Ownership and Control

 Media conglomerate research

1) Type up your research notes from the lesson - what did you find out about your allocated media conglomerate? Selection of companies: Alphabet, The Walt Disney Company, National Amusements, Meta, News Corp, Time Warner, Comcast.

 Conglomerate ownership, Vertical and horizontal intergration, cross media regulation, diversification, Convergence and synergy. 

Big Five media conglomerates - Comcast, Disney, National Amusement, News Corp and AT&T; they reach nearly 100% of US households.

Monopoly - a market structure with a single seller or producer that assumes a dominant position in an industry or sector.

The five companies that control all of US media - Vice, ESPEN, History channel owned by Disney.

Conglomerates act as  a media cartel, reinforcing the status quo( the hypercapitalist system in America)

Corporate totaliterian dictatorship- the changing nature of economic, political and social power in the global context. 

Media plurality/pluralism -  the coexistence of different typews of media or media support

Olygopoly - a market structure with a small numbers of firms

2) Do you agree that governments should prevent media conglomerates from becoming too dominant? Write an argument that looks at both sides of this debate.

Some may agree that  the government should prevent media conglomerates from becoming to dominant in the industry. If they do no the result would be detrimental to society, because if only a handful off companies own most media it could easily become a dictatic totalitarian society. Whereby we all get the same information, which could slowly pacify a countries people. Making them easily susceptible to the wrath of a dictator. And nowadays most western countries are typically Democratic, it would be a breach of the peoples democratic rights if they did not have the freedom to chose what and who they listened to. These companies could also easily drive up market prices making it virtually impossible for people to survive and or thrive in society. Also if a new company wanted to become one of these media conglomerates they would easily be bought out of the competition by the already establish conglomerates with a price they can't refuse. Which is why the United States 1996 telecommunications act was put in place ,as to prevent a single entity from owning a multitude of media companies , which prevent a surplus of control of American media. 

Others may debate that these laws don't truly work, because if we look at the media companies that own others we still end up in the same place with the same names- the Big Five. These big media conglomerates know that they cannot break the law and therefore stretch to their very limits within the law to be able to control most of America Media. They give you a sense of choice , a sense of freedom and democracy but in reality you are being shown the same thing in different places. We have slipped into a dystopian society with imaginary freedom. An example of this is about 5 years ago when a multitude of news stations verbatim said the same message. The stations were talking about how with the spread of false or biased news becoming all too common on social media and how this is extremely dangerous to our society. Which is extremely ironic considering the circumstances. These news stations did not receive any repercussions for this horrible and telling situation. The world has now moved on like nothing happened. This is why things like the anti-trust laws had to be put in place- to prohibit agreements between market operators that would restrict competition, and the abuse of dominance. Which these conglomerates are easily loop holing through. As many of these media capitals have their hands in each others pot anyways, for example Disney which owns shares in ESPN.

Media Magazine reading and questions

Media Magazine 52 has a good feature on the changing relationship between audiences and institutions in the digital age. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM52 and scroll to page 9 to read the article 'Two Key Concepts: The Relationship Between Audience and Institution'.

1) Briefly describe the production, promotion and distribution process for media companies.

Production process - Considers and provides audiences with the gratification they expect with the media products they want.

Promotion process - Researches and identifies target audiences for a product and uses marketing and advertising strategies to inform and persuade them of the value of the media product.

Distribution process - Uses most appropriate methods for getting the product to audiences, making it accessible as possible.  

2) What are the different funding models for media institutions?

BBC - License fee paid by public, sales of programmes and and formats to other broadcasters

ITV - Fees paid by advertisers buying advertising space on channel, programme sponsorship

Sky One - Income generated by subscription fees, and advertising revenue

Sony - Sales of hardware such as PS4, sales of games and advertising merchandise, films and music sales 

TheMailOnline - Sales of advertising space, advertorial features, sponsorship  

3) The article gives a lot of examples of major media brands and companies. Choose three examples from the article and summarise what the writer is saying about each of them. 

Disney - Known for being family friendly and a brand that focuses on children centred entertainment, it has curated an original image for its animations in the early 20th Century. Through the construction of a "universe" of merchandising and branded products such as Disneyland, as well as the Disney Princess franchise. Parents can feel reassured that Disney will provide a wholesome experience of entertainment for their children. Disney also has a number of iconic logos attached to their brand eg.  Mickey Mouse ears, Walt Disney signature and the dream castle. 

Marvel - It is inextricably associated with the superhero genre. Their superhero films may contain violence however they reinforce mainstream values around duty, sacrifice, personal responsibility and the need for the strong to protect the weak. The Marvel brand constructs a familiar ad assuring expectation for the audience. The predictability of these films is what has enabled the studio to produce enormously successful films since the late 1990s.

4) What examples are provided of the new business models media companies have had to adopt due to changes in technology and distribution?

BBC - Reconsidering its funding structure now that on-demand viewing has become more popular. 

Amazon, Netflix and Yahoo - Producing, creating and "broadcasting" their own TV shows ; such as Transparent, Orange is the new black and Community.

Google - Now owns YouTube and as revolutionised how we access music as well as moving image entertainment and information. 

5) Re-read the section on 'The Future'. What examples are discussed of technology companies becoming major media institutions?

Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo and Google

6) Do you agree with the view that traditional media institutions are struggling to survive?

I somewhat agree as some traditional media institutions are doing quite well such as YouTube as it as moved with the times and was able to adapt while gaining revenue in different media sectors. However for traditional media such as newspapers were unable to keep up and subsequently got left behind due to the rapid release of different platforms where people can get a multitude of different information. 

7) How might diversification or vertical integration(virtually the same thing) help companies to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing media landscape? 

Diversification allows for media companies to have their hands in a multitude of different media outlets, whether that be advertising , the news industry or the film industry. It provides a safety pocket of revenue for these media companies and allows them to capitalise when one of their media outlets are doing better than the others. Or they can still have their other outlets if one of them completely crashes and or fails. This is essential in a rapidly changing media landscape like today's, because a media company can easily loose all its assets if they're all placed in one basket. 

8) How do YOU see the relationship between audience and institution in the future? Will audiences gain increasing power or will the major global media conglomerates maintain their control?

I believe that the relationship between the audience and institutions in the future will most likely shift , but I am unable to pinpoint which way they power will go, as the media landscape is ever changing and something new could come along to permit the the media institutions more power of their audiences. As we've seen audiences have gained additional power thanks to the freedom of technology and social media. For example with the Marvel Black Widow film, where the audience told Marvel after a sneak peek that they did not like certain things about the movie and the producers chose to ignore those comments. As a result the Black Widow film was the lowest earning Marvel film the company had ever seen and had received a lot less than they paid for in marketing.