1. Market Model, Public Sphere Model
Two approaches to the analysis of media

2. MARKET MODEL Basic principles:
Society’s needs best met through unregulated supply and demand
Media are like all goods and services
Private, unregulated ownership best
Consumers, not regulators, call the tune

3. Advantages of markets Promote: efficiency responsiveness flexibility
innovation
Markets can deliver media like any other product

4. Market structures Level of ownership concentration
Number of firms supplying a product
Amount of product differentiation
Types of entry barriers facing new competitors
Extent of vertical and horizontal integration

5. Public Sphere Model Basic principles:
Society’s needs not met entirely through market system;
Consumer power is not democracy;
Media are not like other products;
Profitability not sole determinant of value
Government has necessary role.

6. Vision of public sphere model
Media as primary information sources and storytellers;
Media as forums for social dialogue;
Need open mass media system that is fully accessible;
Ownership/control should be diverse;
People citizens first, then consumers.

7. Citizens need from media:
information about personal rights
about public political choices
to voice criticism, register alternatives
to recognize themselves in media representations

8. The Limits of Markets Markets: are undemocratic: one dollar one vote
reproduce inequality
are amoral
do not meet all social needs
do not meet all democratic needs

9. “Toasters with pictures?”
Market OK for media consumers, not for media citizens;
Advertising inserts itself between product and consumer;
Media are resources for citizenship;
Media have unique role in democracy, recognized in US legal protections

10. Basic Dilemma Mass media are businesses
But they also are providers of information and conduits of culture
Tension between profit & public interest

11. First Amendment
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . .
e.g., news media as the “Fourth Estate,” as a “watchdog”