Institution
Some media theorists have unfortunately seen fit to muddy the previously clearish waters around the notion of institution. Basic media thinking is that the student never loses sight of the text as commercial product, as something made in order first and foremost to be sold. While consumption of media output is very broad, vast to the point of being global, ownership of the means of most media production is still concentrated in the hands of relatively few members of ruling political, capitalist and/or intellectual elites. There are some minor holes in these ideas (there are independent film and music producers, for instance) but although elsewhere there is the ever-prolific Indian Bombay-based film industry (Bollywood), Hollywood and the giant U.S. music companies still seem dominant global forces.How the concept of ‘institution’ has been complicated is because the term has been extended to include text in the context of its audience. It can be argued that film or music only exist in the mind of their beholder, as it were, which makes audience consumption and all its variables absolutely crucial. While agreeing with this, I cannot see the need to include this in the concept of ‘institution’.
Grappling with ‘institution’ entails forming an understanding of economic practices such as monopolies, vertical and horizontal integration. The relationship between institution (in the simpler sense), text and consumer, the nature of particular institutions and how they operate are fundamental to media study and are especially important also to AS topic New Media Technologies.
