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 it’s 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.

In the UK newspaper market, there is evidence of a certain media industry increasing its concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This also link to oligopoly, where a small number of industries share a market. For example, in the UK newspaper market, the industries that dominate are, DMGT, Scott’s Trust, The Telegraph and Trinity Mirror. An example of a company that created a media oligopoly is Trinity Mirror as they have brought out a smaller company and is changing the company name to Reach PLC. This has made them more powerful, as they removed some competition, within the UK newspaper market.

The patterns of ownership and control are significant in how the media operates, media industries follow a normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership. Powerful news organisations, who have defended their oligarchy, still control the news. Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern as capitalism is a system where a country's trade and industries re controlled by private owners for profit, just like the newspapers wend by companies such as DMGT and Scott's Trust, they all want to make money and profit, from the newspaper industry.

One issue raised by this model of ownership is the idea of one man, i.e. Rupert Murdoch, controlling a massive part of the UK's newspapers, this raises public concern as Rupert Murdoch has so much to do with politics and has such a big impact on newspapers, such as The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, that this can sometimes cause political controversy. Another issue, which also relates to Rupert Murdoch's relationship with politics, is that a small number of industries and people control the media market, which then puts media integrity at risk. This especially occurs when media ownership and political centres have close relations, which causes them to have different views and opinions on situations.