Discuss the issues raised by media ownership and exchange of media texts in your chosen media industry

The media industry I have chosen to discuss is the film industry. It is no secret that big American blockbusters have taken over, and leave no room for smaller independant films to be exhibited in both commercial multiplex cinemas, and often smaller independant cinemas such as the Tyneside. Very few purely british films get much recognition in the modern day film indusrty, however Slumdog Millionaire is one exception to that.

British films usually rely on excellent marketing and distribution techniques in order to gain recognition. Viral Marketing plays a major role in this, using convergance with other companies to create marketing for the film, and thus entising a larger audience. For example; Slumdog Millionaire uses flash technology on it's website, to show a series of awards which the film has won, to display video's, pictures, downloads etc. all of these make the audience feel more involved with the film and therefore will be more inclined to go and buy it.

Viral marketing is a very modern way to advertise a film, the british film monsters used the social networking site Foursquare to set up certain infected zones. this allowed audience members using foursquare to become involved in the film, by competing for a prize draw. the psychology behind this is if the audience feel more involved in the film, and thus will be more inclined to go and see it or buy the dvd . this social networking tactic also allowed those with no knowledge of the film to find out about it, also boosting sales, we can start to see a pattern developing in that everything done in terms of the marketing and distribution of a film, is done to boost sales at the boxoffice. Slumdog millionaire, like many other films accross the world released a viral trailer before the actual release date, this meant that it may be passed around social networking sites, blogs and other wibsites to gain a larger audience.

although viral marketing can have a great impact on the films in a positive manner. it can also go in completely the other diection, and ultimately destroy a films reputation. Social networking sties are a perfect example of this; through the use of tweets ans status updates etc, nad reviews of the film can be spread accross the world, to thousands of people in an instant, however word of mouth remains one of the strongest marketing forms, as telling friends not to go and see a film will often discourage people to go and see that particular film. Through the use of websites such as YouTube and other illigal online movie download sites, pirate copies of films can often be viewed resulting in less sales of the dvd, and tickets at the boxoffice as the viewer can get access to the film for free. one example of a film that has had extrememly bad reviwes is The Rum Diary. the reviews of this film were so poor that people simply stopped going to see it due to bad online reviews, and slander form the word of mouth, the Odeon Cinema chain had to result in extra marketing to boost their sales by offering 100 extra loyalty points if yoiu went to see the film.

Piracy is a major issue facing the film indistry, as soon as a film has been released in the cinemas it can be accessed and viewed through sites such as pirate bay, and of course if you can see a film for free you are not going to pay for it. to stop this happening, many film-makers often try to get the film onto dvd and blu-rak disks as quickly as possible, this means audiences will not feel as great a need to download them as they have been released so quickly onto dvd. An example of this is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)which caused uproar amongst cinema chains as it was released to dvd only three months sfter its release date.

many smaller independant british film companies continue to struggle to leave their mark on the film indistry, film companies such as Sony are vertically integrated which is extremely beneficial for themselves as this minimises external costs annd this maximises the profit for their own comapny. larger profits mean larger budgets for their own films, which enables special effects, big name actors etc and so have no problem gaining recognition amongst mainstream multiplex cinemas, film companises such as amber film have many external costs and profits for their films are extremely low, resulting in little or no recognition amongst the film industry.