Industry and Regulation

This week we looked at regulation in the lecture and also in the related reading. The main reading for this week was Chapter 6 from ‘’Media Studies’’(Long,2012:204) book which is following the previous chapter we looked at which was about ‘’The business of media’’(Long,2012:166). This chapter covered various topics such as copyright, regulations, policy objectives and other key terms which are linked to media regulation and policy.

The reading I have acquired this week explored some key elements or media regulation- the writer touched on subjects like BBC and Popular music and key laws about copyright and also explained and defined the word in depth. ‘Copyright- The ownership rights that subsist within a creative work to be recognized as its creator, to decide how the work will be used, and to derive income from that use’’(Long,2012:227).

The book explored different issues and how the word ‘copyright’ is often misinterpreted and also the laws vary in different countries- for example in Portugal just like other countries it is illegal to download music without paying to the right authority who owns the copyright of the song or an album however people who decide that they want to ignore this law cant be fined as it would require locating them by using their IP address and there is another law which states that it is illegal to do so.

Another interesting concept which I found was how often newspapers or video makers who produce adult content which can cross some regulations would still go ahead and produce their content as the expenses in fines are worth the income they will gain by publishing this kind of content.

The reading also covered two examples of written texts by media academics of which one covered BBC. What I found very interesting was how BBC has been compared to basic utilities like power or water and the company is called a public corporation. (Long,2012:221). Another aspect which was covered in this set reading as well as the specific reading which I chose was how at the beginning BBC was a very ‘free ‘radio and did not follow many regulations and the regulations were very light and its main purpose was to serve the public. (Long,2012:220).’’ Every clandestine listener, however, had already committed an act of resistance, and the BBC’s service provided information—even if of a selective kind—to populations who were starved of news. The BBC’s bulletins provided most of the material for the underground press in occupied Europe.’’(Seaton, J.,2003:153)

In my specific reading ‘’Power without Responsibility’’ I found a few examples in which the writers talked about BBC in a similar way to in which the set reading discusses BBC therefore both reading supported each others ideas and concepts even though my specific reading was written in a more complex way the fact that I read set reading before hand helped me to understand the specific reading.

References:

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), London: Pearson.

Curran, J. and Seaton, J. (2003) Power without Responsibility, (6th Edition),London: Routledge.