“The Missing” follows Tony, played by James Nesbitt, as a man devastated by the abduction of his young son, Oliver, during a family vacation in France. He becomes a man obsessed, unable to accept that his child may be dead and spends years searching for him.

• was initially called the breakdown. Filming began in february 2014
• The series was co-produced by New Pictures, Company Pictures, Two Brothers Pictures and Playground Entertainment
• audience is adults who like the mystery thriller genre as well as psychological drama
• origin is from the united kingdom, in english
• it was played by the British Broadcast Company
• the bbc is a public service broadcaster, operating in the uk, but also is available overseas in subscription packages, which it earns additional revenue from.
• multiple languages within the film, national accessibility

theorists:

• curran and seaton: discuss how corporate conglomerate media services have prevailed over small scale services due to an increase in funding from advertisements etc

commercial media: various media types owned by private, for-profit corporations. E.g. disney

public service broadcaster: non-profit media types owned by the government paid for through public tax money. e.g. the bbc (the missing)

horizontal integration: the process of owning or controlling many different types of media through diversification

vertical integration: the process of owning all stages of production and distribution

media convergence/concentration – multiple corporations working together to create a product or service

media pluralism – a media landscape with a healthy balance of products made by different media company types.

hesmondhalgh – “the increase in the presence and status of marketing represents a shift in creativity and commerce” – relates to genre

hesmondhalgh	case studies
changing audience consumption patterns	missing – episodes available to watch online after the show aired, allowing audience to watch anytime with relative accessibility
multi sector integration	missing – bbc and starz – international co-production
star formatting	missing – using known actors such as david morrissey and Tchéky Karyo
genre based formatting	using stock characters involved in the thriller genre – the detective, the murderer, etc
serialisation	bbc often makes crime thrillers – there is an existing audience for these programs so less risk. spinoff Baptiste allows for more audience engagement
independent stylising	the missing often includes trans-language elements, where multiple scenes include characters in differen countries speaking different languages,
internationalisation	available in multiple languages with subtitles – more accessible to diffrent languages. also distributed through the bbc, which can be watched overseas

livingston & lunt – regulation is too lax

• ofcom – allowed a number of organisations to have light touch regulation
• IPSO -press regulation body (who is the press) – self regulation

drawbacks of a self regulated system:

• self regulation does not mean good regulation
• loose rules leads to exploitation
• rules can be bent for room for profit

2003 communications act

• promoted independent television production
• however as a result of this lack of solid framework tehre is an increase in self regulation meaning rules can be bent

hwo do you regulate media on a global scale:

• a solid set of global rules need to be made in regards to production to avoid situations that involve bending the rules
• (a set of standards) – e.g. like production standards, for example, food quality laws in the UK
• transnational regulatory body? for example, organisations such as the WTO

category	familiarities from csps	difference from chosen csps	theory
characters	stock characters – detective, victim
narrative	major crime occurs & investigation from detective
themes	mystery,	murder (witnesses)
representation		witnesses has woman as main detective whereas missing has old man
technical codes/language of moving image (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc)