Having the media controlled by roughly 20 or so megacorporations has clearly had a deleterious effect -- lessening competition, squelching dissent, choking off debate, and elevating profit over the public good.
By combining HuffPost with AOL's network of sites, thriving video initiative, local focus, and international reach, we know we'll be creating a company that can have an enormous impact, reaching a global audience on every imaginable platform.
Arianna Huffington, in The Huffington Post, February 7, 2011, announcing its acquisition by AOL.
Kara Swisher (from All Things Digital) provided an interesting analysis of this merger both on NPR and in this article. She touched on the struggle for media companies to attract their audiences with the following quote:
ReplyDelete"Swisher says the problem facing media companies nowadays is that "young people don't go to destination websites any more - they 'snack' all over the place" and firms have to find ways to feed that hunger."