Lindsay Finkelstein's
The media is something everyone looks to for entertainment, whether it be music, movies, sports, or even video games. When viewing different types of media, it’s not likely someone will be thinking about how the media is trying to persuade you to think a certain way. And although we believe there are various different corporations who fund different aspects of the media, it is mostly generated from six big corporations: The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, CBS, News Corporation, Time Warner Cable, and Viacom. These six companies make up the entire mass media from music labels, movie studios, news networks, sports networks, and even parks and resorts. These different corporations each own smaller networks and labels and can use what is called synergy, which is defined as a cooperation of various subsidiaries of media conglomerates to either promote their work or promote ideologies that match with the company’s ideology.
When looking for more viewers to watch a show that is produced by the same network, they can use what is called cross-promotion. A fairly new example is on Freeform, they will show promotions for Disney’s new streaming service, Disney Plus. This new kind of technology makes it easier for viewers to watch movies and includes movies from different companies Disney owns. Touchstone Pictures, for example, is owned by Disney and produced the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, which is available to watch on Disney Plus. This also occurs with Comcast and their new streaming service Peacock. Another synergy that has been used fairly often is cross-production, which is taking one original product and producing it in several different forms. For example, the Marvel and DC Universes. They both started off as comic book companies but have flourished into big movie franchises under different companies: Marvel with Disney and DC with Warner Brothers, which is owned by Warner Media. A problem with these six companies running the media is the content the news stations they own put out. For example, Time Warner Cable owns CNN, which is known for being primarily left leaning and News Corporation owns Fox News, which is known for their conservative ideology. In this sense, they are using Bias of Inclusion in which these news stations promote information in the interest of their parent company. This results in very biased news and because it is targeting one specific audience, like Fox News is targeted towards conservatives, if they try to stray away from the interest of the parent company, they are going to be shut down. For example, in the most recent election, the executives at Fox News sent a memo to the anchors not to call Joe Biden the “President-elect” when the network called the race. This was because they were known to be Trump supporters and they didn’t want any legal trouble with the Trump Administration, so the executives thought it would be in their favor to stray away calling Biden the “President-elect” when it was obvious Joe Biden had already won the election. There are a lot of issues that can be raised from media ownership and funding in contemporary media practice, including bias and the widespread ownership of smaller conglomerates. With new technology and the need for efficient ways of entertainment comes new ways for big corporations to profit off of these needs. By focusing on a certain aspect that the audience enjoys, movie producers, music producers, or even game makers can make a lot of money because people want more of it, especially with the live action remakes of old Disney movies. These corporations have enough money to spend on the quality of a film, so the audience will enjoy it. There are a lot of issues with how the media is run, but overall, these corporations seem to understand what their audience likes.
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