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Lesson 1: Introducing Industry and Institution
One of the most difficult aspects of researching and understanding this are the terms themselves.
There are several interpretations of what we mean when we talk of a ‘media industry and institution’. Though each has some overlap, we do need to be clear just which variation of the term we are applying, as each term shifts the meaning of the concept of ‘institution’.
The ‘classic’ use of the term was in describing those organisations or ideas that seemed to enshrine the key elements of our culture. In this older understanding an institution was as much an idea, a value, as it was a physical building or company. The key institutions of our society were seen to be – the church, parliament, marriage, the law, school, home, family.
The term institution is commonly used in writing about media to describe the modern day equivalents of those media organisations seen to be of cultural significance in shaping how we view the world today. In this sense, Hollywood – though a geographic location for media companies with little in common other than their product – is widely seen to be an institution with a set of ‘understood’ values and ideas. So too are ‘the print press’ or ‘TV companies’ or ‘games manufacturers’.
The most common way the term is used in media is as the description of an organisation. Though this ought to be limited to large organisations – those multi-national and global players such as Disney, Sky, Bauer Media, Sony – it has come to be a term acceptable to use when describing…
