Rupert Murdoch and the Uk Press

1282 Words6 Pages
To what extent can we understand the content of Murdoch’s UK newspapers by analysis of his economic interests, and what do you think of his contribution to the UK press? Malcolm X once said: “The Media is the most powerful entity on earth”. He explained that the industry has so much power for it “controls the minds of the masses”. The Murdoch Empire, arguably the most powerful kingdom in the media industry, is a good example of how one man’s ownership of countless media publications can be seen as abusive, forceful and even somewhat dictatorial. Rupert Murdoch, the founder, chairman and CEO of one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, News Corporation, owns 34% of the UK newspaper market, therefore widely contributing to the UK Press. As Murdoch’s newspapers are of the most read in the country it is not a surprise that his own personal judgements have been seen to wriggle their way into many an article. By analysing Murdoch’s economic and political interests we can evaluate how this has impacted the content of his newspapers and ultimately our understanding of them. The UK’s most popular tabloid newspaper the Sun owned by Rupert Murdoch was reported to attain a circulation of 2, 512, 170 from May to October 2012. This figure is almost three times the circulation of the Daily Telegraph (the UK’s most popular broadsheet), suggesting the Sun is the most read newspaper in Britain. Taking this into consideration, Murdoch is likely to publish articles in the Sun that incorporate his own ideologies because of the extraordinary influence it exerts. A firm example of this was in 1999 when the Chinese President Jiang visited the UK. The Sun’s report on the visit, as well as all of Murdoch’s press, completely neglected stories of the democratic protests held in London relating to the violations of religious freedom for Chinese citizens. The reason for these
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