Jock Cheetham: Who controls the Mainstream Media?

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I’m really excited to share this brilliant lecture from Jock Cheetham, a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Charles Sturt University and a long-time journalist and documentary-maker. In this talk he asks a deceptively simple question: who actually controls the mainstream media? Jock teases apart ownership, management and journalists as distinct players and argues that power in media is more complicated than most people assume. He explores the crucial relationship between media and government, introduces the concept of intermediation (and its opposite, disintermediation), and explains how tech giants like Google and social media have fractured the old advertising model. Rather than painting journalism as dead, he argues that outlets still hold value where they add something unique, but the economics are under pressure. If you’re interested in media power, the politics of news, or how digital platforms have reshaped who speaks to whom, this is a clear, thoughtful and refreshingly nuanced take. Highly recommended for students, media lovers and anyone worried about who shapes the public conversation.

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Watch Jock Cheetham — senior journalism academic and veteran reporter — tackle a question we all whisper about: who controls the mainstream media? Jock, formerly a long-serving journalist and now a Senior Lecturer at Charles Sturt University, lays out a clear, down-to-earth framework for thinking about media power without resorting to conspiracy or simple answers.

This talk breaks the problem into three core players: owners, management and journalists. Jock explains why journalists often have less agenda-setting power than the public assumes, why management sits in the middle, and how owners can shape the big picture. He also digs into the critical relationship between media and government and why that intermediation role matters for democracy.

Crucially, Jock discusses disintermediation — the ways digital platforms and direct-to-consumer models have cut out traditional intermediaries — and how Google’s dominance of search and advertising plus social media’s networked dynamics have upended the economics that sustained journalism. But this isn’t doom and gloom: he argues mainstream outlets retain value where they add genuine expertise, investigation and storytelling.

If you care about media literacy, press freedom, political communication or the future of journalism in Australia and beyond, this lecture is a smart, measured primer. Like, subscribe and follow for more talks and media analysis — and drop a comment below with your take: who do you think really has the power?

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