Political Economy of the Media

This weeks blog post will be focusing on key reading based upon the political economy of the media as this is what was taught to me in the lecture this week. Within this lecture I began to understand the political economy and the public sphere, also the relationship between them that is very much based on who has the power in the media.

The first key reading I will be discussing is a reading by Ien Ang, the discussion from this was focusing on the audience relationship, what I understood from this reading was that the making of commercial television programmes is now purely for profit and for the use of advertising. It makes key points about how advertisers don’t care about the culture or the pro-social value of the audiences of these programmes, but if the programme has a high audience rating. The political economy of commercial television suggests that the audiences are defined as potential customers for these products that are being advertised, these are known as audience-as-market. The other type of audience is audience-as-public, this audience isn’t entirely for profit making but the programmes are made to serve the audience.

The second key reading is a chapter called ‘Political Economy of the Media’ and is taken from the core media text book, this reading focuses on the power relations within the media industry as a whole and discusses how this power generates revenue. This reading is similar to Ien Ang’s reading as it discusses how television and media is now produced to maximise profits, but also how the sale of audiences for the advertising of products, appears to be one of the most important aspects. This again is using the audience-as-market to gain revenue.

The reading that I have found myself is taken from the “Journal of Media and Culture” (2000) and discusses the political economy of the media, using the internet as an example; however this journal is still relevant to the other key readings. This reading discusses both types of audiences similar to the two previous readings, although I found this reading particularly interesting as it agrees with the concept of organisations not seeing their audiences as actual audience, but as a commodity. The reading from the core media text book also discusses the audience as a commodity; both of these readings agree with the importance of advertising. My reading suggests audiences are now made by advertising and are generalised by what products are being advertised, rather than the audience suggesting what products are. In simple form, advertisements are being placed on the most viewed programmes/websites without considering entirely on whether they are the target audience for that product.

In terms of my own research the methodology I would apply a rhetorical analysis as I'd like to look more closely at media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch. The reason for this is to find out how the connection between the political economy and power is so strong.

References:

Chapter 2 ("Audience-as-market and audience-as-public") in Ang, Ien (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge.

Downes,D,. 2000. The Medium Vanishes? The Resurrection of the Mass Audience in the New Media  Economy A Journal of Media and Culture,3.1,  [online], 2000. Available from: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0003/mass.php [Accessed 08 February 2013]. 

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) ‘Political Economy of the Media’ IN Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2^nd Edition), London: Pearson. pp. 172-185