Week 5: Student Response to Discussion 1 and 2

Running head: CONGLOMERATES AND CORPORATIONS

Conglomerates and Corporations

Barbara Grady

Ashford University

Difference Between Conglomerate and Corporation

Conglomerates refer to the merge between two or more companies, which engaged in completely different business practices all under one corporate group while a corporation refers to a company or a group of individuals all legalized to act as a single entity (Kunz, 2007).

Ethics of allowing large conglomerates to control the mass media

The advantage that comes with this practice is that large content shown in the media will be less government controlled and more people-oriented (Croteau & Hoynes, 2006). People will hence have total control over what they intend to view without any intervention from the government. This leads to another advantage enjoyed by the mass media companies. If it were to deliver to the consumer what they need, large profits will be realized. One disadvantage of this practice, however is that the media house will pay more attention to the needs of their own advertisers, viewers and sponsors. They will air what is most suitable for this group of people (Croteau & Hoynes, 2006).

Alternative Ways of Ensuring Ethical Practices in Media Houses

One way is by disintegrating the conglomerate media houses into single entities. The ones with the most ethical habits will thrive while those with not will ultimately fall. They hence will be forced to engage in ethical practices (Croteau et al., 2012). Doing so will allow the companies to work and thrive through their own sweat to gain recognition, while allowing flourishing of the conglomerates will allow the less resourceful companies to feed off the sweat of more productive companies. This is unethical by all means (Croteau et al., 2012). The above presents an ethical approach to the issue.

References

Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2006). The business of media: corporate media and the public interest. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Pine Forge Press.

Croteau, D., Hoynes, W. & Milan, S. (2012). Media/society: industries, images, and audiences. Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.

Kunz, W. (2007). Culture conglomerates: consolidation in the motion picture and television industries. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.