Centralization of the Content Industry

Following the 1980s a sweeping restructuring of commercial media power has happened. While some firms have grown through expansion others extended through mergers and acquisitions. Examples are Time & Warner & Turner & AOL; Viacom & Paramount & Blockbusters or News Corp. & Triangle & 20th Century Fox & Metromedia TV.

In recent years those developments have led to the rise of transnational media giants, resulting in the domination of the global media system by about ten huge conglomerates. These have interests in numerous media industries, ranging from film production, magazines, newspapers, book publishing and recorded music to TV and radio channels and networks, but also include retail stores, amusement parks and digital media products.

Behind these firms are about three or four dozen smaller media companies, which primarily engage in local, national or niche markets. In short, the overwhelming majority of the world's content production facilities and distribution channels lies in the hands of approximately fifty enterprises.

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Automation

Automation is concerned with the application of machines to tasks once performed by humans or, increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Although the term mechanization is often used to refer to the simple replacement of human labor by machines, automation generally implies the integration of machines into a self-governing system. Automation has revolutionized those areas in which it has been introduced, and there is scarcely an aspect of modern life that has been unaffected by it. Nearly all industrial installations of automation, and in particular robotics, involve a replacement of human labor by an automated system. Therefore, one of the direct effects of automation in factory operations is the dislocation of human labor from the workplace. The long-term effects of automation on employment and unemployment rates are debatable. Most studies in this area have been controversial and inconclusive. As of the early 1990s, there were fewer than 100,000 robots installed in American factories, compared with a total work force of more than 100 million persons, about 20 million of whom work in factories.

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