Industry Theorists

Question 1

Integration to avoid failure

David Hesmondhalgh’s Cultural Industries Theory

Answer 1

• Argues that contemporary media producers reduce the risk of product failure by forging alliances and synergies with other media producers.
• Most products are consumed when used and must be bought again, but media products are bought once and continually used – they never wear out.
• Companies must make a lot of money out of their products initially, because they don’t often resell the same product repeatedly.

Question 2

The rise of technology

Lunt Livingstone’s’ Regulation Theory

Answer 2

• 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, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

Question 3

Conglomerate’s power over the media.

Curran and Seaton’s Power and Media Industries Theory

Answer 3

• The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit & power and that media concentration limits of inhabits variety, creativity, and quality.
• Curran and Seaton argue that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied & adventurous media productions.
• Curran and Seaton suggest profit driven motives overtake creativity in the world of commercial media.