Media industry theory

Power and media industries - Curran and Seatons

• The idea that the media is controlled by a small num. of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power

• The idea that this limits creativity and quality

• More socially diverse patterns of ownership helps create more varied media productions

Regulation - Livingstone and Lunt

• Regulation of media is hard as regulators have to balance protecting people (citizens) with offering them choice (consumers)

• He argues that citizens want protection, whereas consumers want choice

• Technology has made regulation harder (can be bypassed)

• Powerful companies can avoid regulation

Evaluation of livingstone and lunt

• In reality, consumers of media products are both citizens and consumers, and products can be made to appeal to both, and most media products contain positive elements that benefit society, and also Entertaining, and wide choices that appeal to both a consumer and a citizen

Cultural industries - Hesmondhalgh

• Believes that companies need to minimise risk and maximise audiences to be successful. Examples include:

  • Being vertically or horizontally integrates

  • work across a variety of media platforms and tech

  • focus on popular genres/ stars

  • marketing campaign

• He states that once a “big hit” is made by a producer, those products will be made more

  • But he also argues that consumers will eventually get bored of these products, requiring constant innovation

Evaluation of Hesmondhalghs cultural industries theory

• The idea that consumers will get bored of the content may not be entirely true.

  • Media products are not fixed - they can still be differentiated while staying on a particular topic, meaning the boredom effect is limited

  • With online media, consumers may just enjoy the star, rather than the content they make