Noam offers several valuable lessons. First, his ! ndings are historically
informed and re" ect a liberal temperament, where an open mind and systematic
research are deployed to discover answers to meaningful questions. Second,
he shows that consolidation is not foreign to the media industries but endemic
to them. Third, he argues that digitization is creating stronger economies of
scale, lower barriers to entry, and digital convergence. In the end, Noam
concludes that a two-tier media system is crystallizing around a few “large
integrator ! rms” (e.g. Apple, Google, and traditional media conglomerates),
surrounded by numerous smaller, specialist ! rms (Noam 2009: 33–9).
Ultimately, whether the future of the media is bright or bleak will largely turn
on us and politics.