fox Searchlight’s movies: Little Miss Sunshine, Black Swan, The Descendants, Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later and The Tree Of Life. News Corp. also owns IGN and holds a significant amount of shares in Hulu, two very popular Internet websites. I frequent both websites, most of all IGN. IGN features a forum where people from across the world are able to comment on music, video games, film and other media. Some of the posters on these forums have recommended movies, music and even games which I now cherish. Thus, News Corp. has had a major impact on what I value through IGN. Another way that News Corp. has been able to reach me as an audience is through their ownership of HarperCollins, a publishing company whose books I devour endlessly. I find News Corp. quite satisfying in this department than the other media because HarperCollins is diverse. It has an entire sector devoted to children’s books. Its main sector publishes novels that are very different from each other. Therefore, this investigation into News Corp.’s IGN and HarperCollins helped me realize that media conglomeration may have its upsides.