Maria Cernat: Today it is easier to criticize Liviu Dragnea than Coca-Cola

Video from Maria Cernat`s presentation about the danger of concentration of media ownership

Why is it easier to criticise Dragnea in Romania than to criticise some corporation, such as Coca-Cola? Maria Cernat – lector Phd in the Department for Communication and Public Relations of the Titu Maiorescu University answers, presenting her report on „Economic censorship and concentration of capital on the market of information“. The presentation was made as part of the conference „Massmedia and democracy“, which took place on 6th Noveber 2018 in the Hyperion University in Bucharest.

Maria Cernat speaks about how deregulation led to the concentration of media ownership in the USA, so that as of 2011 six corporations held 90% of the media sector. The researcher is convinced that Romanians have not only the right, but the obligation to criticise the dangerous tenedencies, which influence media in the West – even though Romania has made the strategic choice to be part of the West. Such criticisim is being made in the USA, as it could be seen in Cernat`s interview with the present councellor of the directors of CNN and professor emeritus at the University of Georgia David Hazinski. Maria Cernat attracts the attention upon the fact that while we condemn political censorship from the times of socialism, today through the means of the „free“ market another censorship – the economic one, threatens media space. The reason is simple – media depend ever more on advertisement income, and big corporations are the entities, which give money for commericals.

The blog „Bridge of Friedship“ represents the discourse of Maria Cernat with subtitles in English. It can be seen here:

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