{"id":199,"date":"2014-03-10T20:02:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T20:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=199"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:08:35","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:08:35","slug":"comcast-and-time-warner-joining-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/03\/10\/comcast-and-time-warner-joining-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast and Time Warner Joining Forces?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Last month Comcast announced its plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, and internet subscribers may have to choose Comcast as their broadband provider even if they don\u2019t want cable in the near future. With rising cable rates, the merger is stoking fears and outrage among the public, and politicians like<a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/the_comcast-time_warner_merger_threatens_democracy_20140219\"> Senator Al Franken<\/a>. The deal has yet to be finalized and the FCC may instruct Comcast and Time-Warner to pump their brakes before merging. \u00a0If the deal succeeds, however, the nation\u2019s two largest cable and broadband providers are sure to become a behemoth on the information superhighway.<\/p>\n<h5>While profit is a big motive for acquisitions and takeovers, companies also try to take over close members of their social networks to reduce competition. Monopolies and oligopolies are especially likely in industries with only a few major players and close ties.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/gsm.ucdavis.edu\/faculty\/donald-palmer\">Donald Palmer<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/dept\/soc\/people\/xzhou\/\">Xueguang Zhou<\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.gsm.ucdavis.edu\/~bmbarber\/\"> Brad M. Barber<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.essex.ac.uk\/sociology\/staff\/profile.aspx?id=142\">Yasemin Soysal<\/a>. 1995. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.gsm.ucdavis.edu\/~bmbarber\/Paper%20Folder\/ASR%20Predatory%20Acquisitions.pdf\">The Friendly and Predatory Acquisition of Large U.S. Corporations in the 1960s: The Other Contested Terrain<\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">,<\/span>\u201d <em>American Sociological Review<\/em>\u00a060(4): 469-499.<\/li>\n<li>Marshall Barron Clinard, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sociology\/faculty-staff\/faculty\/peter-yeager\/\">Peter C. Yeager<\/a>, and Ruth Blackburn Clinard. 1980. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Corporate-Crime-Law-Society-Series\/dp\/1412804930\"><em>Corporate Crime<\/em><\/a>. New York: Free Press<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>What does this mean for women, people of color, and low income communities? Rising prices for internet access would expand an already-large \u201cdigital divide\u201d in who can use the web and who gets represented on it.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eszter.com\/\">Eszter Hargittai.<\/a> 2004. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uk.sagepub.com\/devereux\/website%20material\/Proofed%20web%20materials\/Journal%20articles\/Chap%203%20-%20Hartgittai%20'Internet%20and%20Access%20and%20Use%20in%20Context'.pdf\">Internet Access and Use in Context.<\/a>\u201d \u00a0<em>New Media Society<\/em>\u00a06(1): 137-143.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Also, check out Eszter Hargittai\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/officehours\/2010\/11\/23\/eszter-hargittai-on-digital-natives\/\"> \u201cOffice Hours\u201d interview<\/a> where she discusses the expanding gaps and inequalities in the level of internet skills possessed by so-called \u201cdigital natives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><!-- TSP testing --> <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 234px; height: 60px;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-4670099812817063\" data-ad-slot=\"1069646635\"><\/ins><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2638\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/editors\/files\/2014\/03\/Picture-2-330x38.png\" alt=\"Picture 2\" width=\"330\" height=\"38\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month Comcast announced its plans to merge with Time Warner Cable, and internet subscribers may have to choose Comcast as their broadband provider even if they don\u2019t want cable in the near future. With rising cable rates, the merger is stoking fears and outrage among the public, and politicians like Senator Al Franken. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1956,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,85],"tags":[131,38541,129,38546,12],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inequality","category-politics","tag-economy","tag-inequality","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2014\/03\/3234862031_ff10373d67_z.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}