Media ownership and concentration has major implications for politics, business, culture, regulation, and innovation. It is also a highly contentious subject of public debate in many countries around the world. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's companies have dominated Italian politics. Televisa has been accused of taking cash for positive coverage of politicians in Mexico. Even in tiny Iceland, the regulation of media concentration led to that country's first and only public referendum. Who Owns the World's Media? moves beyond the rhetoric of free media and free markets to provide a dispassionate and data-driven analysis of global media ownership trends and their drivers. Based on an extensive data collection effort from scholars around the world, the book covers thirteen media industries, including television, newspapers, book publishing, film, search engines, ISPs, wireless telecommunication and others, across a ten to twenty-five year period in thirty countries. In many countries--like Egypt, China, or Russia--little to no data exists and the publication of these chapters will become authoritative resources on the subject in those regions. After examining each country, Noam and his collaborators offer comparisons and analysis across industries, regions, and development levels. They also calculate overall national concentration trends beyond specific media industries, the market share of individual companies in the overall national media sector, and the size and trends of transnational companies in overall global media. This definitive global study of the extent and impact of media concentration will be an invaluable resource for communications, public policy, law, and business scholars in doing research and also for media, telecom, and IT companies and financial institutions in the private sector.

Over the last several years, the value of stocks in both the airline and the telecommunications industries have dropped catastrophically. Since these industries were among the most important --and most visible --to have been unleashed from regulation in recent decades (albeit in widely differing degree), their difficulties have raised the question of whether their deregulation should be reconsidered or even reversed.Alfred E. Kahn, one of the foremost authorities on deregulation, argues in this book that every passing year demonstrates the superiority of the road chosen for the airlines. He contrasts the financial meltdowns of both the airline and telecommunications industries with others taking place at the same time, particularly in technology-related stocks and "dot.coms," pointing out that these sectors were also relatively free of direct economic regulation. Their experience provides a useful counter to the natural tendency to blame all the woes of aviation and telecommunications on government policy.This book provides a valuable and accessible guide to unraveling the complex world of network deregulation. It will serve as a reference point for practioners and policymakers, as well as an important introduction for the general public.