Media Exam Question Global Institutions -

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, 20^th 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.