The television industry is vast and varied, it caters to everyone’s needs with its diversity of choices to pick from. but is the television industry just chopped up into select bite size pieces for us to easily ingest when we want it. Can we trust what we see on our screens hasn’t been edited too far and lost all original meaning.
Technology
Technology is moving along at an increasing rate, some would see this as a positive movement. Almost now everybody has a digital box in their home which is used to view programs broadcasted by varies different stations. Some of these boxes such as the sky plus box can be used to select and record viewing material for later viewing giving the owner a freer roam to pick and choose what they wish to view whether it’s a new up-coming sit-com or if they want to save a scary horror for another night, giving them the ability to select their own schedule and not feel as if the television station is dictating what they have to watch. Already we are able to access multiple forms of media from our mobile phones and other such devices, being able to text, email, browse the internet, shopping, social networking such as twitter and facebook and even watch television and films, listen music, to audio books, read books... many more. Many sites offer a downloadable "app"lication which makes it easier to shop and access their site from your own mobile device. This is called convergence.
Some see this as having a negative effect, we're losing our ability to converse properly and dropping vocabulary. We're spending too much time on our mobile devices to play games, text, listen to music and mess around on facebook.
The video above appears to be an advert for Sony products at first unless you already know it’s the new resident evil trailer. I think it can be used as a strong metaphor describing how we’re all turning into zombies submersing ourselves in our mobile devices where ever we are. I’m linking this in with Vertical and Horizontal integration.
Vertical integration | Horizontal integration |
Studio: Sony pictures | |
Distributor: Screen Gems | |
Ownership and Institutions
Media institutions are what is responsible for what we watch on TV. Described by O'Sullivan, Fiske, Hartley & Saunders 1983, "Institutions are those enduring regulatory and organising structures of an society, which constrain and control individuals and individuality... the term more precisely refers to the underlying principles and values according to which many social and cultural practises are organised and co-ordinated."
"In Media Studies, we are most concerned with the institutions responsible for producing media texts. They can be represented by the following diagram."
Institutions influenced by money, ownership and political gain are easily susceptible to corruption. These are huge powers in the media we listen to and watch on a daily basis telling us what to do and whats going on in the world. Ownership can be undetectable and scary. Newscorp owns newspapers, news channles, film studios, thats four newspapers in the United Kingdom, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Times and News International all telling us the same thing from the same angle. 120 channels around the world including Bskyb, Sky news etc. Mostly known for owning Fox news and all associated channels.
My opinion of Fox news is that it is completely corrupt, the intro is like watching the intro of CSI or some related program, it feels more like entertainment rather than the news which both are categories that hold they're own and shouldn't be crossed. The anchors and editors feel as if they have too much power and feel like they can do anything. Several examples of this would be when they constantly cut a guest speaks mic off and shut them down when things aren't going they're way, they bring in speakers employed by them to speak and back which article they are supporting. Bill O'Reilly has his on catch-phrase... "shut up". "Selected Stories to deliberately upset Liberals and Democrats and prop up the Republicans, hostility towards guests that disagree with the host and a host that in service of his conservative politics will distort facts will misrepresent things and in some cases fabricate", Peter Hart, Media Analyst for FAIR, Outfoxed. Talking about Rielly. When Reilly has Jeremy Glick on his show and abuses him and cuts him off, and then still running with the same story Fox has taken the video and edited to show what they want people to see to gain more support. My point is it's scary to think that if they can get away with this which is indisputably true no matter how bias "outfoxed" was they're still aired right now which is owned by newscorp. (Rupert Murdoch) and also own these newspaper and sky news and much more, i don't trust sky news anymore.
The BBC is also a major media institution but the BBC is a psb - public service provider which means the BBC has guidelines, regulations to follow and is a service for the public without any political and remain unbias. The BBC follows the Royal Charter making sure the BBC is for the people. The BBC is Required to provide a range of material for different social groups instead of targeting a particular audience such as a political party with a particular agenda. As a psb the BBC must provide also a range of educational programs, and programs suitable for all ages. This is made possible because of the TV license, everyone who owns a television set, computer screen or Internet access must pay for one. Doing this means the BBC remains unbias and a public service which we all can enjoy and have access to.
Fox doesn't have this luxury which it finds unfair and must attract subscriptions which is why it targets a particular audience along with its other agendas.
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