Ownership and control
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?- Created by: rianna
- Created on: 10-12-12 20:29
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- Ownership and control
- Concentration of ownership
- Vertical integration- process by which one owner acquires all aspects of production eg time warner makes its own films and distributes to own cinemas
- Horizontal integration- where one company buys different kinds of media eg news corp own a range of papers book publishing tv film and the interenet
- Transnational ownership (global conglomeration) media organisations operating globally eg news corp originated in Australia, owns papers in Britain USA and can beam programmes internationally via its satellite
- Diversification- where media companies diversify into other business areas to spread risk, Eg Virgin has media interests in music tv internet, but also sells insurance owns an airline and does banking
- Synergy- media companies use their different interests to package their products,eg spiderman was a movie that had a soundtrack computer game toy figures marketed through fast food outlets
- Technological convergence- fairly new concept involving putting several technologies into one product eg the iphone
- Pluralism
- Butler and Stokes, studied impact of media on UK elections, concluded newspapers reinforced political attitudes not shape them
- Digital technology- this development is seen to be a transfer of power from owners to audiences, Even Murdoch argues such technology has liberated people from the once powerful media barons eg sky+
- Media concentration-support concentration of ownership argue it is essential for for survival in a global market
- Media deregulation- prior to 1954 only one channel existed the BBC. ITV initiated process of deregulation and now we have many channels
- Support this view as publicly owned media and state regulation gives too much power in the government and offers limited choice and is unresponsive to their audience
- Media professionalism journalists and and editors would not allow their owners to compromise their independence, they have to much integrity to be biased, also strong tradition of investigative journalism
- Media audiences, do not passively accept, they are selective, diverse and use media in different ways
- However accused of assuming the diversity and not evidencing it
- critics argue most studies are carried out by those who work in the industry, may be less than impartial
- drive for profit has lead to decline in media to inform educate and entertain. investigative journalists have been replaced by celebrity columnists Franklin 1997
- Curran and Seaton, note the importance of advertising has encouraged media to concentrate on audiences with purchase power eg x factor
- Traditional Marxism
- Media serves the economic power of the ruling class
- The RC include in their ranks media owners referred to as media barons and are said to manipulate the content of the media to present capitalism as normal reasonable and acceptable to the proletariat
- The media presents what's important and relevant to the ruling class eg stocks and shares even though on a small % of the population own them
- Media managers and journalists have to work within the boundaries set by the owners to avoid criticism or the sack
- Marcuse 1964 - media promotes consumerism and gives people false needs also he notes programmes such as soaps divert attention from unfair nature of capitalism preventing us from seeing exploitation
- Miliband 1973 rejects the pluralist of society arguing there is very choice of political reporting and entertainment says media is the modern day opium
- this approach assumes the audience is passive
- evidence to support 1993 Murdoch argued in favour of Iraq war and so did his 174 papers around the world admitted to HOL he was hands on economically and editorially
- Crits- Pluralists would argue wide range of opinion and main goal is profit accumulation not control, which is achieved via advertising which only works if the audience gets what it wants
- crits- the state regfulates media so not one company has to much influence, law and radio has to be impartial by law but newspapers do not
- Neo Marxists
- Hegemony - developed my Gramsci refers to the idea that the spread of dominant ideology of the ruling class other social classes are persuaded to accept the values and beliefs as reasonable and normal and become common sense accepted and consented by the rest of society
- media content is controlled by an approval process editors and are mostly white and middle class so select content unconsciously which reflect their values, journalists also tend to be from the same background
- Media is trained to present a particular view, this view becomes natural and obvious to them and the audience
- Alternative views are allowed presented in a silly immature fashion to give impression all views are recognised makes it seem fair the dominant view stays on top
- Strength- theory recognises that owners are often not involved in the day to day running recognises degree of control of managers editors and journalists
- Theory recognises there is a range of content to attract wider audiences some which are critical of dominant ideology, journalists are socialised into a culture where the dominant ideology suggests most reasonable explanation
- Weaknesses underestimates power and influence of others editors are dismissed if out of kilter with the owners views
- Agenda setting and gate keeping mean some items are either deliberately excluded from the media or not given much air time offers more support from manipulative approach not hegemomnic
- Postmodernists would say Marxist ideas are out of fate media plays an important role in showing whats available and what lifestyle to adopt
- Bauldrillard says society is media saturated and full of lots of different images audiences merge what they see in the media with their own experiences to create own set of ideas there is no dominant ideology
- Concentration of ownership
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