Week 8

Reading Diary: Week 8

Researching Media Industries

The last week reading of the Journalism, PR and the Media module challenged my personal belief system and understanding. I really found it quite difficult but I hope I could get the main idea of it.

There are considerable debates about the relationship between practice and theory but what is essential and of a great value is their interaction. The cultural industries are undertaking changes and are strongly influenced by the technology. Whereas there are some theories that argue that at some point: “The points to keep in mind, however, are: first, technology doesn’t change media texts, but it does open up opportunities for new textual practices that certain entrepreneurs pursue; second, these practices are also shaped by – but not determined by – economic and regulatory conditions as well as technological ones” (Havens, T. 2012. p.58) Also, for understanding cultural industries is very important to understand the dynamic of consumption instead of production.

When thinking about media industry we have to bear in mind that access ‘insiders’ couldn’t be possible if there was no evidence. There are two main resources of evidence – documentary and people. The former can be used as a source-oriented or problem-oriented investigation while those which use people consist of interviews, participant observations and oral history. Combining and focusing on more than 1 method can give you more perspective and immersion.

Karl Marx and his ideological approaches contributed to the idea that media organizations play an essential role in conducting a research. Together with Engels “they affirmed that ‘The ideas of the ruling material force of a society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force’” (Marx and Engels, 1974: 64; Strokes, 2003, p.104)

Although the difficulties I faced while reading the both materials, I could understand how important the industry research is. The theorists examine the influence of media industry organization and practices on society. If taken for further research I would like to make a focus group of both men and women aged 26-35 and ask some questions which are interesting for me such as: How do we make sense of media industry changes?

Referencing:

Strokes, J. (2003) How to do media & cultural studies London, Sage Publications

Havens, Timothy, Lotz, Amanda, (2012) Understanding Media Industries, Oxford University Press

Week 7

Reading Diary: Week 7

Political Economy of the Media

This week we had the opportunity to become more aware about the political economy of the media. One of the key points that I researched is the decline in the consumption of the printed media outlets due to the spectacular growth of online advertising. A big number of newspapers and magazines are feeling in danger because of the significant rise of Internet.

By reading “The Political Economy of the ‘New’ News Environment” I could definitely see Des Freedman`s concern about the technological, social and economic changes of the news journalism and the consequences for the democracy. Because of the fact that Internet is reaching a level of saturation and widespread adoption throughout the world most news agencies try to integrate their products to a digital format. “All news organizations now have a web presence (see Sparks, 2000 for an analysis of the original business rationale for turning to the internet) and an online audience that is generally much higher that their offline audience.” (Freedman, 2010 Page 43) This means that journalists have to present their stories for both print and web form. Therefore, more payment is expected but they are facing more deadlines which lead to pressure and push them to use more information from PR agencies or so-called churnalism which Davies defines as “rapid repackaging of largely unchecked material”. (Davies, 2008: 60, Freedman, 2010: 41) 

After reading Chapter 5 from Media Studies (Long, P. & Wall, T. 2012) I raised awareness about the public sphere and ‘citizenship’. Modern media offers the opportunity of a proxy public sphere where interactions are magnified but people are perceived as clients. When it comes to the citizenship we can consider it as a political identity where people are privileged to have certain social rights. According to Graham Murdock “the right to participate fully in existing patterns of social life and to help shape the forms that they may take in future” is citizenship. (Murdock, 1994:158, 2004; Long, P, Wall, T 2012, p.184)

I do agree that online advertising prevails the offline but I do not agree that the traditional model is in ‘crisis’ and soon will be down. As Murdock thinks the media should serve us: information, knowledge, representation and communication so I believe that journalists could keep the balance and make profits. For my further investigation, by organizational research, I will focus on a comparison between the content of The Daily Mail and MailOnline.

Referencing:

Freedman, D. (2010) Chapter 2: The Political Economy of ‘New’ News Environment in Fenton, N. (ed) (2010) New Media, Old News. London Sage Publications

Long, P and Wall, T. (2012) Media Studies: Text, Production, Context 2^nd Ed. 

Week 5

Reading Diary: Week 5

 The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation

The changes caused by the new technologies in the media have an influential affect on the political communication. The demographic processes are also threatened by this. The opinion of the public spheres is no longer created through deliberation. It is built through communication systems whose major aim is to retain control of the dissemination of the flow of information.

In his article for “The Internet, Public Spheres and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation”, Peter Dahlgren firstly outlines the three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, the interactional and then gives us as an example authors such as Blumler and Gurevitch who summarized how the Internet destabilized the traditional system of political communications in terms of:  the increased sociocultural heterogeneity, massive growth in the media channels and outlets, etc.

The whole idea is about the impact of the Internet on the political communication which could be considered as both positive and negative. The expansion of the technologies as a new method for interaction is seen as a potential challenge to the traditional media parties and there is a “notable gap between the communication in the public sphere and institutional structures for binding decisions found in the global arena” (Dahlgren, 2005) Besides all the negativism he states: "Destabilization can thus extend political communication through horizontal civic communication, as well as through vertical communication between citizens." (Dahlgren, 2005, pp 151)

Deliberative Democracy need to be complemented with the civil cultures and emphasizes on the suggestion that the communication and interaction amongst the citizens is of a great importance.

I believe that Internet does cause some negative consequences on the public spheres and political communication but it is not fair to underestimate and ignore the positive aspect as well. “Even though the online sphere of political communication clearly has hierarchical patterns, the Internet seems nevertheless to offer better opportunities for non-institutional actors to achieve public visibility than newspapers” (Koopmans, Ruud., Zimmermann, Ann, C, 2003, Internet: A new potential for European political communications?)The decline in citizens` political engagement is one of the most serious problems facing the Western democracy because of the socio-cultural changes in the age of digitalization. Meanwhile the Internet gives us the opportunity to find more information regarding the government and the political issues as well as enhancing democracy.

If taken for further research I would like to create a small focus group of young people aged 18-26 in order to identify the level of interest about democracy and political communication among the “future generations”. Also I am interested in what will happen to our societies and government if there wasn’t such kind of Internet and communication technologies and how we can define democracy in the digital world?

Referencing:

Koopmans, Ruud. Zimmermann, Ann. C. 2003. Internet: A new potential for European political communication? Working paper

Dahlgren, P. 2005. ‘The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communications: Dispersion and Deliberation’ Political Communication, Vol.22 Issue 2 Pages 147-162