Monopolies and Mass Media

There are lots of gadgets out in the world these days. Many of them are made by Apple, Inc., which was owned by Steve Jobs up until his death. The question that is always asked about whether or not Steve Jobs had a monopoly on the media business. It can be pretty easy to say that this could be true in this case. For years now Apple has been producing a number of different products to appeal to the masses such as iMacs and laptops. While they are still in competition in the computer department, in other areas they are dominating. For example, most people who like to listen to music are listening from their iPod. To the best of my knowledge I know only one person who has ever owned a Zune, which was the Microsoft equivalent of an iPod, which was phased out years ago. Because of this, there isn’t much of a variety in the mp3 player market. This results in the Apple products being more expensive because there is not much competition against them. For this reason it can be said the Steve Jobs was a monopolist.

Mass media is a business in itself. Basic theories and economics shows that mass media should be making profits. One of the main ways that mass media makes a profit is through the law of supply and demand. This law states that cost savings caused by economics of scale can be passed down to the customers. This results in more of the product being made, which makes more people by the product, causing a spiral effect of profits and supply and demand.
There are other ways that mass media can make profits. For example, in many commercials these days use songs that were written and copyright by a certain music artist. The artist receives a copyright royalty fee in exchange for them to use their song. This is only one of many different ways to make money, including advertising and syndication. It is important for the mass media to make profits because it helps keep the mass media running.