Mass Media 2 | The Ownership and Control Debate

Another set of Notes in the Mass Media series (following the initial Defining and Researching the Media set) that fell-victim to a dispute between the Publisher* who commissioned them and an Exam Board who, for reasons of personal probity shall remained unnamed**, these divide the ownership and control debate into three main sections:

1. Defining ownership and control – a brief overview of what we mean by these concepts.

2. Trends and patterns in media ownership is focused around concepts of media concentration and conglomeration. This section also includes an outline a various forms of media integration – horizontal, vertical and diagonal.

3. Theoretical explanations offers a couple of contrasting interpretations of the significance of media ownership and control: Marxism (considered in terms of its Instrumental and Hegemonic variations) and Pluralism (with a focus on concepts of globalisation and the audience selection model).

As befits their textbook origins the Notes aren’t hugely-detailed (lack of page space being a prime, if not over-riding, factor in their construction) but they should serve as an introduction to the main themes and arguments in the debate. You might find them useful as a supplement to the other resources (textbook or otherwise) you bring to the table.

* Philip Allan, in case you were wondering. They were promptly taken-over and banished from the face of literary existence by Hodder in a move that was probably unconnected with my personal trials and tribulations, but I like to think wasn’t. On the plus side, I did get paid.

** Ha. Who am I kidding? It was OCR.

Update
This chapter is also now available as an online flipbook.