28/02/20

Theories of regulation: Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt

•There is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from the harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition).

•The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

In simpler terms, they believe that the needs of a citizen are in conflict with the needs of the consumer, because protection can limit freedom. They noticed that regulating media to protect citizens from harmful content can limit freedom of expression.

It can be argued that :

society needs to protected from the potential effects of harmful media.

Vulnerable people such as children need to be protected

Bandura

Albert Bandura, posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and

modeling. The theory has often been called a bridge between behavioristand cognitive learning

theories because it encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.

An audience can be influenced by media products which can lead to copy cat behaviour. For example, watching a violent film can make someone act in a violent manner.

Discuss the relevance of Livingstone and Lunt’s theories on press regulation in connection to one or more of the issues

•      Molly Russell https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/07/instagram-bans-graphic-self-harm-images-after-molly-russells-death

In response to the death of British teenager Molly Russell, Instagram has announced that it will ban all graphic self-harm images as part of a series of changes. It comes after the shock discovery that the platform had a part in the teenagers suicide, whose Instagram account contained distressing material about depression and suicide. Her father, Ian Russell, said he believed Instagram was partly to blame as the family found material relating to depression and suicide when they looked at her account after her death. This included pictures of self-harm marks on somebody with the words “You can’t Fix Me written on it”. Instagram announced a range of further measures, including the removal of non-graphic images of self-harm from the most visible parts of its app and website, which appeared designed to draw a line under what has become a reputational crisis for the brand.

Livingstone and Lunt believe that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from the harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition). Media companies and newspapers have noticed that regulating media to protect citizens from harmful content can limit freedom of expression.  This can be seen in the case of Molly Russell as Instagram have given people freedom of expression at the cost of other vulnerable people seeing things that can harm them, like Molly finding out how to commit suicide through photos on the app.

Academic ideas and arguments

The Mail and The Guardian articles on the coronavirus:

The Mail:

Moral panic- Gerbner Cuctivation Theory

scare/sensationalists

however more people get the flu- and baraley are actually dying

80,403 cases and opnly 2,709 deaths.

Social media-

sarcasm

accuse media of scaring or over exaggerating.

https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1232575368621645824

The Guardian:

Racism to chinese in the Uk

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/09/chinese-in-uk-report-shocking-levels-of-racism-after-coronavirus-outbreak

more informative

social media

anti racist campaigns- uni of southhampton

Clay shirkys end of audience theory

Blieves that audiences are no longer passive.
Passive audience mindlessly watching as film or reading a newspaper without actually having to think about anything
we are now more active audienmces wanting to interact- due to technology changing- leding us to
expect to be able to share content
audiences like to speak back to producers
more equality of power between audience and producers.

End of Audience’ Model

"Every consumer is also a producer, and everyone can talk back.”
Media had been a hierarchical industry—in that one filtered first, and then published.
"All of that now breaks down….....
People are producing who are not employees or media professionals. So we now publish first, and then filter. ” It’s all about connections, participatory networks




As a result of Caroline Flacks death there has been a proposal for a law called "Carolines law" that limits what newspapaers can do or say about celebrities etc.

Henry Jenkins:

Believes that fans play a key role in the media
This is due to them ecommenting and sharing thye item to friends and they are able to interpret the products in their own way and dicuss with other fans,
He uses a phrase called textual poaching-audiences taking a media product and remaking or reworking it to create their own emaning
This is caused by the improvement in technology.

Example:HOC

Gerbner’s Cultivation theory:

• The Cultivation Theory, also known as the Cultivation Analysis or the Cultivation Hypothesis, is a social theory that studies long-term effects of media on viewers’ ideas and perceptions, especially through the television medium
• Its main causal argument is that “Mass communication, especially the TV, cultivates concepts of social reality of its viewers,” giving the theory its name.
• Gerbner observed on the basis of the “people religiously watching TV” that we know some things not because we have experienced them but because we see them on media. Therefore, according to this theory, there is a direct relationship between TV time, the frequency that a person watches TV, and reality perception, how realistic a person thinks something is. The more frequently viewers watch TV, the more they are likely to believe what they see on TV. Furthermore, in his 1982 Violence Index, the results showed that violence is at least ten times (10x) more on TV than in real life. In other words, violence and other “realities” shown on TV are exaggerated. So if this was what the people were seeing on TV, these people were likely to have believed a distorted perception of reality.
• The Cultivation Theory is considered a stalagmite theory. A stalagmite is a mass of accumulated deposits that grows on cave ceilings, and so, it is a metaphor for the long-term effects of media.

"The man was attacked as he attempted to jump-start his car and go to work, having stayed overnight at his girlfriend's house in Kingswood, Clondalkin, southwest Dublin."

" it is believed she is suffering from mental health problems."

"The victim's car would not start when he came out to go to work at 7am. He had opened the bonnet and was trying to start the vehicle when he was attacked and stabbed by the woman a number of times.

She is believed to have used a kitchen knife in the unprompted attack.

Mr Kelly collapsed between two cars and died on the street. His body was removed from the scene and a post-mortem was under way yesterday."

The Guardian:
Rapper Cleared for murder
not enough evidence
stereotypes assumptions 

Newspapers and Political bias

Owen Jones described the UK press as :

• “largely run by a very small group of very right-wing media moguls who defend the status quo of which they are part. If you are on the Left and want to change society, the media will always come and get you”.
• Learners can research Gramsci’s hegemoney to gain further insights  on why the press is dominated by the right wing.

 Apply van Zoonen and bel hooks and Gilroy to the analysis of the news paper article  

Gilroy believes Britain has failed to mourn its loss of empire, creating ‘postcolonial melancholia’, an

attachment to an airbrushed version of British colonial history, which expresses itself in criminalising

immigrants and an ‘us and them’ approach to the world founded on the belief in the inherent

superiority of white western civilisation. This could be used to analyse the newspaper as the

"whitened" photographs present how neo-colonialism and Britain portray white as the superior race.

Livingstone and Lunt:

       Rules that media industry has to follow e.g. the film industry has to follow the rules of the BBFC in the Uk

The regulation of media products is hard.

Rules exist to protect the  audience form harm, inparticular the protection of minors

Adults however feel that they have a choice to watch what they want over the age of 18.

The regulators have to follow a fine line between protecting the public and allowing the audience to

watch what they want

The ability to enforce regulation has been made hard through the advance of technology the BBFC

have no power for the regulation of film content on line

OFCOM who regulate advertising have no control over adverts which are streamed online

Social media is almost impossible to regulate due to the vast amount of content released online.

IN addition the power of media makes it difficult for them to be regulated an example in case being Newscorp an organisation owned by Muroch has in the past been involved in phone tapping scandal.  Because of their power and influence within the  political arena it was hard for them to be  made accountable for their actions.

Gauntlett: