The Influence of Ownership on the Valence of Media Content:
The Case of Movie Reviews
Working Paper #27, Summer 2003
Gabriel Rossman
Department of Sociology,
Princeton University
ABSTRACT
Theories of political economy often argue that corporate
ownership of the mass media biases its content and furthers
capitalist hegemony. Previous studies have not disentangled the
effect of ownership from other factors such as advertising or
ideology. Furthermore previous studies have relied on content
analysis, which introduces an element of measurement error. This
paper shows that contrary to expectations derived from the
literature, publications do not give especially generous reviews
to films distributed by their corporate parents, suggesting that
ownership may not be a major source of valence bias. This
paper is not available for download. Please contact the author for
a copy--
rossman@princeton.edu. |