Media Madness

A confession must be made, for I was absent for this, our most recent lecture. The sandman had mischievously snuck into my room and worked his magic, with a still-weary me waking 4 hours after the fact - nice work Callum! Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise however. Undoubtedly any thought of concentration would have been quickly subdued, while interests that happened to be piqued throughout my review of the recording were easily accessible with a click of the mouse. Oh reasoning, how I love you.

Moving right along... I found myself in the midst of one of the most-discussed topics in contemporary media, the controversial Commercial versus Public media debate that has only intensified with the recent inclusion of 'specialty' channels to free-to-air.

Bruce made the point that commercial media thrives on consumerism, that without demand there is certainly no profit. "Survives or fails on business success", as the slide put it. Through this, it was maintained that advertising was a key factor in revenue-raising for these commercial media companies, making the following graphic both compelling and accurate:

Because they are! We have established that the premise of these companies staying in-business is by controlling their revenue flow. Advertising provides for an overwhelming majority of this income, so much so that commercial companies are literally bending over backwards to accommodate them. 

According to fabc.org, "to ensure advertisers get maximum exposure to potential customers, broadcast programs are selected to attract as large a target audience as possible, for as little expenditure as possible, at any single time." 

This in itself raises a number of issues. The main point of concern raised in the lecture was the ability (or lack thereof) of commercial media towards the delivery of both commercial (profit) and social ('public trust') functions; being able to produce profit whilst retaining the viewer's sense of 'trust' in what they are being shown. This 'trust' is broken as soon as a media company chooses to promote or silence something so as not to harm revenue uptake. Such cases of this occurring include:

"The ‘dumbing down’ of programming to the lowest common denominator to secure large audiences, which includes a trend away from quality in-depth information, and toward lightweight, ‘infotainment-style’ programming; and a preference for US over Australian local programming. US programming - having already covered its costs and made its profit in the far larger... US market - is sold to Australia at rates far lower than the cost of Australian production." (fabc.org)

To add to this, pressure from 'higher powers' have notably influenced how media companies handle themselves; Rupert Murdoch's recent phone tapping scandal case-in-point. A media company's content is influenced by their need to promote and avoid offending those with whom they serve to do business with. Where being 'unbiased' is considered one of the foremost qualities of a good Journalist, Commercial Media has committed itself to being anything but. 

.. however I still love my Home & Away.