Protecting ‘competition, not competitors’: antitrust discourse and the AT&T-Time Warner merger

ABSTRACT

A key discourse underpinning US antitrust law is that it protects competition, not competitors. However, what this means in practice both has changed over time and betrays the politics underlying antitrust enforcement. This article interrogates this discourse and its contradictions in the context of the AT&T-Time Warner merger lawsuit through a critical discourse analysis of legal documents related to the case. The case represents a conflict over incentivizing competition in digital advertising markets at the expense of competition, particularly smaller competitors, in video markets. The analysis reveals how the discourse obscures the strategic choices made by courts to protect incumbent companies: by approving the merger, the court circumscribed the video programming and distribution market for consolidation to strengthen the competitive position of the merging parties in the digital advertising market dominated by Facebook and Google. Thus, this discourse masks not just the deference to dominant merging companies, but also the role of courts in shaping market competition at their behest.

KEYWORDS:

• Antitrust
• competition law
• digital platforms
• discourse analysis
• media ownership
• media policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Named after Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Warren Court represents one of the most activist periods in U.S. Supreme Court history, including the substantial expansion of civil rights.

 

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pawel Popiel

Pawel Popiel is the George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on technology policy, particularly how politics shapes the regulation of digital media and emergent technologies.