Rough essay draft

There is no question that the development of new technology throughout the the 2oth century, and the early stages of the 21st, have significantly impacted on every facet of life in western societies. Aside from the obvious impacts at a day to day level, the development of new communications has had a considerable effect on the changing methods that media outlets use to broadcast and narrowcast news and current affairs to the public. The abolishment of Australia's cross media ownership laws are providing increasing opportunities for media moguls with monopolistic agendas to dominate not only existing mediums, but to gain a stranglehold on new and increasingly popular communication technologies. Blogging and internet news sites, once forums for unbiased ( or at least honest) opinion, are now the becoming the domain of the the very companies that dominate traditional sources of broadcast media. This trend is compromising the single most important fuction that media has in a democracy, to offer objective and unbiased facts to the public so that informed and eductaed desicions can be made. New internet based technologies play an impotant role in this problem, however, they can also play a fundamental role in the solution.

Traditional sources of broadcast mediums in Australia - television, radio and print, have long been the exclusive domain of a small number of companies ( find reference) . Cross Media laws, created during the Keating government, restricted the number of media outlets one organisation could own in a specific region. The over-riding argument in favour of the abolishment of the laws rested on the idea that traditional news sources no longer carry the same influence; this reduced influence is credited, in part, to the increased public reliance on internet news sites. However, according to Trish Bolton "online hit rates for News Ltd, Fairfax and ninemsn far outnumber online alternatives" suggesting that while new technologies like internet news sites are indeed increasing in popularity, consumers are accessing news sites provided by the same companies that dominate traditional media. This trend undermines the most signifigant argument that led to the scrapping of the laws - that the development of new, independently run internet news sources was providing a wealth of diversity to the public.