Shark-Like Domination

“Since the mid-1980’s, major media companies had been engaged in a feeding frenzy, swallowing up other media firms to form ever-larger conglomerates."

Croteau and Hoynes use this imagery in the very beginning of their text. Immediately I thought of a media-food chain, where it was “natural” for a bigger company to consume a smaller one. I found the large media giants to be like sharks, considering that sharks are at the top of the aquatic food chain. In nature, there isn’t a controlling force that mediates who can eat whom, much like the how the media giants had little restriction on which companies they may absorb after the elimination of financial interest and syndication laws and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Additionally, sharks have a symbiotic relationship with remora fish, as the two become a team. Remora fish eat the bacteria off of sharks, providing food for the remora and a healthy clean exterior for the shark. There is a comparison easily made between the remora-shark relationship and the synergism between the small companies and the media giants. Croteau and Hoynes say, “Synergy refers to the dynamic where components of a company work together to produce benefits that would be impossible for a single, separately operated unit of the company.”

Media Giants in the Form of Twins

This week’s topic, specifically Croteau and Hoyne’s “The New Media Giants”, explores the fact that many large companies wish to expand and buy more to have greater power in the industry. This made me think of an example of expanding power through advertizing that revolves around the infamous Olsen twins. Love them or hate them they both have marketed themselves from birth, resulting in their multi-million dollar corporations. They have milked their image for everything its worth, from dolls, movies, television, CD’s, Dualstar Pictures, Clothing Lines, Perfume, and even play station games. They have worked hard to preserve their image in front of the screen and even now most of the revenue they make is from behind the scenes. They have begun designing clothes that are affordable and usually appear in stores like JC Penny or Macys. By marketing themselves at such young age they have enabled themselves and their companies to grow astronomically over time. This reminded me of other mass companies that buy out smaller companies to gain more power in the industry but the only difference here is that one is a company and the other is the image of two young girls. I would think that this business world would take a large toll on the lives of these twins because everything they do is watched closely. We also mentioned in class how each company isn’t linked to a specific person so it is a different process to sue, the Olsen twins however are directly linked to their companies and all the blame goes directly to them if they are to be sued. Overall, I find it disturbing to think that these girls have been used for profit from birth.