Ownership Trends Flashcards
ownership concentrated in a few hands
Concentration
all stages in production owned by one company
Vertical Integration
Horizontal integration
all companies in that section of media
Diversification
variety of companies owned (media and other)
companies owned all around the world
Transnational ownership
When various tools are merged e.g. the internet can be accessed on mobile phones
Technological convergence
Synergy
large media companies bring together various aspects of their business to develop a range of connected products
Concentration doesn’t necessarily lead to lack of choice, media companies are not static entities – they grow, develop, evolve and sometimes disappear – all of which leads to diversity in media despite concentration
Compaine
Concentration leads to the ‘appearance of choice’ but in reality, lots of different products sell the same ideas. E.g. MTV: adverts, music videos etc all sell certain looks and music etc.
Mc Chesney
Corporations which have control of a total process, from raw material to fabrication to sales, also have few motives for genuine innovation and the power to seize out anyone else who tries to compete.
Bagdikian
The profits gained from vertical integration can be enormous
Mc Chesney
with the continuous advance in communication technology, people are able to reach each other with less money and less time – this will lead to more public contribution to the media
Nawal El Saadawi
There is a trend towards concentration of ownership in the media which strengthens the control of owners.
Murdock and Golding
The ruling class uses the mass media to control society by creating a false picture of reality – making inequalities in society seem inevitable and justifiable.
Miliband
An investigative journalist who has created many films, news articles and books which run counter to mainstream products – perhaps Marxists fail to take account of this.
Pilger
Media ownership doesn’t necessarily equal control, owners don’t share common interests – their goal is to compete and so they provide different choices, owners cannot physically control huge global companies so this leads to diversity produced by the controllers
Negrine
the desire for profits and to increase ratings actually leads to less diversity e.g. soap operas have increased fivefold over the last 20 yrs but single dramas have halved – due to the pressure to bring viewers back again and again
Barnett and Weymour
Programme makers avoid anything too challenging because they know they have to boost ratings, they stick to programmes we can relate to
Humphreys
When studying news coverage of the miners strike they found that media professionals reported the events in a very similar way due to their common background and experience (typically white middle class male – the gaze)
GUMG
symbolic annihilation of women in media (they are not shown much)
Tuchman
working class families are underrepresented and middle class families are over represented
Glennon and Butsch
In 600 British drama programmes, only 2.25% of actors were from minority social groups
Manuel
there has been lots of legislation in recent years and a changing social climate to turn the tide and include more ethnic minorities in the media
Colle
large scale companies (through concentration) tend to have the resources for more high quality reporting
Collins and Murroni
studied the media’s influence on political opinion in USA in 1940s. They found that people had different amounts of exposure to the media, different media had different degrees of influence (e.g. TV vs papers), messages did not directly affect how people voted.
Katz and Lazerfeld
