Media Industries View Audiences as Commodities - Essay Example

Media Industries view audiences as commodities In today's world of technological boom, media industries have expanded into a system of intellectualism as well as maintaining the basic need, i. e., providing key information on a broad spectrum of topics. The global market consists of audiences that belong to different ethnic backgrounds having different tastes and leanings. Since today's media caters to an international base of audiences in majority of cases, it won't be unfair to keep our discussion limited to mass media only. The term mass media encompasses a number of information and entertainment systems including newspapers, television, radio and Internet. Notwithstanding the varied nature of broadcasting in each of these systems, the fundamental purposes remain more or less the same - advocating for social and business issues, including marketing, advertising, public relations, propaganda and political communication. When it comes to entertainment, mass media plays a key role in the production and distribution of music, acting and sports (Croteau and Hoynes, 2003; Pg 15&16). Another crucial function of mass media is to make public service announcements in region-specific manner. Our article is going to focus exclusively on the interrelation between media industries and audiences - whether media industries view audiences as mere commodities or not. To address the concern of the main question we need to look at the socio-cultural impact of media on its audiences. It can be said without an iota of doubt that media and culture in today's world play a leading role in sustaining and reproducing contemporary societies, regardless of geographic barriers. Any society needs to replicate itself to survive, and culture inculcates ethics and behavioral patterns that make people susceptible to abide by institutionalized ways of intellection and conduct. Now while any form of media should ideally strive to promote harmony and ethical standards among the mass, it's often been observed that the 'narratives of media culture' present blueprints of both acceptable and unacceptable behavior, candying important social and political issues and thereby, distorting them. The audience tends to relate themselves, often paradoxically, to what is being fed to them rather than what needs to fed more often (Durham and Kellner, 2006; pg 9). Gradually the society runs the risk of getting detached with the root of indigenous culture and moral standards. This is especially applicable to media and entertainment where subaltern imageries are often promoted. The subaltern classes are largely disintegrated in any society, and they are prone to impressionism to a great extent. The economic development and production of a state also interferes with their ideologies. In addition to this, the subaltern classes generally give active or passive consent to the existent hegemony (Media Studies, 2008). Now the question we have raised here has direct connections to exertion of political authority over media. According to Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist theorist, the Italian fascism wielded its stifling authority over the media and other social, cultural and political establishments (Durham and Kellner, 2006 Pg 3). When similar situations occur, media starts acting as the mouthpiece of the hegemony, and it begins exploiting the audience as commodities by producing and distributing provocative materials that lack depth. The role of television can be held as a relevant topic of discussion in this regard. Charlotte Brunsdon raises a valid question pertaining to the ideologies of television programs from a nonacademic perspective. She also makes a liberalist evaluation of television audiences in the United Kingdom since the 1970s. She argues that while already tried and tested art forms such as theater, music and literature have principled values tagged with them; television is something more 'real', or in other words, has potential to be a medium of airing productions that can be comprehended by the mass in general, and that have extensive social appeal. Holding in contrary to 'good' television is the term commercial television and not 'bad' television. There is an Americanized essence here in the sense that commercial television programs in the United States carry with them tinges of vulgarity. On the other hand, Dick Hebdige throws light on the sub-cultural importance of the Americans, which, as observed by Ien Ang, does in fact reflect the orientation of mass culture from a global viewpoint (Mellencamp, 1990; pg 60). If we take into account the polished social class as the audience, we will be inclined to relate them more to the British ideologies of 'good' television. But while the appropriateness of Americanized television programs remains a debatable subject for the puritans, the fact can never be denied that the US media has significantly greater control over the international audiences, especially the working class section of television viewers. Now the cardinal question is: can we draw a line on the basis of legitimacy of presentations in the demographic context To find an answer to the question raised above, first of all we need to analyze how far the intellectual realm in the United States of America is capable of molding the taste and preferences of the US public. We must keep in mind that there is a yawning difference in the number of intellectual and cultivated section of the society from that of the common bandwagon. A survey has revealed that among the 86.3 million households owning television sets in the US, only a limited percentage belongs to scholarly and appreciative stratum. It goes to show that such a tiny amount of audience, namely the intellectuals, do not really encourage the media industries to formulate a well-conceived structure that would benefit them financially. Whatever structural opening is there in the US, it is designed to attract the minority section of the society. Thus, it won't be a prevarication of truth to state that the multimillion dollar industry thrives on the tastes of the mass. This fact is corroborated by the ratings made by various programming agencies. So from the context of television, we can safely deduce that production and distribution are targeted at the mass and their 'forced choice behavior', and hence this media does in fact view its audience as commodities (Mellencamp, 1990; pg 132). Apart from television, the sphere of entertainment in the United States of America comprises popular music, Internet and radio. The economic impact of each of these media wings is hard to overlook. For instance, while the ads that keep flashing on the screen are always bothersome, we can never deny the importance of sponsorship for funding purposes. We must not overlook how much airtime is bought along with just a few seconds' advertising slot. This stands for not just television, but also for FM radio stations and Internet. Radio has played a phenomenal role in creating it audience group and building a radio-listener relationship which has proved to be an effectual strategy in maximizing its appeal and relevance to its target group. This audio media has been able to maintain the symbiotic relationship with its audience since it has constantly renewed itself to match up with the sociological and mental set up of the listeners (Conroy, 1994; pg 234). The radio always emphasize on the fact that they are accountable to their listeners and it is under the garb of this accountability and bonding that they use their audience as commodities. Listeners are indispensable for the sustenance and prosperity of this form of media and it has diplomatically disguised this true fact by projecting their ardent urge to serve its audience and entertain them. It is the very fundamental of every media industry to see audiences as productive, definite and concrete factors that ensures its longevity in global market. Producing an audience of consumers is a prime task of any commercial media venture as the audiences are the commodities who are sold to advertisers. According to Smythe, no Marxist analysis of media industry has taken into consideration the obvious fact that mass media under monopoly capitalism produce audiences to market commodities, candidates and issues to themselves. He asserted that participating in media is work since audience power is produced, sold, purchased and consumed. Moreover it commands a price and therefore it performs all the roles of a commodity. In contemporary epoch audiences now spend more on media than advertisers and it is the media which have given them the platform where they can exercise their economic purchasing power over media content (Alan B, 2006, pg 498). There is no denial of the fact that every media industry performs under profit-driven logic and the concentration of media firms encourages production of content which ultimately leads to the maximization of industry profit. The common aspect of very media industry is the role advertising as the primary source of revenue. Even advertising has transcended beyond just informational content regarding product prices and it has come up as an ideological and cultural social force. According to one of the researchers on media's behavior in the society, it is the high influencing power of advertising over its viewers that pressed media firms to work with agencies and implement strategies and practices. Such practices ultimately make way to materialism and lessening of social and individual values. Thus, Media puts a deliberate and sustained effort to transform society into a hyper-commercialized culture (McChesney, 2004; pg 143). The corporate power of media industry is infused into the commercial society to a grave extent and the society accepts the commercialization of culture. Nowadays, the audiences are expecting and even demanding such transformation. It does not take much to realize that the programs produced by commercial media are not the final product any more but rather the audiences become the featured commodity and are sold to media producers and advertisers. This is how the audience is manipulated by the producers and the advertisers. It has been more than decade that we have started witnessing the widespread use of poor content by the media industry and that is just to comply with the demands of the advertisers on whom the industry is wholly reliant. In order to satisfy the needs of the advertisers they are even ready to sacrifice their integrity. It is an accepted notion nowadays that market-driven incentives and developments between media and advertising industries has led to the submergence of media into the broader commercial marketing system. It is the question of sustenance for all the media industries that actually compel them to use audience as their commodity. Apparently it may seem that media works for the satisfaction of their audience and to meet the demand of the people, but in reality it is nothing more than hogwash. Once you see behind the smokescreen, it is not difficult to comprehend that media has failed to reflect and serve society in the truest sense. On the contrary, public interest is undermined by the super power of leading media firms in the process of maximizing corporate revenue (Keith Regan 2002). An important observation made by Mc Chesney in regard to this. According to him, if media system truly functioned to provide the people what they demand then goods and services would be produced in connivance to meet society's demands. This would also reduce the unrestrained growth of commercialism. But since Media is influenced by the market-driven logic, it persists in generating content which is unwanted and abhorred by the public. The content that is disliked by the people is actually useful for them because the advertisers want it that way. Internet, although the newest form of media has also joined the bandwagon of using audience as commodity. According to those who are related to this form of media, the Internet audience is a highly valuable commodity provided it is harnessed properly (SMG 2008). The growth of Internet industry is attributable to the active participation of the audience all over the world. Like in other media, the advertisers have also romped in web industry. The ability to customize ads to a population and measure the effectiveness of a campaign are the two vital factors which makes the Web a hunting ground for advertisers (Wroblewski, 2001). Here also the audience fall prey to the manipulation of the advertisers and act as a commodity for the media industry. In the recent times, the advertisers are willing to pay more to internet industry if they can pinpoint their audience since that pushes up their chances of getting the potential customers. It is but accepted that the unique visitor in the web is the most valuable commodity in Internet deal flow and every internet industry strives to create maximum number of audience for their websites. All the media industries are accused of their inclination towards colonizing and commodifying audiences to serve their motive of earning maximum revenue. Dallas Smythe suggested that these culture industries try to sell audiences to advertisers rather than selling cultural works and their implanted ideologies. He vehemently opposed the practice of the media industries to choose heir audience as the commodity. Be it a television show, the stories in a newspaper or music on the radio, these media provide the audience with a "free lunch" combined with advertising. In the process, the labor of the audience is commodified. By listening or reading an advertisement, the audience offers labor for the advertiser. This actually pays the advertiser as the audience members will ultimately choose to buy a product. (Smythe 1993; pg 381) Smythe brought out an interesting facet of this discussion when he affirmed that it is often an onerous task for the media industries to persuade the audiences and make use of them as commodities since potential size of the audience is limited. He went on to explain that audience members cannot concentrate on more than one form of media at a time. If they are watching television show, they have to sacrifice listening to radio and reading newspaper. Thus, the attention of the audience is focused on one particular media which spares him or her from being a victim of other forms of media. (Geoffrey Glass, 2006) Every media industry follows a simple and mechanism of getting as much audience as possible and producing appealing content that are also engaging and relatively non-controversial. The whole process is aimed at getting advertisers to pay as much money for the audience as possible. In this way media not only creates a consumer society by constructing the audience for its messages as a market, but also established the audience as a commodity (Grossberg et al. 2005; pg 120). It is the potential of the media to influence its audience through advertisements (The Museum of Broadcast Communications, 2008). A fine instance of the audience being taken into the vortex of addictive commercials is that of Italy in the 1970's, when the most popular a half-hour of commercials were considered the prime-time show. In the US, it is common for the advertisers to advertise forthcoming advertisements or to give a storyline to the advertisements. This has actually led to the arousal of speculation among the minds of the audience and they become more focused on that particular channel just to watch the commercials. According to Napoli, the researchers actually over-simplify the complex nature of media audiences as economic products by using the terminology 'audience commodity'. They also tend to simplify the extensive range of other factors which deeply affect their value. Although media industries view audiences as commodities but they do not enjoy the advantage of actual commodity. A marketable commodity is generally a product which is interchangeable with other products of the same type, but since no two audiences are same, the media industry has to consider audience products are highly differentiated across a broad range of factors (Napoli 2003; pg 113). It must be borne in mind that the very concept of audience commodity fails to explain the totality of experiences related with viewing or listening but rather it is just an abstract politico-economic concept that reflects one moment in the circulation of capital within commercial culture. Thus, the phenomenon described by the researchers on the concept of audience commodity, remains outside the purview of research of the audience's behavior, their daily experiences and ideology. It is the question of sustenance and creating a distinct identity in the domain of media that every industry chooses to turn the audience into prospective commodity. The audience, who has gradually accepted this common practice curbs his habits and alters his demands rather inadvertently as dictated by their chosen form of media. References Croteau, David and Hoyness, William (2003) Media Society. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press Durham, Meenakshi Gigi and Kellner, Douglas. (2006) Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Mellencamp, Patricia. (1990) Logics of Television: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Wilby, Pete and Conroy, Andy. (1994) The Radio Handbook: Routledge Albarran, Alan B.; Chan-Olmsted, Sylvia M. and Wirth, Michael O. (2006). Handbook of Media Management and Economics. London: Routledge McChesney, Robert W. (2004) The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: New York: Monthly Review Press Geoffrey Glass. (2006) "Audience Labor: The Asymmetric Production of Culture". Geof.net [online]. Available from [16 January 2009] SMG (2008) A Large Internet Audience Is The Quickest Way To A Billion Bucks [online]. Available from [16 January 2009] Regan, Keith (2002). "What Is the Internet Audience Worth These Days" E Commerce Times [online]. Available from [16 January 2009] Grossberg, Lawrence; Wartella, Ellen and Whitney, Charles D. (2005) Mediamaking: Mass Media in a Popular Culture. London: SAGE Napoli, Philip M. (2003) Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace. New York: Columbia University Press Smythe, Dallas; Wasko, Janet; Mosco, Vincent and Pendakur, Manjunath (1993) Illuminating the Blindspots: Essays Honoring. London: Ablex Pub. Corp. The Museum of Broadcast Communications (2008) Audience Research [online]. Available from [16 January 2009] Wroblewski, Luke (2001). "Understanding your Web Audience". Creative Behavior [online]. Available from < http://www.creativebehavior.com/index.phpPID=33> [16 January 2009] Media Studies (2008). 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