Government’s Role in Promoting Media Pluralism
Media Market Dynamics
The media market is complex, influenced by geographic boundaries, intense competition, and constant change. Media companies compete on price, quantity, quality, and differentiation. Market pressures can be institutional (external) or spontaneous (internal). Public opinion and audience represent external pressures, while government influence is an internal pressure.
Media’s significant societal influence necessitates government involvement. Media policy aims to guide and control the media landscape. This control can manifest as media concentration, where companies acquire others or expand geographically.
Types of Media Integration
- Horizontal Integration: Owning multiple media outlets in a single market.
- Vertical Integration: Controlling the entire production and distribution process.
- Media Conglomerates: Owning diverse media outlets and integrated companies, often internationally.
Governments seek to control media due to its impact on societal morals, ethics, and values. This control aims to maintain power and influence.
Types of Media Control
- Liberalization: Primarily public broadcasting with limited private channels.
- Deregulation: Introduction of private channels and regulations.
- Privatization: Proliferation of private channels.
- Self-regulation: Free access and minimal government intervention.
Theoretical Approaches to Media Control
Critical Theory: Advocates media protectionism to prevent concentration and ensure pluralism, emphasizing media’s social impact.
Liberal School: Supports a free market of ideas that self-regulates and balances itself.
Totalitarian governments exert maximum control. Democratic governments, however, promote media pluralism to ensure diverse viewpoints and reflect the complexities of reality.
Reasons for Promoting Pluralism
Governments promote pluralism to uphold freedom of expression, provide diverse media options (newspapers, magazines, books, radio, etc.), empower audience choice, and present multiple perspectives, acknowledging the inherent subjectivity of information.
Media Market: A Dual Structure
The media market operates on two levels: audiences and advertisers. These are interconnected, with audience size attracting advertisers. Organizations like EGM (Estudio general de medios) analyze audience behavior and consumption habits.
Advertisers develop targeted campaigns, while media companies strategize content to attract specific audience segments, which in turn draw advertisers. Advertising revenue is crucial for private TV channels and publications like national newspapers, supplementing sales income.
Porter Model Framework: Competition Context
:·Competition in terms of an increasing number of companies within the same industry (tv channels and tv industry)·Competition in terms of potential entries or substitutes, for instance the TDT television digital terrestre as a substitute to tv.·Audience and advertisement are linked together the former pulls the advertisement and the latter pulls a significant income for the media industries. ·Competition may lead to lose audience and therefore advertisement as an income, so its important to establish a competitive advantage to keep the profitability of the company or industry.To establish competitive advantage there are three aspects: Price, Quantity, Quality/Differentiation.
Choose and explain one of the new media paradigms:
·Paradigm: model or example of something to help us to understand how the world works.
·First paradigm: From audience to user.
·Shows how the passive unidirectional way of media consumption is replaced by the concept of active user looking for content, exploring and navigating the Net-space.
·Old media audience, those who listen. New environment à people doing things, users.
·Active users who have the control to choose, to decide, to search, to define and configure, to subscribe or unsubscribe, to comment and to write, talk and film.
·Users write, give inf within the Net-space. Therefore journalists must redesign themselves, giving their knowledge to people, they need qualified content, and they search for quality, not quantity. Journalists must give qualified content, to differentiate from non-professionals.