Media Exam Question -
- Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their services and products, to national audiences. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Media
production is dominated by global institutions which sell their services and
products to national audiences. To what extent do you agree with this
statement?
Firstly, within media production there have been many
changes as the industry develops in a modern world. For example, in 1983 90% of
the American media industry was distributed between 50 companies whereas this
has changed recently, in 2011, to six large conglomerates owning 90% of the production
and distribution industry that are known as ‘the big six’. These six large
companies consist of: Universal, Disney, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century
Fox and Warner Bros Pictures. Between these six companies 90% of the industry
is shared meaning that the choice for the consumer is severely limited as bourgeoisie
owners of the media choose which productions to pass onto the mass audience
which dramatically, even subconsciously, affects their everyday life. For
instance, Disney recently purchased the Star Wars franchise from Lucas film ltd
and produced Episode VII: The Force Awakens, alongside Bad Robot and Truenorth
Productions, which had a £140,000,000 budget and made an estimated gross profit
of £651,000,000. The expensive purchase of this particular franchise was a
calculated move made by Disney as they were aware that the influence of their
position as one of the big six meant that they already had an established mass
audience. This audience are reliant on receiving media from these few
conglomerates due to media domination and therefore would buy into the
businesses productions most likely out of lack of choice, conformity and
loyalty.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that there are
still a variety of independent, indie, film producers which share the market
with large global institutions. Whilst the big six dominate 90% of the media
industry there is still 10% unaccounted for which is likely to be comprised of
independent film companies. The big six are not responsible for every large
blockbuster film that is sold to mass audiences despite many contradicting
beliefs. For instance, The Imitation Game was produced by Black Bear Pictures and
Bristol Automotive with a budget of £10,000,000 which resulted in an estimated
gross profit of £63,000,000 and an Oscar win which Star Wars: The Force Awakens
did not achieve. There are a variety of smaller indie film companies that
produce large grossing films that reach mass audiences and together command a
large segment of the media industry and therefore cannot be considered completely
inferior to the big six conglomerates.
Although, there is more evidence to support the idea that
global institutions dominate the media industry and the productions that are
distributed to mass national audiences. Conglomerate media companies diversify
through synergy thus dominating large percentages of society’s media by developing
inventive ways to reach larger audiences by selling their services and products
on a variety of social media platforms. For example, many of the big six media
companies, in cohesion with specific media productions, and as part of their
distribution services, diversify their media to a mass national audience
through merchandise including video-games, clothing and even theme parks. A
specific examples of this is the cross-media convergence of Lucasfilm ltd, who
Disney purchased the rights to Star Wars from, working alongside EA Games to
create Star Wars Battlefront. Star Wars Battlefront was a video-game targeted
at a next-generation console gamer audience who shared the excitement over the
new Star Wars film due to be released at a similar time; this particular
cross-media convergence made over £460,000,000 in sales of 13,000,000 copies of
the video-game which also helped to increase media hype over the film which was
due to hit cinemas around the time of release of the game.
Therefore, there is evidence to suggest that independent
film companies are still responsible for some of the material that reaches the
mass national audiences but the media industry is largely controlled and
dominated by the big six global institutions.
