User:Tiortiz/sandbox

Media Ownership and Changes in the Workplace
Media concentration effects media but also the workplace for many Canadians, some of these changes can include cutbacks on traditional media as well as the power that is allocated from certain individuals to big owners of media in Canada.

Changes in Traditional Media Production
Media ownership creates cutbacks and often budgets are distributed strategically to make the most profit while spending as least as possible. Instead of growing in size “Canadian media organizations are becoming smaller. Newspapers are becoming thinner; and their stories shorter” (Taras, 220). Some notice cutbacks take place in 2017 when Global and Mail’s headline reveals “Postmedia, Torstar to swap and shutter dozens of local newspapers” closing many newspapers across Canada “which will leave dozens of communities with a single newspaper, will erase 291 full time and part-time jobs” (Robertson, 2017). Traditional media, “ such as newspapers and conventional TV networks, are losing audiences and advertising to the point where there are questions about their continued survival” (Taras, 220). Newspapers and witters who are accustomed to traditional media are not forced to adapt to new ways of producing media or forced to look for new jobs.

Changes in production contributions
As everything is controlled by fewer people and media concentration takes place in Canadian media through the work of media ownership “there is now a greater concentration of media ownership than has existed in decades. Just a handful of companies control online search, music production, key-video-watching platforms, and social media. Rarely has so much power existed in so few hands” (Taras, 3).

With media ownership decision-making is in the hands of a small group or “ownership of a company can be widely held by a large group of shareholders, who buy and sell their interest in the company through the stock market” (Lorimer et al., 2016, p. 89). In the given case that many people are in control of a company, their focus is placed in the stock market and the way in which they can increase and assure financial prosperity and growth. This new type of media ownership is cutting back on people’s jobs and traditional media, and concentrating authority to fewer people, “giant media companies such as Shaw, Quebecor and bell media have stretched their empires across the full length of media platforms, becoming content producers, internet service providers, cable operations broadcasters” (Taras, 220). Concentration “ownership also undermines the economic regulation of mass every merger and accusation, drift closer to being ‘too big to fail” (Lorimer et al., 2016, p. 89). Changing the world environment where competition is now against big giants that are very unlikely to fail, presenting a challenge for employers of small companies to fight and reassure their workers a sustainable career path in the media world.

Another change can be seen in 2007, when CRTC Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission attempts to address diversity of voices in broadcasting, where they took comments from industry stakeholders, but “the commission chose not to define diversity, and the diversity” (Lorimer et al., 2016, p. 89). CTRC cannot let citizens take part of this discussions as previously boundaries have been put into practice to prevent this from happening, because decisions are not made by people consuming the media but those in control of making media. According to the ‘Media and Internet Concentration in Canada Report, 1984-2014’ this issues matters “because the more core elements of the networked media are concentrated, the easier it is for dominant players to exercise market power, coordinate their behavior, use tactics that aim to preserve their entrenched stakes in ‘legacy’ media sectors” (Winseck 2015). Another change that can be noted is the effect it has on the democratic role of communication in Canada, especially when a few are in control of market power; ‘beyond the concentration of media voices, the issue is that these owners have political intentions that lead to a partisan press rather than a democratic media’ (Thom,2018).

The workplace for media creators is now challenged by the different factors and pressures to maintain partisan and not always maintaining democracy. But before any changes are made, it should be noted that it all depends on who is currently in control, a comment found in Fitzgerald’s journal article mentions that “Canadian preoccupation with media ownership is cyclical, CNA's Kothawala said: "Yeah, it ebbs and flows depending on the personalities involved” (Fitzgerald, 2003). The idea of having different personalities altering the way in which a government works for the good or bad is not a new concept. But now media ownership could potentially allow for similar things to take place depending who is in control for good or bad. The workplace for many media producers, writers, editors, operators, directors, journalists, and owners of media is changing, beneficial or not these changes are noted as media ownership takes place in Canadian media.