Power and Media Industries

James Curran and Jean Seaton:

'Diversity is in the public interest- but modern societies suffer from collective attention deficit disorders... the public interest has to work harder to be noticed, and we need agile but resourceful media to do that'

Digital technologies- have access to the internet

Monopoly-  the exclusive ownership or control of something

Conglomerate- A large corporation consisting of multiple smaller companies

Subsidiary- A smaller company owned by a large corporation

Who owns British newspapers?
The Times and The Sun are owned by a company called News International. The owner is Rupert Murdoch. Right winged newspaper

The Mirror is owned by Trinity Mirror.































Disney buying VICE meant they then had access to a wider target audience. People who are wealthy into drugs in their early twenties.
Disney is a huge conglomerate. 

News Corp owns: The sun, National Geographic, Fox News channel, ITV, SKY, 20th century fox, Harper Collins Publishers, FOX (Rupert Murdoch) 
They are close to becoming a monopoly.

Advantages to owning a monopoly:

• Removes the competition 
• Audience manipulation 
• Control
• Extends their range of business and political connections
• Increases  their corporation prestige 
• Distortion of democracy

An issue with a conglomerate owning media companies in different industries means lack of diversity.

Key Facts:

• Having a monopoly means domination of multiple media industries
• If the focus is on creating profit, generally conglomerates don't take risks with the media products they produce (similar films)
• This often results in limited variety, creativity and quality

'Anti-monopoly media regulation is needed not only to maintain fair competition but also to prevent the distortion of democracy'

Alternative of conglomerate ownership:

• A partnership instead of ownership
• Pass a law on how many companies you can own
• Unionisation- where people make their own decisions
• Boycott 
• Make our own media

' Media policy should seek... to create the conditions of greatest possible competition, thus enabling consumers to exercise sovereign control. This produces media that people want, a wide range of choice, and media independence from government.'

 
 
Independent producer- Free from outside control 

Institution- A media industry with its own specific identity 

Making a newspaper

What happened?

Who is the story about?

Why did it happen?

Where did the story happen?

When did the story take place?

Potential exam questions

Component 1 section A:

In what ways can (media products) incorporate viewpoints and ideologies?

Explore how audiences can respond to and interpret the ideological perspectives of (media products)?

Different perspectives

Why do producers use representation?

• To present an ideology
• To target an audience 
• To make something other wise normal more interesting
• To manipulate the audience
• Cultivates an idea such as they should look a certain way  
• Entertainment value
• Financial reasons- to get the audince
• Narrative

Component 1 section A:

In what ways can (media products) incorporate viewpoints and ideologies?


Explore how audiences can respond to and interpret the ideological perspectives of (media products)?

Paragraph structure:

POINT, which links to the question asked
MEDIA LANGUAGE, that supports your point
ARGUMENT, or deeper ANALYSIS of this point
(A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE which is used to confirm your point of view)- not needed in every paragraph 



Finsbury park murder case:
In these articles we can see the story is represented differently from each other.


The Times article is much more cautious about accusing people, it is creating a story to interest people. However the Times only do a short article on the story.
Anchors the audience that they're outsiders by pointing out their ethnicity.






The use of 4 images represent the family instead of just the murder. The Mirror represents the story much more violently which also more images and uses more acusive language such as "Hammer attack". This links to Todorov's theory of narrative.
Othering- a process in which making someone seem unappealing by making them seem different.
The house image shows them as a middle class family with a loving family home for the two children. The image being large in the centre of the page high lights the importance of the photo an the child it also anchors us into being annoyed that someone did this to a baby.
Referential codes: love story, something goes wrong shown by the police car and tape.




Newspapers often present rare/ bad things in their papers because that is what sells and what interests people.



The Today Show, Radio 4:

• Aimed towards middle class people.
• 4 headlines: Were all political apart from the Finsbury park murder.
• All broad sheet style headlines.
• Contained a short story about the Finsbury park murder.
• They have strong 'posh' accents,is more formal/academic - Connotation of the accent is control and that they're clever and from a well supported family .
• Finsbury park story was much shorter than the rest which therefore shows that the ideology of the broadcast is that politics is more important.
• They discuss the charges given rather than details of the crime, there isn't any mention of the hammer which is believed to be the murder method, their ethnicity or the fact they're toddlers.
• Also there is no mention of motive for the murder.

By putting a news article on social media it allows ideologies to be shared in the comments that the newspaper aren't allowed to publish.


Polysemi when a newspaper has purposely controversially opinions.