Investigating the Relationship between Media Ownership and Editorial Content: A Study on the Influence of Corporate Interests on Journalism

Abstract

from business models to existential fears regarding their relevance. However, once these challenges are addressed, the question remains: What truth should journalism pursue? What is the purpose of journalism? Does journalism serve the public interest or does it rather serve the short- to long-time interests of private corporations?

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between media ownership and the editorial content produced by that medium. More specifically, it investigates how bias or slant is affected by the structural or financial interests and affiliations of the media investigated. This is done through the analysis of three newspapers, two of which are controlled by the same group of media and belong to the same financial conglomerate, while the third is owned by a different group. Consequentially, the editorial content published by these newspapers is put together regarding its treatment toward the Bihar general election.

The objective is to examine the similarities and differences in the prevalence and enforcement of prevailing normative standards of journalism across different media of news production, and how adherence to such standards links to media ownership types. Such variation is likely to result in different news representations of issues, events and groups in society, and possibly a different uptake of news among the public. In this study, ownership types are treated as variations of broader civic/social missions of media.