The document discusses media ownership, highlighting various types such as government, private, joint, and party ownership, along with their implications on editorial content. It also addresses how mass media is controlled through legal regulations, advertising influence, and proprietorial pressures. Each ownership type and control mechanism significantly affects media operations and the narratives presented to the public.

1. 4.5. Media Ownership and Control
4.5.1. Media Ownership
• Ownership of the media is the paternity or
possession of a medium of
communication. Paternity here means the act of
owning. This paternity may evolve as a result of
partial or total financing of a medium either by an
individual, an organization or a government.
• There are different types of ownership as follows:
Government, Private, Joint and Party ownership.

2. A) Government Ownership
• The government is in charge of the funding of
the media organization or has greater control of
the shares.
• The funding of the media could be direct
funding, loans and overdrafts from banks. Where
this is the situation, the editorial contents of such
media are being influenced by the government.
• The effect is that government in one way or the
other will make sure that it determines what may
or may not be published and the medium will
want to toe the line of government.

3. B) Private Ownership
• This could be cross media, chain or corporate
ownership. The owner or body concerned has a
larger share in the funding or it is fully owned by
the person or body concerned.
• For the electronic media since 1992 the National
Broadcasting Commission was set up under an Act
of the National Assembly No. 38 of 1992 to give
licenses to private individuals to own the electronic
media.
• Private ownership has the merit of giving the media
the opportunity or freedom to criticize the ills
noticed in the government unlike the ones owned by
the government.

4. C) Chain Ownership: In chain ownership,
newspaper houses or radio stations are owned by
one person. In order words, a particular person or
group of persons possess a particular type of media
like the radio stations owned by one person or
group.
D) Cross Media Ownership: The inference here is
that both broadcast and print media are owned by
an individual or group at the same time. A best
description of this pattern of ownership would be
for an organization to own newspapers and
television at the same time or newspaper and radio
or the combination of the three.

5. E) Conglomerate: This is a situation whereby an
owner of a media organization runs other types of
business. The media so owned will try to “cover”
issues affecting other business branches of the
business of the owner.
F) Joint Ownership: This means that the
government and individuals jointly owns it. There
is equal partnership between the government and
individual. The two parties finance the medium.
G) Party Ownership: This is the ownership of a
media by the political party. The party funds it and
therefore controls it. It could be owned by the
contesting parties. So, the parties’ interests
influence the content of their publication. There is
party ownership in a democratic multi party state
and party ownership in a socialist one party state.

6. 4.5.2 Mass Media Control
• The control of mass media means the checks
and controls of the media which is based on
legal demands, the influence of proprietors,
restrictions on what to publish or what not to
publish, observance of the regulatory bodies’
stipulations, etc.
• This control to a great extent affect what their
editorial contents should eventually be.

7. I) Government Control
• Government controls the media through laws
established to regulate their activities. When
the media offends the law, they can be charged
with the stipulated punishment.
• Where government finances the media
completely, control in that case will be very
easy. In this case, government control the media
through imposing higher taxes, applying the
media law.

8. II) Advertisers’ Control
• Due to media organizations need money from
the advertisers to sustain their medium, they are
controlled directly or indirectly by the
advertisers.
• They give preference to the advertisers in order
to continue to get money from them and stay in
business by so doing. Their economic situations
are also advertized even when the medium may
have another thing to advertize. The newspaper
and other media people need advertisers’
patronage so much

9. III) Private Media Proprietors’ Control
• The proprietors exert control over their editors
and other staff. Proprietors have been known to
demand self-censorship by their editors. The
proprietors expect those working in their media
organizations to understand and protect their
interests.
• The members of staff (editors in particular) are
expected to make sure that they do not write
stories that will be unfavorable to proprietors,
their friends, etc