Media Governance & Public Sphere

Thesis Statement

Discuss about the Media Governance & Public Sphere.

Media governance is an important part of regulatory design, directly and indirectly shaping the regulatory mix in the media industry (Hernandez, Janet, Daniel Leza 2010).This document highlights the challenges facing the media industry from media piracy, government intervention on control of media, media sovereignty and media literacy. This challenges can be tackled  by the enactment of this rules and regulations governing the media industry, especially in coming up with regulations to govern media operation. Unlike before, media industry has been in operation with a clear guide and regulatory environment. Media impacts positively and negatives on the society based on its operations of passing information to the public. Information is getting more accessible to consumers, through various platforms.  According to Bach, David (2004, 133) media industry helps to improve talent and skills of individuals as an art; hence the need to regulate it. The document focuses on various issues relating to media governance and how it has impacted on the public through creativity and increased productivity. The policy will enact regulations to control issues like piracy by restricting purchase of the pirated media items, media literacy to be enhanced in the industry and detailed conveyance of media to the media stakeholders. The policy will be tackled by penalties on those not adhering to also the media practitioners need to educated on the importance of the  policy to the public and media stakeholders.

The policy based on the regulatory and governance of media does not address most the challenges that the media fraternity face in conducting their businesses. The policy should help address the following issues; governmentality, media literacy, cyber sovereignty and media divide.  Governmentality which is control of media industry will help implement the policy on fighting music piracy which has affected the growth of creative industry by bringing unfair competition. Based on media literacy which recognizes that digital media enhances social surveillance by enhancing print, film, advertising, visual and arts literacy. Media education and community empowerment needs to be addressed to enhance easy disassembly and reassembly of digital technology in the media industry. The policy will help media industry to be able to access high speed broad band and digitize its products and services for easy convergence of media. Cyber sovereignty which involves national sovereignty extended to cyberspace and governs what can be accessed online, who and how it can be accessed. Cyber sovereignty will help tackle the issue of music piracy, convergence and regulation of multi-screen since it will restrict the media content to be viewed by the public.   In most cases internet exemplifies freedom and democracy by in this case cyber sovereignty will help address issues of music piracy and regulation of mult- screen TV. On the issue of media divide media content should be regulated based on classification obligation, restrict access obligation and prohibited content obligation. The policy will be critiqued based on the contribution of it curb music piracy and unfair competition which inhibits growth of creative industries. (William 2017).

Policy Summary

The paper is directed to media fraternity involved in media services, consumers of the media,, producers and the government and business people in the media industry and finally to the global market on the importance of regulatory scheme in the industry. A policy needs to be instituted to be able to curb the issue of music piracy to help in media convergence, disassembly and reassembly by coming up with rules and regulations in digital technology. The policy to be implemented involves businesses in the production of music and other media services like video. Also people connected to TV need to adhere to the regulations by acquiring licenses including copyrights and audio visual software. It is important to critique this policy because it is of great importance to the media industry.

In order for the media industry to be a success then the policy on the media rules and regulations should be adhered to by all the parties involved in the industry ( Bhattacharjee, Sudip, Ram D. Gopal 2003).

Since there is unfair competition in the media, decline in creative industries, challenges of connected TV, unlicensed services brought about by lack of proper media governance in the media fields hence the need for the policy to be set up and adhered to. One of the issues to be addressed is the introduction of the conveyance review panel which oversees the market and regulations of the industry, challenges of connected TV, disassembly and assembly of digital technology, competition issue and also the challenges consumers and the society face relating to the piracy of the media. There is the need for formulation and implementation of the policy to regulate the media.

According to Belleflamme, Paul, and Pierre M. Picard (2207,351-362) the world has become global with the introduction of internet where most people are able to access the internet and hence access any given information. The regulatory policy need to implemented since the world has gone global and hence the need for industry to easily access information. The government through the political environment has helped in coming up with regulations that help curb the challenges faced and to help shape the industry in curbing challenges in the digitalized market. The policy will involve coming up with media rules and regulation like licenses and copyrights which becomes an issue during digitization. There are different emerging issues leading to the formulation and implementation of the policy in the industry. (Carter, T. Barton, Marc A. Franklin 2008). 

Explanation and Evaluation and Critique of Policy

The policy will ensure that every media involving music, videos and software are able to be run well. The artists and stakeholders of media should ensure the policy is adhered to for regulatory and protection of talent in the industry. There is need for the policy in the industry because of the increase in competition in the industry. Media conveyance has changed process of accessing audio visual content by consumers .There is need to ensure that there is proper caution before broadcasting any media content; also with the increase in number of conveyance it leads to lowering of the barriers to entry and making the industry more competitive.

There is need to curb the unfair competition by formulating and implementing the regulation policy in the media industry to enhance success of music and bring a safe legal environment. Media policy enhances the development of creative industry and artists’ growth through investments. The policy also helps in the disassembly and reassembly on digital technology and creative industry. Effects of digitalization are changing with the increase in ways of connecting people worldwide through creative industry and digital environment. It is through the enactment of this policy that the creative industry will grow. The different departments that will grow involves; architecture, fashion, film and video, design, software, radio, music and computer games. The different individual talents are unique and help in job creation by safeguarding them through formulation of policies like intellectual property.

It is also through the policy that the supporting creative industries will help to bring innovation to the society through the technology media. Media policy also enhances social inclusion and creation of opportunities to drive growth in the industry for the citizens of the country. The policy will also help in content financing, improvement of technology standards and coming up with solutions to address the convergence of media. The regulatory scheme and policies are introduced to explore ideas on content classification in the industry.

The policy on piracy is of great importance to the users of the media as it helps to come up with rules and regulatory environment in which the users can rely on as regulatory design. The general public is protected from the unlicensed services in the industry. The policy will help prevent unfair competition by developing creative industries. The piracy policy will be of great help in safeguarding the talents of the artists involved in production of music in the media industry. Also the policy will help build up innovativeness, creation of new ideas by taking advantage of the new opportunities that arises while the parties are protected using the policy. This will prevent the exploitation of talent among the media users. The application of the policy will help reduce the challenges faced by the users of media by making production process smooth leading to investments by artists (Hernandez, Janet, Daniel Leza, and Kari Ballot-Lena 2010).

Critique

On the other hand enacting of the policy can be disadvantageous to the public sphere. According to Napoli, Philip M (2001) there is individuals who survive on the piracy of music. There has been an increase in the level of unemployment in developing countries and most of the youths find it easy to sell the pirated software, music and videos to earn a living. If the policy on piracy is enacted it will lead to many of the citizens not having a source of income. There is an alternative option instead of using the piracy policy which allows the consumers to download the product under a ‘pay-what-you-want’ online strategy. This strategy is much effective in increasing the profitability of the media stakeholders as it does not affect the intellectual property rights.   The live performance and the positive voluntary contributions can also be a way to avoid using the piracy policy.

It is important to come up with an elaborate policy that will be able to prevent any piracy from taking place in the industry since commercial piracy can easily be detected whereas the End-user piracy is very difficult to detect. An elaborate strategy needs to be implemented to be able to combat piracy in the media industry. The policy needs to address both the demand and supply sides of the piracy.

Digital piracy is a big threat to the music industry and licensed music sector as a whole and also investment artists. There are different strategies that will implement the policy on piracy through consumer education on copyright as well as the value of music. It is vital for the parties involved with the digital economy to maintain responsibility to curb music piracy. The music piracy destroys the creative industries.

In this case if anyone needs any type of software or online product, there will be the proper download option by paying the money. Then the site will be free from piracy. The supply chain process can be used to reduce the use of pirated software and eliminate the exploitation of the talents of the artists.  The corporate and the government have done little to prevent music piracy that often exploits the artists’ talents. Another way of reducing or eliminating piracy without using the policy is by media literacy. Media literacy entails the individual informing themselves on issues pertaining to media like piracy. It also involves individuals making technological choices and being responsible in creating their own opportunities. The importance of media literacy is that it will help the individual embrace the company and help in self-regulation (Smith, Michael D, and Rahul Telang 2009, 321).

Tackling music Piracy

Media policy on implementation of rules and regulations helps in the reassembly and disassembly helps in media convergence in the digitization of media content through high speed broadband connectivity. The regulations help in improvement of digital technology and enhance knowledge and bring innovation to advanced society.

The media policies and regulations on connected TV addresses the challenges that face connected TV. The policies will address the level of technological standards which promotes the convergence of media. There is lack of common standards and levels of infrastructural development across the countries using media. The regulations will provide a guide to the curb the different challenges of connected TV. The standards will instill discipline in the media industry by providing protection of the activities of the media.

Rules and regulations guiding the media will help solve competition issues in the industry. Individuals will be able to access audio visual content.The regulation imposed on media before broadcasting will prevent irrelevant content from being displayed.There is need for a competition law that guides every media industry.this will lower the number of convergence lowering barriers to entry leading to competition in the industry.

There is need to regulate the multi-screen television  by allowing  display of specific content leading to creation of new ideas and regulation of different contents to secure information and help in market development.

The rules and regulations impact both positively and negatively on the society using the media services. The society should be involved in the strategies to combat piracy and embrace to the regulation policy since relativism affects purchase of the pirated materials. a substitute method need to be addressed in implementing the policies like that of piracy one can come up with media literacy programs and change the supply channel process of the media materials.

Conclusion

It is important for the government not to regulate the content but to promote media literacy via public pedagogy and raising awareness on using media safely and effectively. It is also important to enact policies that will not impact directly on the users of the media. Such policies involve the enactment of market policies and cultural policies. Digital literacy help to an individual have confidence, knowledge and understanding needed to participate in a safe, secure and informed manner in a digital environment hence media literacy is preferred

Media industry needs to have a regulatory policy the will safeguard the interests of all the stakeholders in the industry. The policy on digital piracy is important because it helps to protect the creative industry in the music and film industry preventing the exploitation of talent. Piracy regulation needs not only to be applied to music but also to audio visual software available in the internet. The government should also take part in the formulation of the policy and to ensure there is adherence to the policies to promote fairness in the media industry (Lin, Trisha TC 2013).

References

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