I analyse control of the media in China, the USA, and the UK
Growing up between the UK, the US, and China has shown me just how differently media systems can function. It has also shown me how similarly they can concentrate power. From the BBC’s impartial tone to the hyper-commercial US networks and the tightly controlled Chinese press, each system claims to serve its people. This was something I never really thought about until I had to switch between them. One day watching BBC headlines, the next being shocked at how filtered or commercialised things felt in a different country.
But if I look closer I see it’s clear that whether under market logic or state control, access to diverse, independent media is rarely as democratic as it seems.
In the UK the BBC is underpinned by a public service ethos. See BBC’s mission statament. Funded by licence payers rather than advertising, the BBC is mandated to educate, inform, and entertain, free from commercial pressures. It represents a model that, in theory, resists market dominance. But commercial influence still permeates British media. Outlets like ITV, Channel 4 (despite its public ownership), and most newspapers are heavily reliant on advertising revenue or billionaire ownership, whether it be the Daily Mail group or Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. According to Gillian Doyle
the UK’s media landscape operates within a commercial ecosystem that pressures even public service broadcasters to chase ratings.
Gillian Doyle
Contrast this with the United States, where commercial media reigns. Most major outlets, NBC, CNN, Fox News, are owned by multinational corporations like Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery, or Fox Corporation. Here, the media is a product, and the audience is the commodity. As Hesmondhalgh (2013) notes,
such systems are driven by profit and shareholder interest rather than public good.
David Hesmondhalgh
Even supposedly neutral platforms like NPR rely on a mix of government funding and corporate sponsorship, a blurred line between public service and market dependence.
Then there’s China, where media is overtly state-controlled. News organisations are required to follow party narratives, and censorship shapes everything from what can be reported to what trends on social media. The media acts as facet of state power and is the opposite of the free press ideal. However, platforms like Weibo and WeChat are also monetarily driven, creating a paradox where corporations and governments work together to shape public discourse.
Seeing and understanding that overlap felt uncomfortable and eerie, and being a part of it felt even stanger. I remember a time where a televised BBC news report on Tianamen Square was blocked midway through, showing a blank screen. I was lucky at that point that I could use a VPN to surpass this control.
It’s a reminder that centralised power, whether corporate or political, often leads to similar outcomes: restricted access and limited critical scrutiny. Narratives are heavily curated as well. That’s what surprised me the most, how the end result, no matter what country, often felt the same. Even if the control came from different places, what I was allowed to see was still shaped by someone else’s agenda.
While the UK may not have state-run media in the Chinese sense, and the US may not openly suppress speech like authoritarian regimes, all three systems struggle with concentrated control. As Doyle (2002) argues,
media pluralism is often compromised when ownership is concentrated, regardless of the system’s political orientation.
Gillian Doyle
This comparison shows that it’s too simple to just say media is either “free” or “controlled.” UK media may emphasise balance and neutrality, but the dominance of a few media conglomerates still limits diversity. The US media operates in a “free market,” yet the content is filtered through corporate interest. And in China, where the state directly controls content there is an awkward overlap with commercial platforms. All of this may have not been clear to me then, but it sure is now.
In all three cases, the public is often presented with an edited version of reality, shaped by whoever holds the power. And the question isn’t just who owns the media, but who benefits from the current system. I don’t feel I do, but upon further research, I’m sure that thought would change.