The Political Economy of the Mass Media

In The Political Economy of the Mass Media, it discusses how the newspaper was a huge seller. "The cost of establishing a national weekly on a profitable basis in 1837 was under a thousand pounds, with a break-even circulation of 6,200 copies". The start up cost for the new London daily in 1867 was 50,000 pounds. The United States was doing this process as well. The start up cost for a newspaper in New York City was 69,000 in 1851. "Even small-newspaper publishing is big business". In the late 1980's , 1500 daily newspapers, 9,000 radio and 1,500 t.v stations and 11,000 magazines in the United States. Another big part in the world was the use of the technology of television."Centralization within the top tier was substanially incresed by the post- World War II rise of the television and the national networking of this important medium". It provided national and international news. The television was now considered to be the most reliable source for any news to the public. I think that media has a huge effect on our lives today. The media is talked about in our daily lifes, most people watch television or read a daily newspaper. The news is on all the time, for example if you want to hear any news especially things going on in Iraq you can just flip to CNN. The news is also on at least three times a day on NBC, FOX, UPN,WPIX, ETC... The television and newspaper are part of our daily lifes today. When we watch the television it is not unusal to flip through and see the news, or to get the daily newspaper without being able to escape the realtity of war, terror and crime.