The Capture Effect: How Media Capture Affects Journalists, Markets and Audiences

Marius Dragomir is a leading scholar in the rapidly expanding field of media capture research. In his recent article, he offers a comprehensive analysis of the concept’s origins, its evolution, and the factors driving the media capture process, supported by case studies. Dragomir’s conceptualization of media capture phenomena relies on four different components on which the government or its affiliated businesses wield their control upon: 

• Regulation
• Public media
• State financial resources
• The private media sector

This control is aimed at shaping media narratives to align with the agendas of those in power.

Dragomir points to several recent cases of media capture in different countries. These studies show that when governments dominate all four areas, media capture becomes deeply entrenched and difficult to reverse. However, individual components of media capture can fluctuate depending on the political, economic, or cultural context.

According to Dragomir, media capture is the greatest threat to independent journalism today. It leads to the de-professionalization and polarization of journalists, weakens their representation, distorts news content to serve government propaganda, erodes competition in media markets, and ultimately restricts the diversity of information available to the public.