Week 7: Researching the Media and Cultural industries

This post is part of my 'Journalism, PR & The Media' theory module online portfolio

This week we have looked at the ways in which you can go about analysing, studying and researching the media and cultural industries and why it is important to study the actual industry as well as the theory involved.

Academic research into the media industries is important because you can relate the media texts to their conditions of production which will then bridge the gap between theory and practise. By theorising production, content and economic factors it helps us better understand the industry, allowing us to understand the how as well as the why.

Media analysis is also important not only for us as academics but also for industry professionals. By completing media analysis you can target and understand a particular problem which will save costs, protect revenues and provide insights into the effectiveness of campaigns and business strategies. (Dowling, G. and Weeks, W. 2011)

In the set reading Jane Stokes comments that we often forget that the majority of people who work in the business of making cultural artefact's do so in order to make money. The profit motive is one of the factors which determines particular decisions made within these industries. This means that whatever industry you are going to study, whether it is journalism or TV production it is important to understand the economics of the industry, which is what we looked at last week when discussing political economic theory. By understanding this, it means you can understand why and how decisions are made.

Karl Marx who was a materialist would also agree, he considered the economics of a society to be crucial to understanding how the society functions at all levels. He affirmed that 'The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of a society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force' (Marx and Engels, 1964;1974). If we link this to his theory of ideology it means that the ideas of those in power are pushed onto those not in power as ideologies, the unpowerful then believe these ideas to be true. Within most countries in the West, including Britain and the USA, the governments take an active interest in the media and culture industries for example; the director-general of the BBC is appointed by the board of governors (Jane Stokes, 2003) this means the government can influence how the BBC is run and therefore potentially push out ideologies to the public as Marx suggests.

There are a large number of industries which come within the rubric of 'media and culture' (Stokes and Reading, 1999; Childs and Storry, 1999). My main interest is in PR therefore I would base my political economy research around this area. I would be able to use people based evidence, as discussed in the lecture, by interviewing the contacts I made on my PR work experience placement.

Bibliography:

Dowling, G. and Weeks, W. Media analysis: what is it worth? (2011) Journal of Business Strategy, Vol 32 No 1. pp. 26-33.

Stokes, J. How to do media and cultural studies. (2003) Sage Publications. Page 100-127