Curran and Seaton

According to Curran and Seaton media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands.

What evidence is there to support this hypothesis in the UK newspaper market and what issues are raised by this model of ownership?

The Curran and Seaton theory says that “Newspapers should reflect the interests of an audience otherwise they will go out of business, they should be liberal and anyone should be able to make one. However, this does not happen in practice and the press can be used as a propaganda tool to influence the audience”. The evidence to support this is how newspaper businesses, such as The Times and The Sun, make sure their audience enjoy their content and its what they want to read about. For example, The Times will include a lot of politics as that’s what it focuses on and that’s what appeals to their target audience. Issues raised by the media ownership include piracy, which is the illegal distribution of media without the permission of its owner and advances in digital technology have made piracy easier, cheaper and better quality. Files can be leaked before a film’s release and the internet allows pirate material to be distrusted all over the world. Another issue is the big Hollywood production companies like Warner Brothers, Paramount and MGM are multi million pound industries which means they can dominate the international film industry because they release hundreds of movies and have lots of money to make them and distribute them. They want to make money so they invest time in making sequels however for audiences this means they have limited choices of films in cinemas, loads of sequels and poor-quality films. Currently there are more American films than British independent films, being shown at Odeon and VUE, this then lead the UK Film Council to be axed in 2010.