Industries: Ownership and control blog task

Create a new blogpost called 'Ownership and control' and complete the following tasks:

1) Type up your research notes from the lesson - what did you find out about your allocated media conglomerate? Selection of companies: Alphabet, The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Facebook, Viacom, News Corp, Time Warner. If you were absent or don't have the notes, research any of the companies above and find examples of all the terminology outlined in the notes at the start of this blogpost.

ABC Television Group

ESPN, Inc. 

Walt Disney Parks & Resorts U.S., Inc.

Lucasfilm Ltd. 

Marvel Entertainment, LLC.

Disney is known for Disney pictures and are parent companies to ESPN, abc, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and many more.

2) Do you agree that governments should prevent media conglomerates from becoming too dominant? Write an argument that looks at both sides of this debate.

In my opinion, I think that governments should attempt to prevent conglomerates from being too dominant because the media has an immense amount of power to change and view or opinion of a viewer. This sort of power could lead to extreme side effects. To further add on to this, a lot of stories are rarely shown to be biased therefore are heavily unbiased leading to much more impactful changes in a viewers opinions.

Media Magazine 52 has a good feature on the changing relationship between audiences and institutions in the digital age. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM52 and scroll to page 9 to read the article 'Two Key Concepts: The Relationship Between Audience and Institution'.

3) Briefly describe the production, promotion and distribution process for media companies.

Production process: This is done so that the producers know what the audiences wan to see therefore their gratifications.

Distribution process: Using the most convenient way to get the product out to audiences.

Promotion process: This is done to find the target audiences for the product that is being or has been made.

4) What the different funding models for media institutions?

There is the commercial funding which relies on advertisement (ITV) and the public service broadcasting which relies on taxes (BBC).

5) The article gives a lot of examples of major media brands and companies. Choose three examples from the article and summarise what the writer is saying about each of them. 

Disney - This is a company that is known worldwide for a plethora of reasons consisting of Disneyland, Mickey Mouse, Pixar Movies and owners of companies such as Marvel and lucasfilm.

Marvel - This is a company that is divided in many different types of media with Movies, Comics and Toys. With a joined ownership amongst companies such as Sony, Disney and Fox Marvel is a well known superhero comic company.

Spotify - This company offers a music streaming and downloading service with a pain monthly or annual subscription.

6) What examples are provided of the new business models media companies have had to adopt due to changes in technology and distribution?

Due to so many alternatives to receive media due to the media some legal and illegal the media institutions have reconsidered their business models. For cinemas, they advertise the greatness of IMAX cinema viewing being the ultimate experience of viewing movies which encourages people to go to the cinema. For music due to being able to download so easily the industry has made streaming services that are much easier to access rather than physical alternatives and this therefore helps prevent people downloading music illegally therefore meaning the artists are still getting some commission for their music being streamed instead of being downloaded.

7) Re-read the section on 'The Future'. What examples are discussed of technology companies becoming major media institutions?

Examples of technology companies going into the media space are Google and Amazon. With Google owning Youtube and now changing the format of it to have sub platforms such as Youtube Gaming and Youtube RED it shows how they are attempting to make themselves into a media focused company. As for Amazon they are making their Amazon now streaming service as a package with Prime to bring it to the forefront of their company.

8) Do you agree with the view that traditional media institutions are struggling to survive?

In my opinion I do not believe this while some traditional media institutions may be I think the majority of them are actually growing with Cinemas now having record breaking box office movies and the music industry being bigger than ever and with the return of Vinyls it shows the the old can comeback.

9) How might diversification or vertical integration help companies to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing media landscape? 

Companies would be able to appeal to more audiences through other organisations by essentially making sure they only produce what benefits the main company.

10) How do YOU see the relationship between audience and institution in the future? Will audiences gain increasing power or will the major global media conglomerates maintain their control?

Audiences and institutions will become either more dependant and life consuming due to the growth of these mass media companies like Disney or Apple, or the relationship will become broken and the trust will be lost due to changes in leadership or views of the worldwide population.