Power and media industries (James Curran and Jean Seaton): the media are controlled by a small number of large, profit-driven companies; concentration of ownership tends to reduce variety, creativity and quality, and more diverse, democratic patterns of ownership would produce more adventurous media.

What this dot point is asking

Media industries is the third area of the WJEC theoretical framework: how media are owned, funded, produced, distributed and regulated, and how that shapes the products that reach audiences. Curran and Seaton's argument about power and media industries is a set theory for this area. Its core claim is that media power is concentrated in a small number of large, profit-driven companies, and that this concentration tends to narrow variety, creativity and quality. The exam skill is to connect who owns and funds a product to the form and content of the product itself.

The answer

Concentration of ownership

• Few owners. A small number of companies dominate production across the major media.
• Profit and power. These owners are commercial enterprises, not public-service bodies; their primary goals are commercial return and influence.
• An industrial lens. The theory reads media not as free expression but as an industry shaped by ownership and capital.

The effect on variety and quality

This is the part of the theory that connects directly to set products. The task is to read a product as the output of a concentrated, profit-driven industry: where does it play safe, follow a tested formula, recycle a recognisable brand or chase the largest audience? The marks lie in linking the commercial structure to specific choices in the product, not in asserting that "big companies are bad".

The case for diverse, democratic ownership

For the higher WJEC bands this opens the evaluative move. A public-service broadcaster or a plural ownership system offers a counter-case to pure commercial concentration, and weighing the two is exactly the kind of judgement the A2 papers reward.

Strengths, limits and counter-evidence

Using the theory in the exam

1. Name Curran and Seaton and the concentration-of-ownership argument.
2. Identify who owns and funds the set product.
3. Connect the profit and power motive to specific choices of form and content.
4. Evaluate variety: where the product is standardised, and where it is not.
5. Judge, weighing concentrated commercial ownership against public-service or plural alternatives and digital change.

Examples in context

Reading a product through ownership. Suppose a set product is made and distributed by a large media company. Using Curran and Seaton, the first move is to map the ownership: who controls it, how it is funded (advertising, subscription, sales), and what return it must deliver. The second move is to read the product as the output of that structure: does it follow a tested format, lean on an established brand or franchise, recycle familiar genres and stars, and avoid material that might deter advertisers? If so, that is the narrowing of variety the theory predicts. The third move, decisive for the top bands, is to evaluate: set the commercial product against a public-service or independently owned counterpart, note where digital tools have widened access, and judge how far concentrated ownership explains the product. Anchor the argument in concrete features of the set product rather than general claims about "the media".

Try this

Q1. What do Curran and Seaton argue is the driving motive of the companies that control the media? [2 marks]

• Cue. Profit and power: the media are controlled by a small number of large, commercially driven companies.

Q2. What effect on media output do Curran and Seaton link to concentration of ownership? [3 marks]

• Cue. A tendency towards less variety, less creativity and lower quality, as owners favour safe, profitable, formatted material.

Q3. Using Curran and Seaton, assess how far the ownership of one set product shapes its form and content. [15 marks]

• What the marker wants. Ownership mapped, the profit and power motive linked to specific choices, variety tested, public-service and digital counter-evidence weighed, and a supported judgement.