Day: March 25, 2022

What You Should Know About Media Consolidation

As consumers of various media, have you ever questioned who owns most of the media you come across? With some quick research, you will be able to learn that a lot of the media companies you know belong to the same group of media owners. This phenomenon of media companies falling into the control of fewer individuals and organizations is known as Media Consolidation. We also call it Media Conglomeration or Concentration of Media Ownership. Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, and Paramount Pictures are the largest media conglomerates in the world today.

The media industry can be a monopolistic or oligopolistic structure. If it is a monopoly, a single firm dominates a particular industry. Microsoft had an antitrust suit filed against it in 1998, accusing it of monopolistic practices that made it very difficult for users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use any other browser on their computer, monopolizing the personal computer market. Google has also faced lawsuits against its monopoly over all other search engines. Oligopoly, on the other hand, refers to a few firms dominating an industry. When a few firms control the media industry with large-scale companies getting rid of competitors by buying or forcing them out, it is known as media oligopoly. In such an industry structure, a lot of mergers occur. When a media company buys out another company for control of their resources to increase revenue and viewership, it is a media merger.

Many consider the increasing media consolidation to be a threat to media pluralism. As media ownership gets concentrated, it reduces the plurality of political, social and cultural points of view. A lot of these commercially-driven media care more about their advertisers than their viewers. Their focus tends to be on facilitating maximum profits than on public affairs or true journalism. In a lot of cases, powerful corporations have a great influence on mainstream media. In fact, many multinational corporations own media outlets and stations. These media outlets can be greatly affected by various corporate interests. Large media houses also come under attack for their biased political views. Media companies may act biased towards particular political parties and it can affect the content they show the viewers. They may choose to omit or not cover stories and events that can offend their political views, advertisers or owners. This means that there are less diverse voices and opinions available in the media for the general public. The concentration of media ownership thus opposes the opportunity of citizens to make an informed decision and provides fewer opportunities for minorities and others to voice out their opinions.

The well-known American multinational company, Disney or The Walt Disney Company, is one of the largest conglomerates, owning numerous film studios (Walt Disney Pictures and Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Studios), broadcasting networks (ABC Network, Disney Channel, ESPN, National Geographic, FX), streaming services (Disney+, Star+, ESPN+, Hotstar, Hulu), publishing, merchandising, music and theme parks.

In India, Zee Entertainment Enterprises is a large media conglomerate, operating 45 channels worldwide. Its subsidiaries include the film production and distribution studio, Zee Studios, the music label, Zee Music, the news and regional entertainment channel, Zee News, and a Spanish-language Bollywood film channel targeting Latin America, Zee Munda. The company merged with Sony Pictures Network India in September 2021, which itself is a subsidiary of the mass media conglomerate, Sony Pictures Entertainment.     

Disney and its subsidiaries

    

How International Exchange of Rate Decided

 The relative price of a country’s currency, that is its exchange rate, is the protagonist in debates on international spillovers of monetary policy and international trade competitiveness. Yet, the popular discourse on how exchange rate fluctuations impact inflation and trade is often quite simplistic. An exchange rate depreciation is perceived to be inflationary as the price of imported goods rise, and is perceived to improve a country’s trade balance as it becomes more competitive. What appears to be absent is a systematic notion of why inflation in some countries may be more sensitive to exchange rate fluctuations than others.

 The International Price System (IPS) has several implications for monetary policy and for the international spillovers of monetary policy. Firstly, it has positive implications for inflation stabilization. The IPS implies that inflation stabilization in response to exchange rate fluctuations (that arise from external shocks) is a smaller concern for the U.S. as compared to countries like Turkey. Using input-output tables to measure the import content of consumer goods expenditure5 I estimate the direct impact of a 10% dollar depreciation to cumulatively raise U.S. CPI inflation overtwoyearsby0.4-0.7percentagepoints.6 Ontheotherhanda10%depreciationoftheTurkish Lira will raise cumulative inflation by 1.65-2.03 percentage points. See how prices of coins like Lebanese lira rate is affected in the international market. 

As the U.S. considers raising interest rates one concern often expressed is the consequence of the dollar appreciation on inflation. According to the IPS moderate dollar appreciations are unlikely to generate major disinflationary concerns for the U.S. but important inflationary concerns for a country like Turkey as its currency depreciates relative to the dollar.

On the flip side, dampening (raising) inflation to meet targets via contractionary (expansion- ary) monetary policy receives much less support from the exchange range channel for the U.S. than it does for Turkey.

The nominal exchange rate is the rate at which currency can be exchanged. If the nominal exchange rate between the dollar and the lira is 1600, then one dollar will purchase 1600 lira. Exchange rates are always represented in terms of the amount of foreign currency that can be purchased for one unit of domestic currency. Thus, we determine the nominal exchange rate by identifying the amount of foreign currency that can be purchased for one unit of domestic currency.

The real exchange rate is a bit more complicated than the nominal exchange rate. While the nominal exchange rate tells how much foreign currency can be exchanged for a unit of domestic currency, the real exchange rate tells how much the goods and services in the domestic country can be exchanged for the goods and services in a foreign country. The real exchange rate is represented by the following equation: real exchange rate = (nominal exchange rate X domestic price) / (foreign price). 

Full text: Dubliners

Let’s say that we want to determine the real exchange rate for wine between the US and Italy. We know that the nominal exchange rate between these countries is 1600 lira per dollar. We also know that the price of wine in Italy is 3000 lira and the price of wine in the US is $6. Remember that we are attempting to compare equivalent types of wine in this example. In this case, we begin with the equation for the real exchange rate of real exchange rate = (nominal exchange rate X domestic price) / (foreign price). Substituting in the numbers from above gives real exchange rate = (1600 X $6) / 3000 lira = 3.2 bottles of Italian wine per bottle of American wine.

By using both the nominal exchange rate and the real exchange rate, we can deduce important information about the relative cost of living in two countries. While a high nominal exchange rate may create the false impression that a unit of domestic currency will be able to purchase many foreign goods, in reality, only a high real exchange rate justifies this assumption.

Net Exports and the Real Exchange Rate

An important relationship exists between net exports and the real exchange rate within a country. When the real exchange rate is high, the relative price of goods at home is higher than the relative price of goods abroad. In this case, import is likely because foreign goods are cheaper, in real terms, than domestic goods. Thus, when the real exchange rate is high, net exports decrease as imports rise. Alternatively, when the real exchange rate is low, net exports increase as exports rise. 

The International Fisher Effect (IFE) states that the difference between the nominal interest rates in two countries is directly proportional to the changes in the exchange rate of their currencies at any given time. Irving Fisher, a U.S. economist, developed the theory.

 

International Fisher Effect (IFE) Theme

 

The International Fisher Effect is based on current and future nominal interest rates, and it is used to predict spot and future currency movements. The IFE is in contrast to other methods that use pure inflation to try to predict and understand movements in the exchange rate.

 

How the International Fisher Effect was Conceptualized

The International Fisher Effect theory was recognized on the basis that interest rates are independent of other monetary variables and that they provide a strong indication of how the currency of a specific country is performing. According to Fisher, changes in inflation do not impact real interest rates, since the real interest rate is simply the nominal rate minus inflation.

The theory assumes that a country with lower interest rates will see lower levels of inflation, which will translate to an increase in the real value of the country’s currency in comparison to another country’s currency. When interest rates are high, there will be higher levels of inflation, which will result in the depreciation of the country’s currency.

Nana Dharmadhikari: Indian spiritual Guru

The name of Nana Dharmadhikari is Dr. Narayan Vishnu Dharmadhikari. He born in Raigad in 1 March 1922. Nana is the social reformer. He initiated a free social service of spiritual literature from Revdanda , Raigad district, Maharashtra. He has million followers across the world.

Since childhood he read and studied Shrimat Dasbodh (simply called as Dasbodh). After a several years he started social reform by speech (called Nirupan). He founded an organisation named shree samarth prasadik Aadhyatmik seva samiti. Through this he spent his entire life for spreading the philosophy of Saint Samarth Ramdas. Samarth Ramdas is writers of devotional book Dasbodh, Manache Shlok and Atmaram. Nana gives Nirupan on Dasbodh. He also started this reform for children called Balbhakti Margadarshan. Nana also done lots of social work on cleaning area and tree plantation as well.

Nana Dharmadhikari got an National Integration Award by seroc India in 1999. The doctor of literature in 2004. And Maharashtra Bhushan Award in 2008. Today such service called parmarth is present in several Nations such as UAE, London, Singapore, Australia, Nigeria, Iran and so on.

Nana receiving award

Nana Dharmadhikari died on 8 July 2008 in Pune, Maharashtra. He spent his all life for social reform by spiritual literature. Nana helps in solving the people issue through correct guidance,he also resolved superstitions in society and literate people through his speech.