MEDIA OWNERSHIP:CONTROL IN DIGITAL AGE

                Media Ownership: Control  In  digital Age

Ownership and control of media before the digital age in Nigeria is mainly centralized ,public or private ownership, that is ownership by the Federal and State government and few individuals or group of people .In the digital age ,ownership is mainly deregulated.

According to section 39, sub-section (2) of the 1999 constitution. Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) of this  section, every person shall be entitled to own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions provided that no person, other than the government of the federation or of a state or any other person or body authorized by the president on the fulfillment of conditions  laid down by an act of the National Assembly, shall own establish or operate a television  or wireless broadcasting station for any purpose whatsoever.

This clause is to re-echo the control of the government over certain media. It puts other media outlets (Radio and Television) excluding print, under the exclusive preserve of the Federal and State government and the power to control ownership of it in the president.

The Nigeria Broadcasting commission is the organization entrusted with the onerous task of discharging this responsibility of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Government ownership.

The “New Nigeria ‘’ established in 1966 is an example of 100%  owned by Federal Government news media  in Nigeria while “Daily Times’’ represents an example of the second category of Federal Government ownership.

The Federal Government  of Nigeria finances and as such possesses the Nigeria Television Authority (N.T.A) and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria otherwise referred to as Radio Nigeria. Federal government also owns Voice of Nigeria (VON).

The “Statesman’’, “The Voice’’ and the Ogun State Television are good examples of state owned Media financed by a single state. While “The Voice’’is financed by Benue State, Ogun State Television (OGTV)  is financed by the Ogun State Government.

                                                   PRIVATE  OWNERSHIP    

          An individual or a corperate  body or a group of persons should own a medium for purpose of disseminating information and have the controlling share if not total financial control over the running of the medium. “Nation Concord”, “The Guardian’’ are examples of media organization funded by single individuals Late Chief M.K.O.Abiola funded the concord as Alex Ibru funds “The Guardian’’.        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      MASS  MEDIA  CONTROL                                                                                                                     According to the Webster’s Third News International Dictionary, Control is defined as the “application of policies and procedures for directing, regulating  and  coordinating  production, administration and other business  acvtivities  in a way to achieve the objective of the enterprise’’     

      In relation to the mass media of communication, control means lack of freedom from’’ most proprietoral, legal and economic  instructions as to what should be  the editoral contents of the media. This lack of freedom from emanates from “regulations direction and coordination of production of editorial matters’’ by forces outside news processing enclave.

     Media Control takes either managerial or editorial form. Editorial controls is the professional prerogative of the editor. The phrase describes a situation where the editor, as the “gate keeper’’, controls the contents of the medium. He choose between “in and out’’ and is consequently responsible for either relaying or suppressing truths.

    Managerial Control is operative where the proprietor dictates policies, overseas  administration  and consequently controls the media either directly or indirectly through the appointment of family relations or loyalists for the running of organization. Media control boils down to three levels. That is, government control, advertisers control and proprietorial control.

    The government is involved in the news media ownership for various purposes most important of which is to establish a mouth organ for itself. It therefore direct and controls such media to suit its purposes.   

   To be realistic, a private proprietor  has a purpose for setting up the business, It could be either to make profit, to wield influence, to enhance his popularity or to further his political ambition. Whatever this motive is for setting up the business, it should be guided properly if he wants to achieve his aim. Definitely his first major assignment will be to control and direct the business towards achieving  this objectives.

                       COMPARATION  OF  TALKS  SHOW IN  TWO RADIO STATIONS                               

     I would like to analyze the programming of Eko Radio FM 107.5 and the radio one FM 103.5. These two radio Stations have large listeners in Lagos State.                                                                                            Eko Radio is an indigenous Station where programmes are conducted in Yoruba and some Egun and Awori dialects. The only time English is spoken is during news broadcasts.    

  The other Radio Station is the Radio one FM 103.5 which combines their programmes in Yoruba and English, it also network with Radio Nigeria for news broadcasts.

Radio one call-in programmes are often conducted in English Language and dealt with serious issues that concerned the masses like electricity, when police have the right to shoot at a suspect and so on.

The audience called in to express their opinions and they were enlightened.

 Radio Lagos call- in programmes  are  always conducted in Yoruba and dealt with trivial but interesting, informative and educative topics. For example, The First Son of the husband got the daughter of the father’s third wife pregnant, although the daughter belong to the ex-husband of the step mother of the son. Then audience call-in to express their opinions.

                 MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL IN THE DIGITAL AGE.

According to Ton Temmy (October 20,2010), the strengthening of right Laws benefiting corporate media creators, as well as government restrictions on technology, have created a situation in which government is still in control of the creation and distribution of content.

Additionally, corporate media producers have engaged in practices of aggressively persecuting fans and citizen producers over intellectual property rights-forcing fan website to be shutdown, and litigating against consumers who share and remix media.

There are two ways to consider ownership of media today: Ownership of content and ownership of media organizations. For the former, the concept of content as property depends on metaphors we use to describe it, and it’s  important to take a look at the history of copyright before we examine how it has been transformed in the 20^th century by metaphors of physical property.   

With the rise of interactive and media sharing technologies, consumers can easily appropriate media created by corporate producers and use it to create transformative works that are critiques or commentary on the original, and that make potentially subversive statements about our culture. While corporations may still control the output of content, their grip on its distribution and how that content is “read’’ is diminishing.

While such transformative use is legally protected under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law, the usual result of corporate litigation of individuals is that the consumer, due to the inability to pay legal costs, will back down and the litigator  will have won by default.

Ownership of content and ownership of the media organizations. Due to the fact that internet or websites have created opportunities for every Dick and Harry to own a space or more in the internet unencumbered by licensing or regulations, media ownership is no longer a big deal on the internet. However, care must be taken in terms of contents.    

 In a networked society where information can so freely be copied and distributed, large news organizations are facing a crisis of ownership. 

 Thus, when considering corporate ownership of media organizations themselves, It is useful to look at news organizations and the economic troubles they are currently facing, largely due to the ubiquity of free news enabled by interactive distribution technologies. Such as those opposed to Net neutrality who would allow corporations to become the gatekeepers of content.

According to Keiyana Fordhan, there are three ways interactive technologies have disrupted the news: (1) They can freely distribute news at zero cost; (2) They have greatly increased competition since anyone can distribute news; (3) They have changed consumer behavior so that buyers and sellers can connect directly, making advertisers increasingly irrelevant.

                These disruption have forced corporate news producers to not only reexamine their business models, but also to file suit against aggregators, and search engines as a first line of defense. Aggregators like yahoo News argue that what they do, i.e. exerting headlines and linking back to the source, is fair use,and should be protected (1980-1981).In 2006 Field v.Google a federal district court upheld Google’s claim to fair use, citing the enormous public benefit that search engines offer.

 Thus, it remains unclear where lines of ownership can be drawn, and news organizations continue to fight for control of their content, the loss of which threatens to obviate their businesses.

                In conclusion, today, the internet, which is available to private citizens with a computer and a connection, is one of the primary ways that information and media is distributed. It can be likened to telephone lines, which are free for all to use. When AT&T, in the mid-20^th century, attempt to place a ban on technologies that utilized this network in a nondestructive manner. This ban was overturned in 1968 and paved the way for devices like modem, without which the internet never would have come about. (B.Nerman272)Now, in the 21^st century, there are lobbies to place the same type of bans and restriction on internet, such as those opposed to net neutrality who would  allow corporations to become the gatekeepers of contents.
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