Effects of Media Consolidation and Fragmentation: Closer to Us Than We ThinkIn recent decades, media and the practice of journalism have changed dramatically. Two major factors have contributed to this evolution: digital fragmentation and media consolidation. By allowing the general public to post their opinions on social media and merging companies to create large companies with majority ownership, we have all witnessed major societal changes in the way we absorb information. Specifically, media consolidation and fragmentation can and has had negative effects on small communities as well as the general population, around information absorption, transparency and the Walt Disney Company, initially divided into Walt Disney Productions, Ltd. Walt Disney Enterprises; Liled Real Estate and Investment Company; and the Disney Film Recording Company (before official consolidation and name change to the current title Walt Disney Company in 1986) (Walt Disney Archives) has consolidated the company's success from the beginning and now owns over 100 stations radio, news and television networks, print publishing companies and many other forms of media and services. In 1998, ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross followed a story involving inadequate safety checks and child abuse problems at Disney theme parks (Mifflin, 1998). When Disney ordered Ross to drop the story, they said it had nothing to do with Disney owning the ABC network (Turow, 2013). Although it was insisted that ownership was not the reason the story never aired, this is a major conflict of interest, and no other reason to put the side story was never brought up. It's situations like this that raise major security concerns and suggest that media consolidation (and companies with massive ownership of our news sources) are unlikely to act in the best way. interest of their main consumers, the general. Because of this ease of access, it has become more difficult for people to differentiate fact from opinion, journalism from entertainment, and real news from satirical or parody articles. I experienced this about a month ago when I posted an article on Odyssey Online about the Wausau Center Mall, my hometown mall. I wrote about things we could put in the empty flagship stores to "save" it, as it has been in financial trouble for years. I suggested things like a Build-a-Trump workshop, a movie theater that only shows Leonardo films, and a NASA center so we can restart moon missions. When I was sharing my work, I met several people online who completely ignored the fact that it was a light-hearted joke: they thought I was serious and that the ideas I was proposing were actually the study. While this may not be a traditional example of fragmentation, it does demonstrate that people believe everything they read online. Interestingly enough, the majority of people who took my article seriously were over 40 years old. This alone demonstrates how transparency in media is less important to older generations than it is to millennials and people a generation just before us. Another example of fragmentation I encountered comes from The Black Sheep, a satirical publication here