Media industries and ownership

So personally, for me I get my news from channel 7 news as my family loves to watch the news when they get home from work, which most of the time I don’t really listen, and I’m own my phone. But I will admit that I do have selective hearing when it comes to things that I don’t agree with or think it’s stupid or something that is gut wrenching to watch and then I pay attention and voice my opinion like the Millennial I am.

(Seven news)

So, looking at Seven news, channel seven is owned by the media group seven west media limited in 2021, from looking into who owns channel seven, I couldn’t see if Murdoch had any power into channel seven but I honestly would not be surprised if he had some sort of weight in the company.

Who owns the media matters extremely, yes the news I watch is owned by Rupert Murdoch but he owns roughly 57% of all media outlets in Australia. Rupert Murdoch has unbelievable power over the media not only in Australia but a large number of other countries too. Rupert Murdoch also does shy away from not broadcasting things he doesn’t believe for example climate change the media companies he owns are banned from broadcasting anything that Murdoch doesn’t believe in.

From the left Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch (Refinery29)

‘Murdoch’s papers in Australia are known for their conservatism, and their columnists frequently rage about the threat posted to the country by immigration, muslims and increasing recognition of LGBTQ rights’ – Aljazeera 2020

Personally, I do trust my news source to a certain extent, but a lot of other people truly despise and don’t trust their news media, there is the statement that people should trust their news channels and the information that they are receiving but again that is not the case in a lot of countries. For example, the big news sources Fox News and CNN in America. Both of these news sources were quite bias when it came to the presidential election in 2020 Fox News was for Trump and CNN for Biden, so the news that was covered at that time was quite bias for the parties that they were involved in.

‘Australia’s level of media ownership concentration is already one of the highest in the world’ – the conversation 2016

For me personally news shouldn’t be bias, fake or cutting out certain parts of the media just because the person that owns it doesn’t agree with it. I do trust my news source to some degree and at the end of the day I definitely think a lot of news sources are catering for older people of Australia and not the new younger generations of Australians. As you can see below ABC news is the most trusted new source in Australia, second to them is SBS news. A lot of these news sources though are owned by Murdoch media so is it really a trustworthy source ?.

References:

Dwyer, T 2016, Factcheck: is Australia’s level of media ownership concentration one of the highest in the world?, viewed 30 March 2021, < https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/51189901/FactCheck_Is_Australias_level_of_media_ownership_concentration_one_of_the_highest_in_the_world_.pdf?1483568319=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DFact_Check_Is_Australias_level_of_media.pdf&Expires=1617072712&Signature=Cyen9ZElG~EijBN1V2YgeK131A8D7kcaseHYphM1UhMOJl6ggTYO-AK2tAXbOvLe3NDftqE-OMRXQ8UMDr-C~RRLr8Bkx43mvGbhnht5rc1EKYfiRbi6H5OMAYEh6QbiZwoQBYfIP5nGW-G1kQCA7UZmldbGUiTCEvaeGa-tRCQOtK8ZKnygP-tV64KK0NKbdzq1ZdhBjZZNTqfvpvshvPih0BbFLSl3CveIi3M~tnPopXO-9bNKUfl0jw4yQI7rEI8YLUhfJhMlFDMQ-irPDSvwAMAxwsNNifrx40MDjWv5Al2OOeXVXUl8-IPSNj~TWLbj8SB2JiZonScnTsfaig__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA >

Walton, k 2020, How ‘Murdochracy’ controls the climate debate in Australia, viewed 30 March 2021, < https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/24/how-murdochracy-controls-the-climate-debate-in-australia >

What are ad agencies thinking ?!

If you haven’t seen this image yet, first of all that is surprising and second of all, this was a Protein powder brand ‘Protein World’ still image ad ‘ Are you beach body ready ?’ that was put on multiple billboards and posters in London mostly in the London Underground. This ad received major backlash from the public and rightly so.

The public did take their outrage to social media to bash the ad about how it is promoting unhealthy body image that can lead to unhealthy weight loss (eating disorders) and body image issues, there was also a small protest in Hyde park in London to show the public’s outrage.

‘The UK’s advertising standards authority received 378 complaints regarding the ad’ (Mulcahy 2019)

(The independent 2015)

This ad isn’t the only one that has had a negative impact on society, from multiple ads seen every single day and a lot of them can have a negative impact on especially women and it can lead to a lot of self-esteem/body image issues or worse can lead to eating disorders. ‘Women and girls compare themselves to these images everyday” ad critic and author Jean Kilbourne told an audience in 2015. The event that she spoke at was sponsored by the STRIPED program (Strategic training initiative for the prevention of eating disorders) ‘kilbourne praised the work of STRIPED in her talk, calling it ‘a terrific program that is making a difference’.

From Renee’s lecture she explained the denotation and the connotation of an image. The denotation is physically what is in the specific media you are looking at and the connotation is what does the image actually mean or what is your interpretation of the image. In this specific ad the denotation is a woman with a small body size in a bikini and the slogan ‘Are you beach body ready ?’ and in the bottom right corner showing their ‘weight loss collection’ products . The connotation goes much deeper than that in my interpretation this is kind of saying that anybody bigger than this woman does not have a beach body which can make not only women, but men as well feel horrible about their own body. Ads like this can really be very toxic and negative as people can question themselves thinking that they are not attractive enough as they are not the typical societal norm (Siero, Stapel, & Trampe 2009)

This ad can be looked at a different way where it can be sexist to some people and they believe that a woman’s body in a bikini in the media is sexist and treating woman like an object compared to a man in swimmers is normal. But personally, I think the big stand out issue in this ad is the negative effect it can have on society with these unrealistic views on how a woman’s body ‘should’ look.

So, what are ad agencies thinking when it comes to ads like this. Honestly who knows.

References:

Mulcahy, E 2019, 7 of the most controversial ads of our time, The Drum viewed 22 March 2021 <https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/04/08/7-the-most-controversial-ads-our-time&gt;

Roeder, A 2015, Advertising’s toxic effect on eating and body image, viewed 22 March 2021 <https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/advertisings-toxic-effect-on-eating-and-body-image/&gt;

Siero, F, Stapel, D & Trampe, D 2019, The self- activation effect of advertisements: Ads can affect whether and how consumers think about the self, viewed 22 March 2021 < https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/14189/volumes/v36/NA-36 >

Movie audiences then vs now

I’m going to talk about a time before COVID ruined our lives. When I was a little kid, my mum used to take the day off work and take my cousins and I to the cinemas to watch the must-see movie of the school holidays, that was my favourite part of the whole holidays. But now being almost 20 I am fully committed to watching movies at home with a touch of a button to watch hundreds and hundreds of titles. To me watching movies a home is just so much easier and you can literally be a slob in you pjs, hair unbrushed and nobody judging you and thinking that you’re crazy but that is my opinion.

With a thing called COVID existing now, movies are watched very differently, yes now we are slowly coming back to normal life but with technology growing each day, accessing movies are becoming easier and easier, more people are deciding online streaming. Especially I guess Gen Z are very big on watching movies at home since they have iPads and phones and laptops and streaming services, compared to when I was a kid, I didn’t get those things until I was maybe 15-16. But every generation is differently influenced by technology in 2021, with technology growing every day. Streaming platforms have also reshaped ‘me time’ with a lot of people now using streaming services as their relaxing time after work or school and watching their guilty pleasures or feel-good movies to make them feel better or less anxious (Moeslein 2020)

I went around my household which includes my mum and her partner and my grandparents to ask them if they would rather go to the cinema and watch movies there or watch the movies on streaming services such as Netflix. Majority won, 3 to 1, where majority preferred watching movies at home. But when it comes to watching a movie at home you become disengaged with the media compared to watching in the theatres where everybody is active in watching the movie as there is no distractions around you.

A survey was conducted in the United States from November 2018 to June 2020 to show whether people prefer the theatre, somewhat prefer the theatre, people that prefer online streaming or somewhat what prefer online streaming and some people that just don’t know or have no opinion. As you can see by the graph there was a big spike in people that prefer online streaming in reason being COVID happening at that time, but I think now generally a lot more people now might prefer online streaming compared to theatres.

So, in conclusion I think it is crazy to think in the last 5 years or even just in the last year audiences of movies have changed all over the world. But at the end of the day, it really depends on the person and what sort of atmosphere the audience relates to and feels more comfortable in.

References:

Moeslein, A 2020, 29 feel-good TV shows for when you’re feeling stressed, viewed 10 March 2021, < https://www.glamour.com/story/20-tv-shows-to-watch-on-netflix-when-youre-feeling-stressed >

Stroll, J 2021, Watching movies in the theatre vs. via streaming service U.S. 2018-2020, viewed 10 March  2021, <https://www.statista.com/statistics/947757/theaters-streaming-watching-movies/>