How Media Ownership Matters

Rodney Benson is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication and Affiliated Faculty in Sociology at New York University. He is the author of Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison, co-author of Public Media and Political Independence, and co-editor of Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field. His theorizing and research on news media ownership, funding, and audiences have appeared in NiemanLab, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Conversation, and leading social scientific journals. Mattias Hessérus is Director of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy and sits on the steering committee of the Engelsberg Applied History Programme at the University of Cambridge and King's College London. Hessérus was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Columbia University and holds a PhD in history from Uppsala University. He is the author of Rätten till privatlivet, a history of the press and privacy in Sweden. Timothy Neff is Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Leicester's School of Arts, Media and Communication. He was a 2019-2020 fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and a 2020-2021 postdoctoral research fellow at the Media, Inequality and Change Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. His research on journalism, democracy, public spheres, and climate change has been published in numerous academic journals. Julie Sedel is Assistant Professor in Sociology and Political Science at the University of Strasbourg. She is the author of Les médias et la banlieue, Dirigeants de médias, and Sociologie des dirigeants de presse, and co-editor of Agir par la parole: Porte-paroles et asymétries de l'espace public. Her current research engages with reconfigurations of journalism, through analysis of feminization, modes of financing, and career trajectories.

List of Figures and Tables

Introduction

1. Ownership's Forms and Modes of Power

2. Media Ownership in Three Democracies

3. Harvesting Profits vs. Investing in News

4. Achieving Sustainability: Funding-Audience Adjustment Strategies

5. Public Service Orientation in Action

6. Political Instrumentalism and Partisan Favorability

7. The Ultimate Taboo: Economic Instrumentalism

Conclusion: How Media Ownership Matters

Acknowledgments

Appendix I: Tables

Appendix II: Methods

Notes

Bibliography

Index