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By Ashweth Singh, IILM University, Gurugram
Introduction
Media commercialisation is one of the most significant transformations which took place in the last several decades and affected the communication model as well as how people consume information, entertainment, or public discourse. This change has occurred in the media industry, and more specifically over the past few decades because of factors such as; technology, the audiences, and of course the money. While over time, and in reaction to the paradigms of operation that journalism envisioned when it was born and for which it was founded on and on, funding models have metamorphosed and; in many a case, entrained features that are more aligned to the neoclassical business models where the espoused aim is profit against any human need or want. But what media studies has done is revolutionize entry into existence and re/circulation, manifestation and participation into content. It has posed new empiric questions for society regarding the impact of media and profit-motiveness on democracy and citizenship. Hence the emphasis on the commercial aspect of the media provides the results for the media industry as well as its clients in terms of profits and losses. The following are some of the questions, which are important as we proceed further into this topic: What other processes lead to this change? This has ramifications with reference to the content of the media and as well as the consumers of the media. What is the social orientation of such media that are slowly turning into commercial ones?
It is therefore possible to conclude that the political economy of the media hinge on the creation of the commercial formula which is associated with the new technology particularly the Digital technology and the internet which has been central in changing the nature of the conservative media. Major firms of this sector like the Newspaper, Radio and Television stations were firmly established with these subscription fees in addition to advertising receipts as their principal source of fund. These models crumbled when the digital revolution came to the limelight that offered democracy for creating content and sharing it. At one point, the Internet players could both generate content and disseminate it and more new media sources emerged raising lots of competition with regard to the audience and advertisers. Social media sites and search engines took the lead in the media field with the help of the algorithm which was supposed to attract the user’s attention. They set up a new trend which focused on how share-able the contents are and how viral they could go rather than how accurate the contents were to the actual stories being told. This has been evidenced by a content culture of sensationalism, manipulation of appeal and emotionally charged stories that attract the attention of the site visitors and dollar bills from advertisers but at the same time compromising the quality, credibility and reliability of content.
More and more media are expressing fears over how content influences traffic generation for ad impressions, i.e. editorial content tending to commercial motivations The increased dependence on advertising money as the main source of income has led to even more scrutiny about how that commercial pressure might also shape editorial decisions taken by these media outlets. This can often winnow out the type of content either published or credited by media organizations as advertisers tend to favor such platforms which are capable of reaching assigned audiences and ensuring brand safety. As a result, this creates an environment in which points of view may gradually collapse as media corporations strive to present content that appeals and correlates with the advertisers courting wealthier markets. This can result in certain highly important public interest type issues, such as investigative journalism and more holistic coverage of societal concerns, being underreported due to a reduced commercial appeal. All of this leads to nervousness about the media’s responsibility as one branch and pillar in a democratic society — increasingly, commercial interests govern how it presents itself when balanced against democracy-related obligations, shows are concerned.
Another reason is that the advertising based economy of today’s mass media also causes alienation as well as provincialism among its audiences. The mass media is more likely to construct messages for segmented markets so that the message reaches the individual more effectively and also so that an assortment of customer preferences are met. This allows for better customization of services yet at the same time it creates and strengthens echo chambers in which people are only exposed to information that agrees with their own way of thinking. Due to this selective intake made possible by modern technologies, many different demographics often receive nearly 2 different accounts of a single event or issue they share in common, and it emphasizes the discrimination in exposure. Also, now with all of these digtal channels, micro-targeted ads only make this worse, because the advertisers and producers of content can send these messages to smaller and smaller segments, and this only serves to amplify bias in most cases. This situation is particularly detrimental to democracy, as a fragmented media landscape could lead to a reality where each person lives in their own truth.
Furthermore, the commercial imperative of modern media has consequences for how audiences are polarized and information niches created. Under pressure to maximize audience engagement and address an expanded set of consumer preferences, media organizations frequently shape products to particular market segments, essentially carving out distinct audiences from others. While this allows media firms to produce tailored content for specific cohorts, it can also encourage the creation of echo chambers where an audience is exposed to information and opinions from a remarkably homogeneous pool of sources. Through selective exposure, audiences become more polarized and society divides in ways that can entrench differences, with different audience segments operating on entirely different media narratives when it comes to the same event or topic. This has further implications if one considers how digital technologies and platforms also allow for micro-targeted advertising, where online advertisers or content creators similarly address specific content to separate audiences, preferences and worldviews. The consequences of this for democratic polity extend, such that a fragmented media landscape could ultimately translate to human audiences who are also divided, living in less with each other.
Therefore the direction of media commercialisation is uncertain and in the future there are many possibilities and challenges. From the examined cases, it can be concluded that media organizations struggle to make profit at the fairly sensitive balance with responsibility of deliverers of impartial information. Therefore, the future financial performance of media organizations can rely only on the innovation accompanied only by new forms of revenue that reduces the direct link of advertisement revenue and increases the editorial value addition. Also, there is a disturbing tendency towards increasing the demand for more effective regulation of activities in all areas in order to minimize the impact of commercialization and the corresponding consequences: from disinformation and propaganda to the absorption of all beliefs and knowledge. This indicates that commercialisation of media is not constant, and will always be an issue, and that is why the government, media personnel, the students, the society and all individuals should continue to deliberate on the issues of media commercialisation as the media sector changes. This way we are progressing towards the shift towards the media environment that will be economically sustainable and this will strengthen the democratic principles, responsibility and interest.
Understanding the Commercialization of Media
Commercialisation is the process of dealing or administering a particular business concern that’s main responsibilities involves the generation of profits. When applied to the context of media commercialisation, it manifests in the form of the medium through which media institutions or a program obtains its revenue from the program through advertisement receipt, membership , sponsorship and product placement. The type of media to be practiced in the modern media has been noted to be practicing this shift from the public service and informative centered type of media.
It may therefore be pertinent to draw attention to this fact that the commercialisation of media is not a new thing. For example in the past newspaper and radio stations main source of funds was through advertisement. However, this has drastically transformed as a result of the new media and communication technology such as the internet and therefore contains new opportunities as well as challenges to media organization. The media environment today is highly competitive where interest of business, especially by the new media organizations are inclined more towards the production of revenues as opposed to media democracy.
It now follows that media commercialization must have its reason in the construction of industry media and their readiness to respond to shifts in the economical/technological environment. First of all, among the objectives of all media institutions, the main one was to be the informers, educators and entertainers of the society. They worked under rules that served an objective which was more inclined to the public’s benefit and the release of information, and relied mainly on subscription, government and public contributions for the majority of their income. The need for funding however changed over time and that made those organizations search for other sources of funding that would be advertisement. This is the fact that advertising evolved into one of the leading forces influencing the media growth and the companies which were warned that in order to get more advertisers and charge them higher tariffs, they have to have a higher audience rating. This shift therefore helped to lay the background for commercialisation of media; the profit making factor was gradually coming more to the forefront.
Besides these technological and behavior transformations, the play of an international media to the commercialisation process has received much emphasis. As media companies started growing, they started engaging themselves in new markets and sources of revenue, yet new risks. Since most of these media houses have gone transnational, they have altered the nature of the content to fit every culture of the world by displaying types of journalism that are likely to sell rather than types that belong to certain regions. This has resulted in media imperialism where few large global firms are controlling the production of media and its distribution both in different forms and in different nations. This has been occasioned by the tendency of media companies being owned by one or several firms and this has been a source of worry due to the notion that the firms may act as a cartel in determining the sort of information that the public gets as well as the sort of picture that is portrayed to the society.
Hence, the circulation of the commercialized media is one of the processes of general commodification of information and culture in society under modern consumer capitalism. As media organizations face difficulties in obtaining revenues and ‘capturing’ the audience’s attention, they are tempted to consider content as ‘goods’ and reception as consumption. These shifts hold profound importance for both media’s roles and capacities to address the Public interest and for communities to be well informed, engaged citizens. However, it has equally introduced new ethical issues and challenges in connection with the commercialization regarding independence, quality, and all-round participation of most media firms within the societies of the world. With new media consumers, demands and technology, there has been an upsurge of search for commercialized media and hence it will be relevant for all the stakeholders to begin to wonder about the impacts of commercialization and explore how the media system can still do its critical role in democracies and public sphere.
Impacts of Media Commercialization
Media commercialization impacts the Messages and Medium as indicated below: On the Message, Media Commercialization has the following implications: alteration of content production and quality. So, this seems to be especially the case with commercialisation and marketisation trends in media organizations, in which the commercial potential of media content is considered before any other factor. These changes have eroded any remnant of impartiality, principally on account of raising entropy for sundry and entertainments-related content since such content garners more traffic and is typically generated for drive-by or hit site business. I found it very interesting, and may be very profitable; yet, it is done to the detriment of journalism and investigations. In this case, the information flow may not be complete or contain sufficient critical analysis of the subject to address topics that may need a lot of evaluation, say, social justice issues, ecological problems or political corruption. This focus on profit could prove to be a hindrance on the ability of the media to effectively perform it’s watchdog role and to inform the public on information that the public would not otherwise have any information on an issue that affects them.
The economic approach to media is also held, responsible for the disintegration of the audiences and also the splitting of the public sphere. On the other hand, traditional media has its own demerits especially because only a small percentage of the information shared out is able to command consumer attention due to the myriad of digital information products available. As useful as this can be to the individuals who, when creating an account, decide to follow the kind of information that would likely be interesting to them, this restricts the audience to only the points of views that they share. That selectivity of sources to which one is exposed creates these two polar extremes in which one side can hardly tolerate the other and does not understand or accept the other. Furthermore, the kind of algorithms that the social media platforms and the various digital news sources compel works amicably to the material that is prone to eliciting extreme social sentiments to the society and this, in essence, escalates conflict within society. The tentacles of this fact are simple, but far-reaching: what you get is a very fragmented media landscape, a world where these overlapping solutions are far from visible and society is in two different worlds.
It is also equally important to understand that negative impacts on trust and democracy among the citizens are equally endured when the Media ownership is shifted to business entities. This is because media companies simply aim at generating profit through providing content that would reduce the audiences’ skepticism about the news and information disseminated as much as possible. Regarding the ideas about publicity of the one that was motivated more than other media organizations by profit rather than professional ethic, all the media’s believibility was put into question. This dilution of trust is especially so as it relates to democratic engagement and participation in as much as it concerns the pursuit of an informed populace in any given democracy. The left part of the statement is quite obvious – without objective news, they can’t make good decisions or exercise one of the freedoms introduced in the democratic process – voting and managing. Moreover, the coming of ‘Fake News,’ a world in which many media entities desire to have people’s money increases ignorance or even forgetfulness of history and leads to formation of society with more hatred and indifference.
Challenges in the Commercialized Media Landscape
One of the most important questions that need to be answered with regards to the question of commercialization of media is how the media can generate revenues for its operation and still work in the public interest. Media organizations are primarily business entities that are run with the core intention of generating financial returns and thus they will always be faced with the dilemma of producing programmes/content that will meet the needs/aspirations of the many and/ or portraying news that will be both factual and neutral and hence serving the common good. This balance becomes even high especially if there is pressure towards the achievement of high financial performance. This is why media firms have to be careful not to jeopardize what they offer to the consumers in a move to increase their profits, at the same time as they perform a critical role of passing information that is vital and credible. If this balance is not achieved then it is flooded with sensationalism and entertainment in the media system and thus eliminating the very raison d’être of media in any democracy.
Another unprecedented factor that appeared in the context of the operation of media organizations is the rate of innovations in the digital environment. Most traditional media firms experience competition from other media firms that have embraced other technologies, especially new media usage. Companies that have been operating in the media industry have lost market share due to the emergence of platforms and applications including social networks, online services providing movies and music, and news aggregator. This article considers that the traditional media has no alternative other than embracing the digital change and investing in the new method that shall assist it to harness the existing technologies with new trends in content styles. However, this change requires time, effort as well as money and also suggests that organizations are ready to take some risks, try new archetypes that can be rather unfamiliar for them. Also, due to the help of social media, people’s expectations always shift towards expecting free and high quality content at once. This is a challenge that should be tried as hard as possible though the fact is that Media organizations need to have financial sustainability.
Yet another question concerning the process of the commercialization of the media is that some tendencies toward the satisfaction of the commercial aims can be realized instead of the editorial policy. Due to the fact that both advertising revenue and other types of commercial sponsorship are becoming more and more vital for media organizations, there is a potential threat that the editorial work will be granted more control by advertisement. It can be from self regulation for the sake of building the reputation of large bill paying advertisers to an outright censorship, where content is changed to fit the advertisers. To the media organizations the challenge or issue in question is how the organizations can retain their independence in their practices without becoming under the influences that are likely to compromise their professionalism. On the same note it’s of great importance especially in the current generation where people have lost trust with the media. Maintaining a positive perception of the media organizations by the general public in the context of independence, and more specifically, the ability of providing balanced news is strategic for media organizations mainly in highly competitive markets with a large offer of media products.
Lastly, the rigidity of the consumers’ demand is still another problem that is quite apparent among the many media companies especially in the commercialized world today. Thus, the way society uses media content has slightly changed in recent previous years through the encouragement of existing technology as regards to social change. The Ministry of Media in regard to media distribution of the youth especially the young people’s media is not much inclined to the channel of media but it is much inclined toward the new media, the social media website. This transition has now focused the new media business to find new modes and ways of delivering the products to such people. However, having a diverse and a dynamic consumer base suggests that media organizations have to adapt and evolve and in the process adapt, invent ways, means and methods of solving new problems. Furthermore, these conditions are accompanied by another task of creating even more high-quality content to meet the consumers’ expectations and generate sufficient revenues for the company while consumers’ attention-deficit disorder savagely aggravates, and they expect first-hand and original content right away.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Media Commercialization
AI is the new medium, style, approach, process through which media is created, disseminated or actually funded. The use of decision making mechanisms by the digite media platforms through machine learning, in choosing what content they are to present to their users, with regard to; their preferences, their behaviors and ages. These algorithms help the media companies to sort and schedule the content distribution, attract the users’ attention more, and sell the adverts hence earning more profits. AI is also making its way into the automation of content creation for writing news, editing of videos, among others reducing the costs for media firms. However, Artificial Intelligence is being utilized today more and more whereby some of the moral dilemmas that come with it include neural transparency, privacy, and bias. Particular algorithms which categorize content by sheer interaction rates encourage fake news and conspiracy theories, while utilization of AI in content filtering often does not work to detect issues in content without infringing people’s rights to free speech. Therefore, as the position of AI in the media develops, these problems will have to be solved along with the possibilities of elevating the quality of the content and the media’s total revenue employing the help of AI solutions.
The Globalization of Media
Media has now been described as border less now that it has been argued to be typical of this century because of the changes in technology and communication. Traditionally it could have taken a lot of time for media content to cross borders and therefore the media companies can sell their content in different countries within a short span of time. Some of the firms that may be regarded as streaming firms that disseminate content to users across the globe with different cultures include Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify. It has also formulated newer forms of revenues across the domain of media as they possess the potentiality to generate revenues all across the world through subscription, advertisement and licensing. But there is everything that is characteristic of globalization for example flexibility within cultural diversity and governments’ policies, competition with other media firms in the regions. However, the opinion is being circulated that due to monopolization in few big media companies that have something like top-grossing to offer, this has resulted into the monopolized media contents and local cultures and people and the local have disappeared, and they prefer to watch content with a large population instead of the local.
The Rise of Influencers and Citizen Journalism
Other traditional media tendencies that become more noticeable as tendencies toward media commercialization escalate includes irritating influencers and citizen journalism which poses. It is for this reason that by the same internet and such given social sites like Youtube, Instagram, TikTok among others, independent creators can spread their content to millions of people without necessarily having to involve mainstream media. This makes it easier for such influencers to reach the consumers because usually they are highly involved; hence making it easier for the advertisers to reach the targeted consumers. This has led to the emergence of a new form of media people get paid from through promotions, endorsements and even through affiliate links. Another aspect that has evolved is Citizen Journalism where every citizen spends some time reporting and passing on news through his or her Social Media account thus making media democracy. As it has resulted in the different opinions from people through the opinions and reviews in their accounts, this also brings difficulties such as the reliability of the content and the standards of journalism because many users who give their opinions, or citizen journalists, fail to follow certain ethical standards or check the facts.
Conclusion
Hence the process of media commercialization is the core process that has elicited changes in the forms of producing, using and profiting on information in the age of ‘ digitization. ’ On the available opportunities: The factor of commercialization has rendered new opportunities to the media organizations who are in lookout for expansion on the operation front, portfolio diversification and new business model and method of delivering the content and generating revenues. These problems arise when reliance on economic revenue is solely made when compromises within the quality of journalism are visible, fragmented audiences emerge and that of advertisers is a threat to editorial veto. In addition, social networks, growth of the top-down content facing that emerged and grew along with the support of the traditional and media density and coverage produced great pressure on a business. At the same time the need of the eagle-eyed task of the media to develop an enlightened public and support the democratic endeavor cannot be disguised behind a business-like approach. As to what this will mean, one of the ways through which the media will be in a position to build the required credibility as the source of information that will be relevant in the public interest will be by descending the profitability and integrities of the media. In the future these concerns and consequences have to be addressed and handled in a critical way by the media organizations, the regulators and the consumers, in the efforts aimed at achieving the desired need for a media environment that might necessitate the commercial viability as it does the social responsibility.
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