PowerPoint%20Presentation%20%20-%20%20Production%20Analysis

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Elements of Production Analysis
1. Who Owns the Media? Patterns and nature of
media ownership 2. Who and What Makes Media
Content? Division of labor and nature of
workforce how genre formulas shape producers 3.
How Commercial-Technical Issues Shape Media
Content? To what degree and in what ways do
technical forces and technical decisions shape
media forms and content?
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WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?Patterns of control
Two main trends
A. Increasing horizontal consolidation, if not
monopolization more kinds of media (TV, film,
radio, newspapers, web portals, etc.) owned by
same people
V E R T I C A L
B. Increasing
consolidation owning several levels of
production (film studio, TV station, distribution
corp., movie theaters, cable companies) also
means more media owned by non-media corporations
with many other interests
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For and Against Media Merging
Arguments for monopoly mergers A. larger scale
is more efficient thus less costly B. free
enterprise should not be interfered with C.
ownership is irrelevant to text production which
is not done by corporate CEOs but by the
"creative staff D. provides more choices

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Arguments against monopoly mergers A.
minimizes risks dumbs down content by always
seeking widest audience B. censors coverage of
controversial but important issues C. inserts
corporate values everywhere, rather than
respecting non-commercial spheres D. drives up
prices of media services by limiting
competition E. encourages collusion up and down
line of vertical interests
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Other Significant Trends
Globalization more and more US media produced
with world market in mind increasing dominance
of US media texts (cultural imperialism)
Digital Integration computer technologies like
the CD format cross the lines of media, allowing
integration of TV, film, newspaper, and the
Internet
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2. WHO AND WHAT CONTROLS THE PRODUCTION OF MEDIA
TEXTS? A. Who among these does most meaning
shaping? For TV media moguls? CEOs of
network? executive producers? producers?
agents? advertisers? directors? editors? genre
formula? technicians? scriptwriters? actors?
viewers? For mass market fiction media
moguls? CEOs of publishing house?
editors- in-chief? literary agents? editors?
writers? readers? B. Do most all of the above
tend to share limited subject positions and
cultural competencies/incompetences? do the
class, racial, regional, gender and other biases
of most all of these people involved in
production become reflected in content? C. Do
even those outside dominant subject positions
pre-censor themselves by trying to please
executives avoid work that criticizes corporate
capitalism?
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Visible and Invisible Production

• Visible Production some pop culture texts have
  clear,
• Visible authors or producers, but most do not.
  Typically pop culture is a highly collective
  production process involving much division of
  labor and many layers of workforce. Only the rare
  celebrity director, fashion designer or media
  star remains visible. This tends to give the
  entire production process a glamor that hides
  other layers of production.
• B. Invisible Production the invisible production
  force consists of those workers, often extremely
  poorly paid, who do the hands on, material
  production of pop culture artifacts (like the
  women sewing designer clothes in Third World
  sweatshops, or illegal child laborers fashioning
  dolls for First World children.

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3. HOW DO THE COMMERCIAL-TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF
PRODUCTION SHAPE CONTENT? A. Pop culture
formulas are partly driven by commercial needs
to speed up production limit costs B.
formats limit variety the 3 minute radio or
video song the 1/2 sitcom the 1/2 hour news
show the 1 hour-long documentary or drama --
all driven by commercial more than aesthetic
concerns C. technical elements of medium
determine form for example, presence of
commercials makes TV news exaggerate visual
melodramatic elements limits detailed analysis
in order to compete with newspapers or cable TV
allows some break from formulas or Internet
technology refigures range of presentation media
for film, TV other existing forms
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PRODUCING AUDIENCES CONSUMERS OR
COMMODITIES? A. Does the overall commercial
nature of all popular culture inherently shape
its meaning? Do all meanings become reduced to
commercial value, become commodified? B. Do
things like the intrusion of commercials into
text content undercut the variety seriousness
of the content? C. Do audiences themselves
become commodities (products) when they are sold
to advertisers by producers?
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HOW DOES PRODUCTION ANALYSIS RELATE TO OTHER
KINDS OF ANALYSIS?
TEXTUAL textual meanings are highly unstable,
partly unconscious thus media authors/producers
arent fully aware of or in control of their
meanings
AUDIENCE texts are also inherently polysemic
thus audiences will decode them in a variety of
ways in addition to accidental misreadings or
different readings, audiences can actively
choose to resist dominant meanings most media
products fail to find an audience (80 failure in
some)
HISTORICAL texts produced in one historical
period are often recycled (rerun reissued,
etc.) in another different time period the new
time context will bring new different
interpretations