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Mass media: broadcasting
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Mass media: broadcasting
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The model shown here is a simplified version of one developed by De Fleur in 1966. It s useful in that it shows the various influences in the American free-market broadcasting system which shape the content of output in the USA.
Although 'lowbrow' (i.e. low taste - police series, games shows, 'infotainment' etc.) content is frequently criticized for its possible negative influence on the audience (it leads to crime, it melts your brain, or simply because it's trash in the opinion of the critics who prefer something 'better'), in a free-market system there will inevitably be a close match between the size of the audience for certain kinds of material and the output of that material.
De Fleur's model shows a theoretical distribution of taste throughout the audience: a large base of people with lowbrow tastes, fewer with middlebrow tastes and even fewer with highbrow tastes. It's a reasonable assumption that, in a free market system such as in the USA, the proportions of output content will approximately match the audience share, in order to 'give the public what they want'.
It's unlikely, though, that there will be a precise match, for various reasons: for example, pressure groups will be partially successful, the output of hard-core porn will be limited by obscenity laws and so on.
Further, there may be a greater proportion of highbrow output than is warranted by the size of the highbrow audience because such people have greater purchasing power - a similar effect can be seen in the British press, where the 'quality' newspapers continue to exist despite small readerships because advertisers are willing to pay a premium to reach people who can afford their expensive goods. That is rather more likely to be the case in the US broadcasting system than in the UK because the US has a much greater number of channels, thus allowing much greater audience differentiation (akin to the UK newspaper and magazine market) than is the case in British broadcasting. That, however, is changing as the penetration of satellite channels gathers pace, and will change even more under the influence of digital TV.
In a social responsibility system (see public service broadcasting), there will be distortion of the output. The media research agencies (such as BARB or the BSC) will be less firmly located in the commercial sector, output of certain kinds of material will be regulated in various ways (see the Broadcasting Act 1990) and there will be regulatory bodies in place to ensure that the broadcasting companies play by the rules (e.g. the ITC). That framework will have been put in place by political and cultural élites who are rather more powerful in Western European countries (or for that matter, say, in India, where the state broadcasting corporation Dordashan follows the BBC model) than in the US. As a result, McQuail and Windahl (1981) suggest, the shape of media output in such countries will look something like this:
As you can see, there is an artificial inflation of the Middle and High content. Thus, in Britain we have Radio 3 and Radio 4, paid for by licence fee payers whether they like it or not, which could probably not survive in a free market system.
In a state-controlled (rather than merely state-regulated) broadcasting system, there will be an even greater tendency to give the people what is good for them, rather than what they want. There will be a higher output of informational content (for example, interminable speeches by Saddam Hussein), generally classified as 'highbrow', major cultural events (such as the women's dance corps of the People's Liberation Army dancing to celebrate Chairman Mao's birthday) and so on. By and large, there will be a tendency to focus on material which is ideologically acceptable to the régime, though, with the spread of new technologies, it will soon become quite simply impossible for totalitarian régimes to control what their citizens see and listen to.
The financial backers of one sort or another are shown in de Fleur's model as providing advertising content and goods and services (in the form of sponsorship). In addition they will conduct or commission research (often conducted by university departments) into the effectiveness of their advertising, audience preferences, audience figures etc.
In the USA the major media corporations are engaged in activities well beyond the media and many companies from outside the media field have diversified into media and communications. General Electric, for example, 'owns RCA, which owns the NBC network and Westinghouse, which owns major TV broadcasting stations, a cable network, and a radio station network' (Herman (1990)). Fairly obviously, such companies are not likely to take too kindly to media criticism of their non-media activities, so it is reasonable to expect that they might put pressure on their broadcasters.
Pressure groups may bring pressure on advertisers who will in turn bring pressure on broadcasters (see 'Voluntary Associations in the USA' under 'Legislative Bodies etc.')
Advertisers in the USA are reluctant to sponsor broadcasts which are critical of corporate activities, such as their impact on the environment, workers' rights, corporate support of dictatorships and so on. When ABC ran The Day After, a film about the likely effect of nuclear war on the USA, nearly all advertisers cancelled their commercials during or around the film. Thus, programmers are encouraged to drop any broadcasts with a public affairs content.
In the UK, audience research is carried out on behalf of advertising agencies by such institutions as Gallup. In addition, BARB is jointly funded by the BBC and the independent broadcasters.
In Great Britain, legislative bodies would include Parliament, plus the general powers of the National Heritage Secretary. For example, the Broadcasting Act 1990 was formulated by Mrs Thatcher's government and approved by Parliament; broadcasters were banned from broadcasting the visuals of representatives or supporters of 'terrorist' organizations in Northern Ireland at the same time as broadcasting their voices. (At the time the ban was imposed by the Home Secretary - since 1992, the National Heritage Secretary has been responsible for broadcasting and other media).
There is a range of legislation which applies solely to the media and various legislation which applies to any UK subject, but is particularly important to the media. Relevant legislation includes:
In Great Britain, regulative agencies include the ITC, the BSC and the BCC which relate directly to broadcasting.
In addition, broadcasters will also be affected by the operation of the BBFC as regards the films they choose to broadcast, though the films they show are normally considerably more heavily edited than the version approved by the BBFC.
As regards commercials, the advertisers themselves will of course be concerned not to infringe against the ITC's code, but will also be affected by the ASA.
These include moral entrepreneurs, such as the NVLA, politically sponsored groups such as the Media Monitoring Group, as well as critics of the media within academic institutions, such as the Glasgow University Media Group.
In European, state-regulated, systems one might reasonably expect that such institutions would have at least as great an influence on broadcast output as the financial backers. In the American free market system, that appears, according to de Fleur, not to be the case. In part, that is due to the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is mainly due, though, to the market orientation of the broadcast media: the media must maximize their income; in order to do that they must maximize their advertising and sponsorship; to keep advertising and sponsorship rates high, they need to show that they have high ratings; in order to gain the high ratings, they need to target the great mass of the population (who, according to de Fleur's model, have 'lowbrow' tastes).
In the USA the regulatory body for broadcasting is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). During the 1980s as the new right presidents Reagan and Bush set about 'rolling back the frontiers of the state', the FCC abandoned many of its restrictions, which were not particularly restrictive to start with - on broadcast commercials, TV violence and the 'Fairness Doctrine', which supported equal airtime for opposing views. Thus the way was clear to turn broadcasting entirely into a money-making business.
There have long been voluntary bodies in the US which have been pressing for 'higher moral standards' in the media. The opposition to rock music in the 1950s was, for example, very vocal, though it ultimately had little success. Recently, such groups have begun to have more success in their campaigns. Apart from effectively lobbying Congress and using the services of such campaigners for 'morality' as the very powerful Senator Jessie Helms, they have been partially successful in bringing lawsuits for obscenity against, for example, art galleries exhibiting the works of the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
In the 1950s the anti-Communist followers of the infamous Senator McCarthy used their economic muscle to force advertisers and broadcasters into silence and to blacklist employees. To do so, they threatened to boycott the consumer goods advertised. Precisely the same tactic is being used today, as the moral rearmament movement call on their supporters to boycott supermarkets which stock certain 'immoral' publications. Consequently, such movements in fact succeed in launching a three-pronged attack: firstly, their own direct lobbying of the media; secondly, pressure from politicians who share their views (or at least appear to share their views because they want their votes); thirdly, pressure from advertisers who will demand 'suitable' programming as the price of their continued financial backing.
During the Reagan/Bush '80s, as the major industrial corporations, aided by the Presidency, went on the offensive, they sponsored the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the Media Institute, Accuracy in Media (AIM), the American Legal Foundation and the Capital Legal Foundation. 'These may be regarded as institutions organized for the specific purpose of producing flak. The function of AIM, for example, is to harass the media and put pressure on them to follow the corporate agenda and a hard-line rightist foreign policy. It conditions the media to expect trouble and cost increases for violating conservative standards.' (Herman (1990))
In the USA the media producers and distributors are clearly subject to the capitalist imperative to make money. de Fleur's model suggests that in responding to this imperative, they will produce more lowbrow than highbrow output because they are responding to audience preferences.
In the British broadcasting system, the capitalist imperative is less evident. This is partly because the BBC is financed from the licence payers and partly because of the requirements for certain types of output within a 'public service' system, requirements which apply to the independent broadcasters as well.
Similar restrictions are also imposed by the European Union, which, as a result of pressure from the French in particular, requires that a proportion of TV output should be of programmes produced within the EU.
Nevertheless, it is not the case in the UK that broadcasters are free of financial pressures. The independent companies clearly have to keep their advertisers (and the terrestrial broadcasters are now under greater pressure because of competition from satellite) and therefore need to keep ratings high. This pressure appears recently (1995) to have led to some 'bending' of the rules: for example, independent TV companies have counted Hollywood Women towards their current affairs quota; World in Action was temporarily removed from its prime-time slot so as to allow a soap ratings war with the BBC. There is also an unremitting campaign to persuade the ITC to allow News at Ten to be moved to an earlier time so that big blockbuster movies do not have to be interrupted. So far, this move has been resisted by the ITC. Recently, there has also been a spate of take-overs in the independent TV sector. It is this pressure to respond to the capitalist imperative that has led to increasing criticism of ITV companies for moving towards 'tabloid TV': increasingly 'tabloid' presentation of News at Ten, more 'edutainment' and 'infotainment' etc.
The BBC may appear to be immune from such financial pressures. In fact, however, it has to compete with ITV for audience ratings. If it cannot demonstrate to the government that it is able to provide what he British public want to watch and listen to, then it may find funding being reduced or being replaced by another form of funding than the licence fee. In current affairs broadcasts, for example, the BBC seems generally to have followed in the footsteps of ITV. For example, the BBC news broadcasts use the same structure as ITV's news broadcasts - two presenters, headlines before the ads (even though there aren't any ads on the BBC) etc.
Types of broadcasting system
Public Service broadcasting
Broadcasting in the European Union
European Union legislation
Broadcasting in France
Broadcasting in Germany
Broadcasting in Holland
Broadcasting in Italy
Broadcasting in the UK
Regulation of the media in the UK
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