How do you regulate influence?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/24/phone-hacking-vince-cable-murdoch-influence
You can absolutely see what Vince Cable is on about.
If one person, media or lobbying group becomes so influential with Government that it seems to be heavily influencing policy, as has been alleged with Newscorp over UK membership of the Eurozone, then you can see why there would be concerns over the effect on democracy — such groups becoming more important than the electorate in deciding what is done.
But how do you limit influence?
It would be easy to say no one group can own more than, say, 25% of the media in one country defined by the total number of people exposed to its media channels — readers of papers, TV viewers, digital media subscribers and web users etc.
But while it’s easy to enforce that prior to an acquisition through the MMC, what happens when a newly-enlarged group grows its total audience organically? Would it be right to force it to divest itself of some of its assets because it had been too successful? Should regulators intervening in the marketplace in that way?
Even before that, how can you really measure influence? The number of people a group’s media outlets reach would be a simple one, but surely some people can have huge influence without readers or viewers.
Like companies which can offer huge inward investment and want Government to regulate in a way which works to their benefit. To foreign governments who we want to stay on good terms with for non-commercial reasons like security c.f. the Saudi government over the decision not to pursue the BAE bribes investigation.
How do you contain their influence? There are no easy answers, but expect to see some attempts to be seen to contain media influence in future.

How influential is the Press?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jun/21/national-newspapers-newspapers
This is an interesting question in the light of the ever-decreasing circulations of papers in the UK.
Though for many years papers like The Sun have loved to claim that their backing of one party or another has been pivotal in it winning the General Election, the reality, as this study shows, has not been a true positive correlation.
But despite that they’ve managed to retain their influence over the national leaders by acting as if it is true (and which leader would risk going against them in case it was?).
Whatever the truth of how much they can tip voters one way or another there are two undeniable things here — the news agenda is still set a lot of the time by stories in the Press and that the constant drip of coverage for or against parties and their leaders must have an impression, unconscious or not, on the perception of parties and leaders and that it’s that which party leaders fear most.
And when that’s going on to as many readers as the Press have daily (still an impressive number) then it’s fair to argue that while the Press in print is on its way down, its influence is still huge.
Unless and until new media separate from the Press titles establish an equivalent level or credibility and readership, the Press will remain influential, if not masters of what we think.

Is owning quality titles a loss-leader for Murdoch?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/apr/07/rupert-murdoch-bskyb
I agree with Roy that there’s definitely something to this argument that Rupert gains influence in return for losses on the papers of record mentioned.
No high-profile person wants to be dissed by them.
But the mass circulation titles play their part too — by heavily influencing the perception of these people to their readers.
That’s why no politician wants to be in his bad books. No matter how hard they try to control their image, it’s how the mass media depict that tends to stick.