Commercial Media

Commercial Media contributes a lot to the global economy. In lecture 7, Dr. Redman spoke about commercial media. Commercial media is profit-driven and not government funded like the public media is. Commercial media also relies on advertising revenue to make money.


We learnt that there are 3 forms of commercial media. First, ones which you need to subscribe to. An example is foxtel. Second, the ones that are sponsored. And third, the ones that are subsidised by the government or by organisations.


There has been new social controls on commercial media. Journalists must be licensed in some parts of the world, such as in Indonesia. The state presses subsidies, an example is Sweden where the newspapers are subsidised. Government agency-regulating content is another form of social control. An example is in China, Facebook is not allowed.


I do believe that commercial media is controlled and a lot of propaganda is involved, for a long time now. This is especially true in the commercial media in US and some other countries. The video below shows how commercial media might not be too reliable and how they influence us in the way we think.

In Singapore, the newspapers and main media channels are also controlled by the government. Singapore journalists have also commented that they have to be meticulous in their coverage of local news. This is because,Singapore's leaders will be likely to come down hard on anyone who reports negative stories about the government or its leadership. This shows that the government controls the content delivered by the commercial media in countries like America as well as Singapore, to a certain extent. Therefore, I feel that content delivered by the commercial media is not 100percent reliable.