glossary of key terms

Private Ownership - a situation in which a company is owned by privateshareholders

Public Company - A company which has issued securities through an offering, and which are now traded on the open market.

Public Service Media -

A Multinational Company - A multinational company has branches in may countries. Ford and Sony are examples.

Multinational companies do bring some benefits to developing countries. They provide jobs and increase the wealth of the local people. The country gains some wealth by way of taxes.

However, there are some problems as well. The jobs are often low-skilled and poorly paid. Much of the profit will go out of the country, and the company may pull out to relocate in a country where it can make a greater profit. Multinational companies are primarily interested in making profits for their shareholders. Paying wages is an expense that the company will try to reduce to as low a level as possible.

An Independent Company -a company which is not controlled by another company

Conglomerate/ Parent Companies/ Subsidiares - A corporation consisting of several companies in different businesses. Such a structure allows fordiversification of business risks, but the lack of focus can make managing the diverse businesses more difficult.

A Monopoly - A situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of themarket for a given type of product or service.

An Obligopoly -A state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers.

Globalisation -

The worldwide movement toward economic, financial, trade, and communicationsintegration.

Globalization implies the opening of local and nationalistic perspectives to a broader outlook of an interconnected and interdependent world with free transfer of capital, goods, and services across national frontiers. However, it does not include unhindered movement of labor and, as suggested by some economists, may hurt smaller or fragile economies if applied indiscriminately.

Cross Media Ownership -It’s where one person or group owns more than one form of media - radio, TV, newspapers, especially in the same area.

This is terrible for Democracy - there is NO incentive for the reporters to investigate and get the story, since the ownership alone decides what is news and what isn’t and there is no competition for viewers/readers.
Democracy can only survive if the people are informed - hence the emphasis placed on our freedom of the press via the first amendment.

Vertical Integration -The process in which several steps in the production and/ordistribution of a product or service are controlled by a single company or entity, inorder to increase that company’s or entity’s power in the marketplace.

Horizontal Integration -Consolidation, through mergers, acquisitions, or takeovers, of multiple companies involved in the same level of a production process. Amerger between several retail brokerages would be an example of horizontalintegration, while a merger between a retail brokerage and a mutual fundmanagement company would not.

The ‘Advertising Cake’ -

A Franchise - A form of business organization in which a firm which already has a successful product or service (the franchisor) enters into a continuing contractualrelationship with other businesses (franchisees) operating under the franchisor’strade name and usually with the franchisor’s guidance, in exchange for a fee. Some of the most popular franchises in the United States include Subway, McDonalds, and 7-Eleven.

A Media Format -

AVI - Audio Video Interleave This file format was developed by Microsoft to store audio and video data for simultaneous playback. The screen resolution for AVI is limited to 320 X 240 pixels with a bitrate of 30 frames per second; this is slow and fuzzy, and so not efficient for viewing full screen or full motion video. AVI files are the most common audio/video formats on your PC.

DivX –named for its developer, DivXNetworks, Inc. This format is a video codec. Video codec technology allows a standard 6 Gigabyte DVD to be compressed and stored onto a CD. With calm movie scenes, the difference in clarity between the DVD and CD versions will be minor. But when the scene includes a lot of action, the difference is clearly evident

MPEG –also named for its developer, Movie Picture Experts Group MPEG is the name of the method used to compress the audio and video into bit stream tokens so that a movie will fit on a DVD. For more information about the evolution of the many MPEG formats, read our article: What is MPEG?

SVCD – Super Video Compact Disc This format uses a bitrate of 1500 to 2600 kilobits per second and has a screen resolution of 480 X 480 (NTSC standards) or 480 X 576 (PAL standards). SVCD produces a video quality greater than the video CD, its predecessor, and about equal to laser discs. With the advent of SVCD, you can store up to four channels of high quality audio as well as subtitles.

VCD - Video Compact Disk This format uses a bitrate of 1150–kilo bits per second and has a screen resolution of 352 X 240 (NTSC standards) or (352 X 288 PAL standards). VCDs–videos on CD–can play movies at greater quality than VHS movies.

WMV – Windows Media Video Developed by Microsoft, WMV is part of the Windows media framework. WMV files are usually ASF files with a WMV extension. Microsoft is now introducing a High Definition format of WMV. Most of the players available from our site will play .wmv files.

XVCD & XSVCD Extended Video Compact Disc, Extended Super Video Compact Disc These are the same as their counterparts but allow for higher bitrates and resolution capabilities. XVCD is comparable to MPEG–1; XSVCD is comparable to MPEG–2.

Web 2.0 -Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0.

A Merger - In terms of business - The combining of two or more entities into one, through a purchase acquisition or a pooling of interests. Differs from aconsolidation in that no new entity is created from a merger.

A Takeover - In terms of business - Acquiring control of a corporation, called atarget, by stock purchase or exchange, either hostile or friendly.

Convergence - When two or more companies come together, and reach a conclusion.