Embedded Files
Co-founded and co-directed by Shawna Kidman and Andrew deWaard, the MACRO Lab is a scholarly community, research lab, and online resource about media ownership for instructors, students, journalists, regulators, and citizens.
Two to four corporations dominate in each media sector, limiting the diversity and democratic potential of cultural production. Yet, access to data that reveals this state of affairs is limited—safeguarded by institutions that use various means to hamper public awareness. MACRO Lab thus aims to provide accessible, critical materials and data about media consolidation, financialization, and operations. We create space for envisioning an alternative media system that is more just, equitable, and democratically accountable. Currently, our research is a collection of data visualizations that demonstrate historical trends in media, such as ownership, market share, financial metrics, labor, originality, and inequality. Our approach is to privilege the analysis of diversity, by bringing attention to the underlying structures that shut out a variety of voices; history, by fostering an empirical understanding of media production, circulation, and ownership; complexity, by unravelling the intricacies of labyrinthine media system resistant to transparency; and power, by challenging media consolidation and corporate strategies that fail both workers and the public.
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