WWJD? I think he’d use his super powers to make every GE employee as attractive as Alec Baldwin.

Media Hegemonies/Mapping Who Owns What: Identify a Major Media Company and research what it owns. Discuss the implications of cross media ownership.

Need a light bulb? Choose General Electric.
How about a new oven? General Electric is here.
Do you watch WNBC news? GE owns it.
Do you need a reliable aircraft? General Electric creates the most efficient aircraft engines.

General Electric owns so much junk (it’s not really “junk,” but I think you catch my drift). For one, they own NBC, and most of the networks attachments. They also own Universal pictures and their recreational park. Here are a few things I didn’t know, and probably most people don’t know, they own:
àGE Aircraft Engines
àGE Commercial Finance
àGE Consumer Products
àGE Industrial Systems
àGE Insurance
àGE Medical Systems
àGE Plastics
àGE Transportations System
àOxygen (literally because it’s an NBC Universal Television Studio, and metaphorically because they own so much that it makes this point funny)

“It is critical that consumers of media in democratic societies understand the origin of information and the process by which it is mediated, particularly when they are being deceived” (Dowie, 4). In the book “Toxic Sludge is Good for You,” Mark Dowie, author of the Introduction of the book, describes in a short informative essay, the roll of a Public Relations consultant. Obviously, his viewpoint is against Public Relations, therefore he creates a bias perspective for the reader. Some of his writing, like the quote above, can be expanded on, and related to all media; most importantly it can be related to General Electric.

Every product and industry that General Electric owns will, obviously, promote General Electric. Obviously, that is the motive of every major company; but how do you feel about General Electric owning both television and aircraft engines. Would you feel safe knowing that the company that makes your microwave ovens is the same company that equips the airplanes you fly in? I hope to God that they don’t use the same technology for their airplanes, as they do for their microwave ovens.

It’s very frightening, but let’s take a look at a scenario: Let’s say you are flying in an airplane, which is owned by GE. During the flight, you get served a sandwich for lunch. At the same time you start to eat your sandwich, the plane lands, and you accidentally swallow a piece of the plastic wrap it came in; plastic made by GE. You don’t realize that you’ve swallowed plastic though, so you get off the plane and try to find a taxi to go home. While waiting for a taxi, you burp up the plastic and start choking. A taxi man comes to your rescue, and drives you, in his GE car, to the hospital. While at the hospital, the doctors use GE medical equipment to get the plastic you’re choking on.

In this scenario alone, you have encountered GE four times.

That’s what GE owns.

Stauber, John, and Sheldon Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good for You! Lies, damn lies and the public relations industry. Monroe: Common Courage, 1995. Print.

"Who Owns What ." Columbia Journalism Review. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .