ABSTRACT
While tendencies toward oligopoly have been longstanding in publishing, the emergence of new forms of concentration in both the quasi-private and university sectors, more then offset tendencies toward autonomy and growth. A new condition prevails that threatens any equilibrium of the absorption of the old and the emergence of the new in the publishing industry. The situation in the United States is somewhat more ominous. What one finds is the absorption of major book publishers by mass media. The process of monopolization has not only changed the rhetoric, but threatens the character of publishing–away from the production of knowledge and toward more amorphous categories such as information and entertainment. The new monopolization has a direct bearing on the ability of publishing to satisfy a fundamental constitutional guarantee: free speech. A free speech environment is more subtly eroded by different notions of appropriate profit goals that occur in large and small firms.
