Ownership and Regulation
Look at the newspapers in the UK and research who owns what titles. Answer the following questions on your own blog.
How many organisations own national newspapers and do any companies own more than one title? If so, are these titles linked together?
Which companies own regional newspaper titles? Look at newspapers that you may be familiar with such as The Leicester Mercury.
How many organisations own national newspapers and do any companies own more than one title? If so, are these titles linked together?
| London Evening Standard | Weekdays (evening) | Tabloid | 1827 | Alexander Lebedev (75.1%) & Lord Rothermere(24.9%) | Centre-right, conservative | Greater London |
| Metro | Weekdays | Tabloid | 1999 | Daily Mail and General Trust plc | wide availability in the major cities | |
| City A.M. | Weekdays (morning) | Tabloid | 2005 | City A.M. Ltd | Centre-right, conservative | wide availability in the major cities |
| The Shuttle | Weekly | Tabloid | 1870 | Newsquest Media Group | Wyre Forest area of Worcestershire | |
| Asian Express | Weekly | Tabloid | 1999 | Media Buzz Ltd | ||
| Yorkshire Reporter | Monthly | Tabloid | 2013 | Pick up Publications Ltd | Widely available in Leeds and its surrounding areas |
Which companies own regional newspaper titles? Look at newspapers that you may be familiar with such as The Leicester Mercury.
Leicester Mercury
The paper was founded by James Thompson, already proprietor of the Leicester Chronicle which he had merged with the Leicestershire Mercury ten years earlier.
Do any of these companies own other media outlets? How does this link to Hesmondhalgh's ideas on Cultural Industries (see below)?
Cultural Industries – Hesmondhalgh
Cultural industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and integration –
cultural production is owned and controlled by a few conglomerates who vertically integrate across a range of media to reduce risk.
Risk is particularly high in the cultural industries because of the difficulty in predicting success, high production costs, low reproduction costs and the fact that media products are ‘public goods’ – they are not destroyed on consumption but can be further reproduced. This means that the cultural industries rely on ‘big hits’ to cover the costs of failure. Hence industries rely on repetition through use of stars, genres, franchises, repeatable narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences, then industries and governments try to impose scarcity, especially through copyright laws.
The internet has created new powerful IT corporations, and has not transformed cultural production in a liberating and empowering way – digital technology has sped up work, commercialised leisure time, and increased surveillance by government and companies.
why do you think ownership is something to be concerned about in the UK? Use Curran and Seaton's Power and Media Industries to explore this idea in your post.
Power and Media Industries – Curran and Seaton
A political economy approach to the media – arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.
Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.
The internet does not represent a rupture with the past in that it does not offer a level playing field for
diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.
Cultural Industries – Hesmondhalgh
Cultural industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and integration –
cultural production is owned and controlled by a few conglomerates who vertically integrate across a range of media to reduce risk.
Risk is particularly high in the cultural industries because of the difficulty in predicting success, high production costs, low reproduction costs and the fact that media products are ‘public goods’ – they are not destroyed on consumption but can be further reproduced. This means that the cultural industries rely on ‘big hits’ to cover the costs of failure. Hence industries rely on repetition through use of stars, genres, franchises, repeatable narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences, then industries and governments try to impose scarcity, especially through copyright laws.
The internet has created new powerful IT corporations, and has not transformed cultural production in a liberating and empowering way – digital technology has sped up work, commercialised leisure time, and increased surveillance by government and companies.
why do you think ownership is something to be concerned about in the UK? Use Curran and Seaton's Power and Media Industries to explore this idea in your post.
Power and Media Industries – Curran and Seaton
A political economy approach to the media – arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.
Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.
The internet does not represent a rupture with the past in that it does not offer a level playing field for
diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.
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