Media Landscape Exam
Week 1: Introduction - Defining the media landscape
Defining the Media Industry
Media industry has shifting borders and definitions, difficult to limit/ define.
Traditional conception: Broadcasting, print, film and recording industries
● Some also consider gaming, sports, advertising, marketing, performing arts etc.
Defining the Mass Media
5 Key Characteristics of Mass Media products
1. One to many, one-way communication (can't reach them through the same channel as
they reached us) (identical message to mass audience)
2. Experiential goods (value comes from immaterial attributes: originality, intellectual
property, stories told)
3. High fixed/ first copy cost (low marginal costs, leads to economies of scale)
4. Potential for (cheap) re-versioning (re-selling in different formats, leads to economies of
scope) (e.g. movie in cinema to DVD, or Frozen merchandise)
5. High risk (consumer taste is 'fickle' and hard to predict)
Economies of scale = unit costs fall as output rises
Economies of scope = average production cost decrease as variety of output increases
Defining the Mass Media Market (mass media business models)
The mass media market is a d ual-product marketplace.
Media companies produce two things:
● Content, sold to audiences
● Audiences, sold to advertisers
They receive revenues from advertisers in return for ‘delivering’ audiences to them, those
audiences having been attracted by the content media products offer.
"Attention economy" - attention is the real product being sold/ bought
This influences the content strategy (in general the goal is to provide content which appeals to
,the largest number of consumers). This is particularly problematic for journalism (as a key pillar
for democracy while also being a business).
But the mass media model is changing. Newspaper industry is particularly suffering. Due to …
● Technological innovations
● Rise of "digital media"
Digital media is very different from traditional mass media and is defined as:
1. Media based on computing technologies
2. Media that uses digital information
3. Media delivered via the internet
One issue that distinguishes the media sector and deeply influences the task of leadership in
the media, is the expectation that media organizations, irrespective of their commercial goals,
act in a socially responsible way and promote specific social value. It reflects an assumption
that the media is a cultural force
● Democratic scrutiny
● Whole tier of ethical normative weight that we assign to media that we don’t assign to
other industries.
Some core responsibilities of mass media:
1. Forum for exchange of ideas/ opinions (facilitate learning)
2. Integrative influence for diverse societies (especially important in multicultural countries
with high level of immigration for example)
3. Protection of core values/ vulnerable audiences (public service broadcasting)
Media Life (Deuze, 2011)
Media are now so central that we don't notice them. We don't live with media, but in media.
Media underpin and overarches the experiences and expressions of everyday life. We are so
used to the constant presence and use of media (completely immersed) that it is disappearing
from our perception spectrum (has become invisible). Media shapes our reality - it mediates
everything - our reality cannot be experienced separate from or outside of media.
2 clear manifestations:
1. Personal/ individualized information space
2. Always-available global connectivity
, Consequences:
● Liquefied boundaries between work/ play/ alone/ interaction (no distinction)
● Life is now changed (lived in such a way) to accommodate media explicitly
What reinforces this media life? (elements that amplify this trend in society)
● Roles of producers/ consumers blurred
● Society is more individualized
● Technological changes/ responses create this new individualized connectivity
(algorithms, filter bubble)
Week 2: A look back - Technological change & historical milestones
Humans have a constant need to send and receive news - built-in need to communicate and
stay informed. This news is not very different throughout the ages. The type of news content is
a mix of information, opinion and entertainment.
Milestones in the European Media Landscape
Milestones in the history of our media are marked by so-called media revolutions. Whereby the
dominant medium is replaced by a new medium.
Media revolution: when a new media enters the market and revolutionizes the landscape -
completely disrupts the status quo.
Milestone 1: Prehistoric civilizations
Milestone 2: The Written Word
Schools of Communication
Dialectic method Rhetorica
“discover the truth about the world”, derived from the word public speaker, about
communication as means to find out truth, persuasion; “Rhetorica taught the ability to
discourse, logical argumentation, rational perceive all means of persuasion in any given
