KEY THEORISTS

• Hesmondhalgh (The Creative Industries)
• Curran and Seaton (Ownership)
• Livingstone and Lunt (Regulation)

The Culture Industries: similarities and differences to other industries

• Cultural industries are for entertainment more than they are functional. They are not a necessity to someone’s everyday life.
• Just like any other industry, cultural industries have a main focus or earning money.
• Cultural industries have the power to inform and provoke/influence beliefs/opinions which also helps to provoke popular culture – popular doesn’t always mean good.
• There is more freedom involved within media – versatile and unpredictable
• golding and murdoch- ” (media) plays a pivotal role in organizing the images and discourse through which people make sense of the world.”

Capitalist media – corporations content that address humans in various social roles and results in meaning-making.

• Funded through advertisements.
• No state obligations, private
• Audiences don’t have to pay

Public Service media – state-related institutions content that addresses humans in various social roles and results in meaning-making. (e.g BBC)

• Government is at an ‘arms length’ from the media, they don’t control it but advise and ‘look after’ the content, public.
• Funded by the public/ tax payer. Through TV License for BBC in the UK.
• No advertisements shown.
• Examples = BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation – Regional), Channel 4

Civil society media – citizen-control content that addresses humans in various social role and results in meaning-making.

• Has aspects of the company worldwide
• Examples = Netflix, Sony, Apple, Disney

Public service Broadcasting:

Q1) what is it?

– Broadcasting on electronic media outlets (radio, television) with the aim of serving the public.

– Funding usually comes from the government through tax payed by the receivers.

Q2) what’s good about it?

– No ads

– The bedrock is inform, educate and entertain.

– Its very diverse and caters to everyone.

– easily accessible

– its not biased

Q3) is it unique?

– familiar – part of national identity to the UK – trusted and supported by many and is a very unique form of PSB along with channel 4

Curran and Seaton:

• Commercial broadcasting is based on the sale of audiences to advertisers” – Commercial broadcasters (such as ITV) need to secure long term advertising revenue to survive programming. – Jean Seaton. – need for an active audience. – money wins (profit-driven)
• ”profit-driven motives take precedence over creativity in the world of commercial media”.
• “power without responsibility” – book by Curran and Seaton – first published in 1981- explores themes of how the media landscape has fallen under the control of the few global conglomerates.
• Benefits of Horizontal integration: Production costs can be minimised/ Sharing resources/ controlling the market (influential as they own most of the resources)
• Benefits of Vertical Integration: production divisions/distribution services/subsidiary support – finance and promotional services. control over all aspects of the production chain/restricting access to competitors/cross-media ownership synergies.
• Curran suggests that the relationships between big businesses and government – suggesting power of concentrated media ownership has forced political parties and form cosy relationships with the media. in order to get favourable press charge.