Thank God For Media Capitals.

 

I honestly think that i’d be lost without my favourite American comedy 30 Rock if i didn’t have access to its seasons in Australia and this is only possible, so i learnt, through the flow of content around the world rom media capitals such as America. It’s not only tv shows that are possible via media capitals; music, news and movies have also been made available between nations and they are having an effect on us daily.

In This week’s reading, Michael Curtin defines media capitals as “places where things came together and consequently, where the generations and circulation of new mass culture forms to become possible.” Here’s a brief little example of the shift in media capitals from Chicago to Hollywood:

Originally, in the 1950’s Chicago was a major media capital as a regional centre of manufacturing, transport and communication (Curtin, 2013) and gradually became a central base for radio broadcasting between the 1930s-1950s in which soap operas and domestic comedies were among the popular radio programs were broadcast. As television was becoming increasingly popular and developed, many of these radio shows were adapted into tv shows and this proved to become rather unsuccessful for Chicago’s leading tv broadcasting networks and now movie productions, as their focus during the late 1950s was predominately on theatre and stage shows. It was also becoming apparent that the cost of production of many of the Chicago films being made was becoming too high and expensive for many of the studios in Chicago. Increasing amounts of New York radio stations were promoting Hollywood actors and their films which seemed like a more efficient way to promote up and coming movies. So as a result, Hollywood took over movie production from the advertising companies as they were more equipped to do so and the role of Chicago and New York as regional economies and cultures centres was destroyed.

So as we can see, global media capitals play a major role in our everyday day media usage, most of what we watch on tv is from America and the UK because they are the dominant sources of global media presently and it’s hard to imagine life without their cultural influences on Australian television.

 

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