Host: The Society of Socio-Informatics
Pages 104-108
The debate on the cross-media ownership rules has been focused on excessive influence over public opinion and political agenda. This, however, is far more difficult to define, because it is concerned not only with what is available (e.g. on TV, on the radio and in newspapers), but also what people choose to consume in the increasingly connected online world (e.g. online news by way of aggregator, search engine or social media). Therefore, this is further complicated by the difficulty in defining what constitutes media. Incidentally, in the UK it has been discussed more lively under “What do we mean by media plurality?” in the context of the proposed acquisition of the Sky by Twenty-First Century Fox in 2017. This article examines the current rules on the cross-media ownership in the UK, and then considers the point at issue on this proposed acquisition.
