Ownership and Regulation

Who owns What?

Look at the newspapers in the UK and research who owns what titles. Answer the following questions on your own blog.

1. How many organisations own national newspapers and do any companies own more than one title? If so, are these titles linked together?
2. Which companies own regional newspaper titles? Look at newspapers that you may be familiar with such as The Leicester Mercury.
3. Do any of these companies own other media outlets? How does this link to Hesmondhalgh's ideas on Cultural Industries (see below)?
4. Why do you think ownership is something to be concerned about in the UK? Use Curran and Seaton's Power and Media Industries to explore this idea in your post.

Power and Media Industries – Curran and Seaton

A political economy approach to the media – arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.
Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.
The internet does not represent a rupture with the past in that it does not offer a level playing field for
diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.

Cultural Industries – Hesmondhalgh

Cultural industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration and integration –
cultural production is owned and controlled by a few conglomerates who vertically integrate across a
range of media to reduce risk.
Risk is particularly high in the cultural industries because of the difficulty in predicting success, high
production costs, low reproduction costs and the fact that media products are ‘public goods’ – they are not destroyed on consumption but can be further reproduced. This means that the cultural industries rely on ‘big hits’ to cover the costs of failure. Hence industries rely on repetition through use of stars, genres, franchises, repeatable narratives and so on to sell formats to audiences, then industries and governments try to impose scarcity, especially through copyright laws.
The internet has created new powerful IT corporations, and has not transformed cultural production in a liberating and empowering way – digital technology has sped up work, commercialised leisure time, and increased surveillance by government and companies

Regulation

The owners of newspapers can influence the editorial stance of a newspaper. The motives and agenda of newspaper owners and editors, and how they try to influence our understanding of certain events, is important when analysing how newspapers tell stories. Newspapers will also attempt to influence how the public vote in elections, with certain newspapers openly backing specific political parties.

With this much power, it is important that newspapers stick to a code of conduct or rules set out by independent organisations. This is known as regulation.

Regulation – Livingstone and Lunt

Livingstone and Lunt studied four case studies of the work of Ofcom. Ofcom is serving an audience who may be seen as consumers and/or citizens, with consequences for regulation: consumers have wants, are individuals, seek private benefits from the media, use the language of choice, and require regulation to protect against detriment; citizens have needs, are social, seek public or social benefits from the media, use the language of rights, and require regulation to promote the public interest.

Traditional regulation is being put at risk by: increasingly globalised media industries, the rise of the
digital media, and media convergence.
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Press Complaints

Sometimes it is not facts that are reported but the opinions of journalists and editors. This is known as bias. This is one of the reasons why newspapers are subject to regulation. Journalists often go to extreme lengths to find their story and news organisations are regulated to protect people from press intrusion or harassment.
Here J K Rowling complains to the regulators about press behaviour outside her home.

Case study: The Leveson Inquiry

The Leveson Inquiry was a public, judge-led inquiry. It was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate the press after journalists at The News of the World were accused of illegally accessing the voicemail messages on other people's phones, without their knowledge or consent. They were also accused of bribing police officers. Some of those who had their mobile phones 'hacked' in this way were celebrities, sports people and politicians.

The News of the World was closed down by its owner, News International, when this information became public. Lord Justice Leveson stated his recommendations on how the press should be regulated. They were:

• Newspapers should continue to be self-regulated and government should have no power over what newspapers publish.
• A new press standards organisation, with a new code of conduct should be created by the press industry. Legislation should be provided to ensure this new press standards organisation would be independent and effective in dealing with public complaints.

Who regulates newspapers now?

Newspaper editors must follow the rules of the Editor's Code of Practice. 

Before the Leveson inquiry, newspapers and their editors were regulated by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). 

After the Leveson Inquiry it was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

The IPSO now investigate complaints about breaches of the Editor's Code of Practice.