media insitutions theories

Question 1

Curran and Seaton Power and Media
Industries

Answer 1

The media is controlled by a small number of companies driven by profit and power
Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
Socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions
Argue media industries follow capitalist patterns of behaviour.
The dominant news groups have transitioned online in a manner that has enabled them to maintain their power and successfully defend their oligarchy

Question 2

Livingstone & Lunt Regulation

Answer 2

There is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation between the further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material) and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money and market competition)
The idea that the increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies (converged to smart phones) and transformation in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.
Who is regulation for? Can regulation keep up with new technologies?

Question 3

David Hesmondhalgh: Cultural Industries

Answer 3

Cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration and by formatting their cultural products
The idea that the largest companies now operate across a number of different cultural industries
The idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by partial incorporation into a large, profit orientated set of cultural industries
Vertical integration is a strategy in which a business owns two or more stages of its supply chain and production
This means cultural production continues to be owned by a few conglomerates who integrate across a range of media to reduce business risk and follow capitalist pattern of increasing concentration
News companies have integrated across a range of media to reduce business risk