Who Owns The World? [Eighth Lecture]

It is shocking to know that a small group of people [7%] own 97% of the global wealth. It makes me wonder how limited my information from the media may be, considering the world’s largest companies own so many of the things I watch, read, and hear.

I find it interesting to study Disney. We The Media list Disney as the second highest company in the world by media revenue. It owns ABC, tons of theme parks, State Farm Insurance, Hollywood records, various magazines, newspapers, motion pictures, and a lot of other companies. One of the interesting things about Disney is the fact that one of their motion picture movies can do poorly at the box office, but end up making billions in other revenue streams. Considering Disney can advertise their movies through all their various streams, it is not a surprise Disney does so well.

Theyrule.net is an interesting way to figure out which companies share the same board of directors. One of the first things I noticed was the lack of women on the boards. Many of the people who are a part of multiple companies are men. These are the people who make decision that affect our lives, and there is an obvious lack of equality in all senses. I remember learning a while back that the men who own the world are Christian, heterosexual, white men. No wonder minorities continue to be underrepresented in the media.

For fun, I decided to search McDonalds. I am not a fan of McDonalds and do not eat their food. Who exactly is joined with McDonalds, however? For starters, Mattel, which makes children’s toys. Not so surprising. It is even possible that the McDonalds kids meal toys are based on what is popular with Mattel. I also found Nike. I find this humorous, just because the fast food industry is what I believe to be one of the causes of obesity, and Nike is an athletic clothing and accessories company.

Works Cited:
Hazen, Don and Winokur, Julie. We The Media - A Citizen's Guide to Fighting for Media Democrazy. New York: The New Press, 1997.