Ownership and control

• Who owns the UK media?

  • Five billionaires own 80% of the UK media
  • Rupert Murdoch, Richard Desmond, Viscount Rothermere and the Barclay Brothers
  • A small number of cooperations own the bulk of media companies
  • News UK, the Daily Mail and General Trust and Reach PLC own over 70% of the news market in the UK
  • Even regional newspapers are now owned by a small number of newspaper groups
  • Other key players outside the newspapers are Sky, ITV and Channel 5
  • The largest is the state broadcaster BBC - they are dominating the newspaper market as physical newspaper sales have been declining
• Bagdikian 2004

  • In 1983, 50 cooperations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the USA whereas in 1992, 22 companies owned and operated 90% of the mass media
  • If the USA's media was owned by separate individuals, there would be 25,000 owners - instead by 2014 media ownership was concentrated in six cooperations Comcast, Disney, 21st century Fox, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS
• Features of UK media ownership

  • Horizontal integration - where a media company will expand, often by buying or merging with competitors in a similar section of the market
  • Vertical integration - concentration of ownership within a single medium, such as one company owning several newspapers and owning all stages in production and distribution of a media product
  • Media convergence - different media cooperations join with other companies to offer a product or service
  • Global conglomerates - companies that consist of a lot of different businesses that may operate on international level
• Formal or legal controls on the media

  • The law restricts the media's freedom to report whatever they like
  • Laws of libel - forbid the publication of an untrue statement which might bring someone to hostility or contempt in society
  • Official Secrets Act - makes it a criminal offence to report without authorising any official government activity which they define as an 'official secret'
  • DSMA-Notices - government requests journalists not to report counter-terrorism info which may damage national security
• Formal or legal controls on the media

  • Racial and Religious Hatred Act - forbid the expression of opinions which will encourage hatred or discrimination against people due to their ethnic background
  • Obscene Publications Act - forbids the publication of anything that a court considers to be obscene and indecent and 'corrupt' people likely to read, hear or see it
  • Contempt of Court - forbids the reporting or publications of material about cases which are in the process of being dealt with in a court of law and is likely to jeopardise a fair trial
• OfCom

  • Established in 2003 as a powerful media regulator with responsibilities across tv, radio and wireless communication services
  • Further interests of consumers
  • Securing the best use of the radio spectrum
  • Ensuring a wide range of the above are available in the UK with high quality services having a broad appeal
  • Protecting the public from any offensive or potentially harmful effects of broadcast media and safeguards people
• How governments influence and control media output

  1. Official government press conferences
  2. Leaks and off-the-record briefings - informal briefings of journalists such as 'sources close to the government have said..' favourable exposure may be given preferential treatment
  3. Government spin doctors - try and manipulate the media by providing a favourable slant to a controversial news item, or attempt to bury bad news by releasing info that shows the government in a bad light at the same time as the nation's media are distracted by a more sensational story
• 4. Refusal to issue broadcasting licenses to those whom it deems are unfit and unsuitable

  5. Refusal to allow the use of some forms of computer software and the use of filtering and surveillance to block access to internet sites

  6. Electronic surveillance of emails, monitoring of websites and intercepts of mobile calls. This restricts people’s willingness to communicate freely and is likely to occur in regions without democracy
• Marxist views

  • Those who own the media also control it - wealthy bourgeoisie who instruct editors and journalists to put across certain messages to the audience
  • This spreads a dominant ideology and contributes to false class consciousness
  • Manipulative model and direct control - Miliband
  • Editors and journalists in newspapers depend on the owners for their jobs and will not resist the dominant ideology
• • Curran - found evidence of owners directly manipulating media content
  • In the middle of the 20th century 'press barons' had a propagandist role, with more conservative supporting newspapers which reflects them serving their wealthy owners - Rupert Murdoch being an example
  • Millband - conservative and conformist ideology comes across as fact in the media
  • Politicians believe media moguls have a great deal of control over the media and is evident when Tony Blair flew to Australia to meet Rupert Murdoch
• Evaluating traditional marxism

  • Neo marxists say that rich and wealthy owners of media do not have time to micro-manage media content - real control of the media is down to the editors. Even editors of large publications cannot control everything and give some autonomy to journalists
  • Pluralists (Whale) say that 'media moguls' are busy dealing with global business matters and not stories that run in national newspapers. They only care about profit from what will sell not the ideology of politics
• Neo-marxist views

  • Agree with marxists and the dominant ideology across stories however it is not the owners doing this, but editors and journalosts who come from privileged backgrounds too
  • They are employed by owners as they agree with the same dominant values - the conservative view
  • GUMG - found that in the 1970s the vast majority of journalists working in the national media were white, middle class men. The media tends to be neutral and objective but this is not the case.
  • Owen Jones - 51% of the top journalists in Britain are privately educated, 94% white and 55% men
• • Jones suggests this class inequality in journalism is getting worse and not better as the decline of local newspapers has removed one route that working class people could take into a journalism career
  • The ruling class have established hegemony and the bourgeoisie ideology is viewed as common sense - alternative views are seen as extremist or ridiculous
• Evaluating neo-marxism

  • Traditional marxists question the idea that journalists share the same right wing views as their owners
  • Dennis Skinner (left wing MP) marched with striking miners through London and journalists from the Daily Express cheering them on through office windows despite the newspapers regularly printing articles attacking the miner's union leaders and strikes
  • Pluralists such as James Whale argue that the views and approaches contained within mainstream media is not a result of social background of editors but a result of market demands of the audience
• Pluralist views

  • Liberal approach (people are free to make choices)
  • The content of mass media reflects what the public thinks/wants
  • Those who own and control the media usually adopt a pluralist view, arguing that they must satisfy public demand to stay in business
  • Pluralist theory of power states that no one group dominates the whole of society - power is shared amongst a range of groups
  • A wide range of views can be chosen from, allowing for consumer choice in a free market
• Pluralist views

  • Strong tradition of investigative journalism, which has often targeted those in power, is evidence that the media are independent of the powerful in society
  • Example - Conservative MP Geoffrey Archer was forced to resign after a sex scandal involving a prostitute. His subsequent perjury in providing a false alibi was exposed in the press and he was eventually imprisoned
  • The behaviour of media owners is constrained by the market - in free market economies media owners compete against each other to attract people to their product
  • Readers and viewers exercise the real power
• Pluralist views

  • Power, according to pluralist thinkers, lies with the consumer or audience rather than with owners
  • Audiences are free to choose a pick 'n' mix approach thanks to the wide range of media they can select - they have freedom to accept, reject, reinterpret and ignore media content in accordance to their beliefs
  • Globalised digital media enables all sorts of views through citizen journalism
• Pluralist views

  • The rational for media concentration is essentially economic rather than political or ideological - media products are costly to produce
  • The globalisation of media and the conglomerates that have resulted from this are attempts at finding new audiences to increase profits rather than the dominance of values
  • Vertical and horizontal integration reduce costs because media companies no longer have to contract services out to other media companies who might be competing with them
• Pluralist views

  • Practically impossible for owners to interfere in the content of newspapers and tv as their businesses are economically far too complex for them to take regular interest
• Criticisms of the pluralist approach

  • Media owners appoint editors - and on numerous occasions have sacked uncooperative ones - strongly influence who is appointed at senior levels
  • Only very rich groups will have the resources required to launch major media companies to get their views across independently and both governments and rich individuals have brought political or legal pressure to bear to stop programmes etc. which threaten their interests
  • Hegemonic theorists argue that people have been socialised by the media into the belief that they are being provided with what they want
• Public service broadcasting

  • In the UK, there are parts of the media that are not owned by private companies but instead owned by the government
  • BBC and Channel 4
  • Channel 4 still generates its revenue from selling advertising and the BBC is funding by the licensing fee (TV licenses)
  • While some state broadcasters in other countries act as propaganda outlets, the BBC operates independently of state interference
  • EVALUATION - neo-marxists and GUMG point to the fact that the BBC's hierarchy is only made of wealthy, middle class white men