My Beef With Big Media - Essay Example

Legally, there is nothing that can stop the FTC from creating regulations that reduce or increase the power of individual media providers. The FTC simply has to give a new ruling to create a new regulation that can significantly alter the American media-related landscape (CommonCause.org, 2008).

The first ethical concern for DWI is to be utilitarian in its ethics to provide the best possible service to society. However, since society also includes the competitors of the company it would be difficult to apply utilitarian ethics to the company and ethical egoism appears to be a more realistic approach. In this approach, the company has to do what it thinks will be the most beneficial course of action for the stakeholders of the company which includes the investors, the shareholders, the employees as well as the consumer.

One method of doing that would be for the company to maximize its profits which can be done if it controls more of the media in a given location. Companies such as Viacom and Disney are doing exactly the same since it would be profitable for them to control a large share of a given market (Turner, 2004). If DWI is similar in size and market positioning to these companies it should take the same approach as taken by the other large firms and support the plans for allowing one company to control a greater share of the media business in a geographical area.

However, since ethical egoism demands that DWI look out for its own best interest, if DWI does not have a media business as large as Disney or Viacom, it should seek to protect its business interests by going against the plans of the larger companies. In fact, the company should be quite vocal about smaller companies being pushed out of business with giants strong-arming them and also talk to anyone who is willing to listen about the media situation. Further, to prevent the situation from developing, DWI could also bring the attention of the people to the fact that control over the media by a single company would mean that the information sources for the people would be limited and that could lead to misinformation and a disservice to the public at large.

In conclusion, it is certainly not an easy position for DWI to be in since there are issues that have to be understood with regard to how the business could get the maximum benefit while remaining an ethical company and not straying outside the legal guidelines which are applicable. However, the business reasons for supporting or going against the demands of the larger companies should guide the ethical principles under which DWI is supposed to operate because ethical egoism is the best way for DWI to make ethical decisions.