Media concentration in the
hands of a few individuals/tycoons has been noted to have a
negative effect on journalism. Thus, who owns and runs the media matters. This
piece of research went beyond already established patterns like public and
private to examine salient media ownership patterns within these two grand
patterns and to establish the relationship with professionalism in Cameroon.
The study made use of a mixed
methods approach utilising both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Guided
by Altschull’s media ownership theory and
the social responsibility theory of Siebert et al.,
the study found out that beyond private and public media ownership, other salient media ownership patterns exist, such as horizontal ownership (Newspaper 29.3%, Radio 27.9%, TV 11.1%), conglomerate
ownership (8.9%) cross ownership (8.1%), sole proprietor ownership(4.3%),
vertical ownership(3.3%), religious ownership (2.4%), community
ownership(1.4%) regional line
ownership(1.1%), political line
ownership(0.5%) and co-ownership(0.3%). With this diversified ownership pattern, Cameroon portrays a unique ownership trend
similar to those of many African countries but very different from ownership
trends in the USA, Europe and other parts of the world where media
concentration lies in the hands of one family or a few
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