MED4104 - Directed Study Week 2

This week in our lecture we looked at the context of TV and film and key concepts such as political economy and the public sphere, an idea that came from theorist Jurgen Habermas. In terms of political economy there are three key aspects; funding, organisation and regulation. In relation to the political economy the public sphere gives the space for rational debate and deliberation. We explored how the public sphere gives opportunity for anyone to voice their opinion on how they think things in the industry should be run. From the set readings we can see how audiences can be seen as commodities, Dallas smythe (1981) believed the media produced audiences, hollywood blockbusters are constructed, promoted and distrubuted in order to appeal to a particular demographic (Long, 2012: 172-185). We can also look at how audience-as-market and audience-as-public are two alternative configurations of audience, each connected with one of the two major institutional arrangements- commercial and public service of broadcast television (Ang, len, 1991: 1-7). Both readings explore audiences in depth in terms of production.

For this weeks reading I have looked at the affects political economy has over TV/film, I came across an article about the political economy of transnational cinema called 'Database economy and transnational cinema' by Sean Cubitt. From reading the abstract, the article discusses the possibilities for developing an alter-globalizing public sphere in digital cinemas (Cubitt, 2009: 1) and political economy in relation to this. Looking specifically at the headings and the introduction I have once again created some questions that I will be able to answer once completing my reading, the questions are as follows:

1) How does database economy affect cinema audiences? - The database economy commutes the formulation of consumers as data, as behaviours and producers of content, such that behaviours and user-generated content become marketable. 

2) How could a transnational public sphere affect digital cinema? - Re-opening the utopian dream of transnational cinema would give digital cinema a chance to span national boundaries in order for the interaction between film-makers and actively producing audiences.

3) Has data economy helped towards producing cinema audiences? - Database economy has given cinema the chance to create audiences and has essentially created digital cinema which has created new cinema audiences through the use of technology and motion pictures developing more and more.


4) Has digital cinema been created to exploit a demographic? - Digital cinema has been created to make profits from new audiences, by using technology in motion pictures to show new things such as CGI. Digital cinema targets a specific demographic and it would be fair to say they are exploited to make money thus the chance to expand digital cinema. 

From reading in depth through Cubitt's 'Database economy and transnational cinema',Cubitt discusses briefly the relation between political economy and digital cinema, he discusses 'The possibility of developing an alter-globalising public sphere in digital cinema' (Cubitt, 2009: 1). Cubitt uses many references to support his argument; that political economy can be described as a database economy. He uses books and also youtube to research how database economy rather than political, sees audiences as data, exploiting the demographic to create profits. In relation to the set readings, I can see that audiences are seen as commodities, they are exploited for marketing reasons throughout TV/film in order for companies to make profits.

References: 

Chapter 2 ("Audience-as-market and audience-as-public") in Ang, Ien (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience. London: Routledge.

Cubitt, S (2009) Database economy and transnational cinema, Studies in Australasian Cinema.3(2), pp. 155-166. 

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) ‘Political Economy of the Media’ IN Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2^nd Edition), London: Pearson. pp. 172-185