Livingstone and Lunt have argued that it is functionally impossible to regulate the online media industries as long as there exists a conflict between the desire for unrestrained profit and the ethical need to protect those who are most vulnerable. To what extent do you agree with this theory of regulation? Make reference to Zoella/Zoe Sugg and Attitude Online to back up your argument
Knee jerk reaction
To a large extent, it is impossible to regulate online media, because of the conflict between making profit and the need to protect vulnerable people
Plan
Regulation
Self regulation
Producer maximise profit
End of audience
Reception theory??
Horizontal/vertical integration
Constant change
Target audience
Rise of convergent digital technology
Ethics and morality
Distribution
Click through/advertising
Economic factors
Hypersexualation
Hypermasculinity
Capitalism!!!
Unrestricted access
Darkweb
Pornography
sexual violence
Conglomerations
Introduction
Regulation refers to the rules and restrictions that producers must follow in order to not harm or offend audiences. However, regulation of media has become particularly difficult. The amount of media being produced is massive, and digitally convergent technologies have made the availability of online content far more available than ever before. In this exam I shall argue that online media is largely impossible impossible to regulate effectively, as the organisations who regulate it are motivated solely by power and profit. Additionally, the internet is largely self regulated, which allows producers to be influenced by their own ideologies. In order to explore this argument, I shall be looking at Zoella/Zoe Sugg, a social media influencer especially popular with young girls and more recently older women, and Attitude Online, an online gay mens lifestyle magazine.
Content
- One excellent example of a media producer putting profit over the needs of their audiences is Zoella discussing sexuality and sex toys on her website. For example, her article 'contactless self pleasure' discusses such adult concepts as 'clitoral stimulation', which, while appropriate for her new, older audience, is completely inappropriate to some younger audiences. The over the top and sexually explicit language is deliberately included to challenge an audience to click on the article, which is an example of clickbait, and potentially manipulates the target audience...
- One way in which online media is regulated is through self regulation, where companies and corporations chose what is available to their audiences on their own platform. For example, on Attitude online, the menu bar boasts a 'boys' section, which links to a range of lurid articles focusing exclusively on hyper-sexualised representations of predominantly young, attractive muscular men. Not only do these articles reinforce a potentially negative stereotype about gay men, they also cultivate unrealistic body expectations for the young and vulnerable secondary gay target audience. The sole reason Attitude online does this is to make money in the most straightforward way possible, by presenting sexually alluring images to manipulate their target audience...
- Manipulative clickbait adverts
- Standardised, basic products, much like any other
- However, in order to appeal to their niche yet large audiences, bit Attitude and Zoella present broadly inoffensive ideologies that appeal to the vast majority of their fans. To present explicitly extreme and harmful ideologies would be problematic from a capitalist perspective.