How Media Ownership Matters with Rodney Benson
- Annenberg School for Communication
- Room 500
The Media, Inequality & Change Center will be joined by NYU professor Rodney Benson to discuss his book How Media Ownership Matters.
In his newest publication, How Media Ownership Matters, Rodney Benson offers a new theoretical understanding of media ownership that goes beyond the usual focus on concentration and moguls. Through a comparative analysis of more than 50 news outlets in the US, Sweden, and France, the book shows how four ownership forms—market, private, civil society, and public—each shape the news in civically consequential ways. Interacting with funding models and target audiences, these forms affect the degree to which coverage is oriented toward public service, partisanship, or the promotion of owners’ economic interests.
About the Speaker
Rodney Benson is a Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He is the lead author of How Media Ownership Matters (Oxford, 2025; with Mattias Hessérus, Timothy Neff, and Julie Sedel) and the author of Shaping Immigration News: A French-American Comparison (Cambridge, 2013; French translation, 2018), winner of the 2020 Doris Graber American Political Science Association Award for the Best Book of the Decade in Political Communication. He is also the editor of Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field (Polity 2005; Chinese translation 2017). He has published articles in the American Sociological Review, Journal of Communication, American Behavioral Scientist, Political Communication, Journalism, and the International Journal of Press/Politics, among other leading academic journals. His research and commentary have also been featured in media outlets including Le Monde Diplomatique, The Conversation, The Atlantic, NiemanLab, Axios, Columbia Journalism Review, Le Monde, and Al Jazeera English. Benson holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California-Berkeley.
Events
View AllDisclaimer: This event may be photographed and/or video recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. We also may share these video recordings through Annenberg's website or related platforms. Certain events may also be livestreamed. By attending or participating in this event, you are giving your consent to be photographed and/or video recorded and you are waiving any and all claims regarding the use of your image by the Annenberg School for Communication. The Annenberg School for Communication, at its discretion, may provide a copy of the photos/footage upon written request.