Question 4: Theorists

MEDIA INDUSTRIES THEORISTS

Curran and Seaton theorise that the media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. They argue that this leads to a narrowing of the range of voices and viewpoints available to audiences, with power and control over media production and distribution lying with a small number of conglomerates rather than reflecting diverse public interests. They claim that the Internet provides a way for other voices to emerge outside of the mainstream, but claim that the legacy media has maintained its oligopoly.

Hesmondhalgh theorises that the cultural industries are risk averse because they rely on big hits to maintain profit and to offset losses. He argues that media companies therefore rely on repetition of successful formulas, stars, and genres to attract audiences and that they rely on state control through copyright laws to maintain scarcity. He claims that the Internet has failed to deliver on the promise of freedom and instead that it has increased surveillance and commodified leisure time.

Livingstone and Lunt theorise that media regulation involves a tension between protecting citizens (through concerns for quality, diversity, and public interest) and enabling consumers (through choice, competition, and market freedom). They argue that in a digital age, regulators struggle to balance these roles effectively, often leading to self-regulation that favours industry interests over vulnerable audiences or broader societal needs. They point out that the Internet has made the process of regulation increasingly difficult.

MEDIA AUDIENCES THEORISTS

Bandura theorises that the media can influence audiences directly through social learning and modelling. He argues that audiences, especially younger or impressionable viewers, acquire attitudes, emotional responses, and behaviours by imitating what they see in media representations; he is especially concerned with the influence of representations of violence and aggression, potentially shaping real-world actions. He argues that the Internet means that audiences can seek out their own influences and have greater range of choice about the types of influence they experience.

Gerbner theorises that long-term exposure to media, particularly television, 'cultivates' viewers’ perceptions of social reality. He argues that repeated patterns of representation (for example, high levels of violence) gradually shape audiences’ beliefs about the world, creating a ‘mean world syndrome’ where dominant ideologies and exaggerated risks appear normal and inevitable. He also argued that heavy TV viewing - which we could now extend to use of Internet - leads to 'mainstreaming' where viewers begin to see their ideas as normative, even if they are more extreme.

Hall theorises that audiences actively decode media messages rather than passively accepting them. He argues that decoding depends on the audience’s social position and experiences, leading to dominant-hegemonic (accepting the preferred meaning), negotiated, or oppositional readings, which highlights the role of power in how meanings are constructed and contested. The preferred reading is ideologically aligned and accepts the preferred meaning; a negotiated reading is ideologically aligned, but does not wholly accept the preferred meaning; and an oppositional reading does not accept the preferred the meaning because of the ideological differences between audience and producer.

Jenkins theorises that digital media have fostered 'participatory culture' and fandom, where audiences actively create, share, and rework content, a process that he refers to as 'textual poaching.' He argues that fans form collaborative communities of ‘collective intelligence’ and act as prosumers, blurring the lines between producers and consumers creating 'spreadable media' (which is an active rejection of the term viral).

Shirky theorises that the internet has brought about the ‘end of audience’ as a passive mass. He argues that lowered barriers to entry allow ordinary users to produce and distribute media, leading to more fragmented, active, and unpredictable audiences who challenge traditional industry control and business models. He distinguishes between the ways that different parts of the audience interact with media suggesting that some create content, some synthesise content and some consume content. Like Jenkins, he identifies audiences as prosumers, using the term 'cognitive surplus' in a similar way to Jenkins' use of 'collective intelligence.'