Media Studies (Industries)

Question 1

Power and Media (Curran and Seaton)

Answer 1

• The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power.
• The idea that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality.
• The idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions.

Question 2

Regulation (Livingstone and Lunt)

Answer 2

• The idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the needs to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of the 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 and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, has placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

Question 3

Cultural Industries

Answer 3

• The idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products (eg through use of stars, genres and serials).
• The idea that the largest companies or conglomerates 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 its partial incorporation into large, profit orientated set of cultural industries.