The Mass Media Apparatus

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The Mass Media Apparatus

• The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Policy
  and the
• Endless Chain

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Political Economy of the Mass Media

• Lecture Outline
• mass media apparatus defined (again)
• Bagdikians endless chain - its four effects
  and the relationship to the audience
• policy
• general discussion
• trends and patterns of globalization
• concentration of ownership
• instruments of policy.

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Mass Media Apparatus
The mass media apparatus is a system of
relationships amongst five social institutions
which is productive of media and of profit.
These institutions are
- scientific research - technological
development - financial institutions -
juridical regulators - the mass media outlets.
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Bagdikians endless chain

• Definition
• The endless chain can be seen as a system of
  interlocking financial obligations, in the form
  of ownership equity and debt, which are
  maintained and reinforced institutionally through
  interlocking institutional control in the form of
  cross-corporate directorships.

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Effects of the endless chain

• Ideological skewing of information
• privileges corporate interests over private ones
• redundancy of programming content across any
  medium
• mediated information evaluated only in terms of
  profitability.

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The endless chain and the Audience

• audience seen as source of profit
• the problem of the audience
• the problem of audience research
• the 2 step-flow as limit of behavioral causality
• reinforces the institutional links between
  structures in the apparatus
• gives pre-eminence to the financial institutions
• defines the role of the regulatory institutions.

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Policy - General Discussion

• Two spheres of activity
• interests
• personnel

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Trends and Patterns of Globalization

• Background
• complimentary ownership of assets
• vertical expansion of the corporate chain of
  production
• horizontal expansion of retail market.

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Effects of Globalization

• Concentration of ownership
• concentration of interests
• strategic importance of industries
• notion of public charge
• Problems.

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Juridical Regulation Policy

• Definition
• Policy should be understood as the instrument
  or mechanism of government intervention which
  directs, limits or otherwise organizes the
  actions and interactions between the other four
  sector of the mass media apparatus.

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Types of Policy Instruments and Mechanisms

• Directives
• funding
• licensing
• limits to ownership
• regulation.

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The Broadcast Act the CRTC

• 1932 - Concerned with regulation of radio
• public sector non-profit approach to promote
  national interests.
• 1936 - The creation of the CBC
• concern with balancing the needs of French and
  English speaking population
• establishes an arms length relationship between
  political system and the broadcaster.
• 1958 -Strengthened the position of the private
  sector
• establishes a Board of Broadcast Governors -BBG
• implements regulations regarding Canadian Content
  requirements

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The Broadcast Act the CRTC

• 1968 - Redefines the regulatory process and
  institutes a system of licensing of broadcasters
  
• establishes a regulatory body - the Canadian
  Radio Television Commission - CRTC.
• 1976 - Amendment of the Act to the Canadian
  Radio-Television and Telecommunication
  Commission.
• 1991 - Redefined the term broadcasting to include
  all delivery systems.

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The Impact of Deregulation

• Response to external corporate pressures
• the result of the emergence of new technologies
• the merging of form or structure with content.

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