Cropping
communications act (uk), 2003. It is a
requirement that Ofcom report on the owner-
ship-of-media situation every three years and to
make recommendations to government. Usually
these shift in the direction of relaxing rules of
ownership, and are based upon complex criteria
concerning overlapping ownership, these oper-
ating in a context of technological change and
mergers of ownership.
Differention is made between viewpoint
plurality and ownership plurality, the latter being
easier to defi ne than the former. Ofcom’s Review
of Media Ownership Rules (2006) states that
‘ownership plurality does not necessarily ensure
editorial or viewpoint diversity. Whilst diversity
of ownership may have an eff ect on plurality, it
may also be the case that diff erent sources of
news off er the same perspective’.
Rules of media ownership (MO) in the US, for
example, prevent any one individual or organiza-
tion from owning more than one of the main TV
networks: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. In Australia,
working on a ‘national interest principle’, foreign
ownership is not permitted; this contrasts with
the situation in Finland and Luxemborg, where
there are no restrictions on foreign ownership.
In Sweden, periodical publication owner-
ship is restricted to the European Economic
Area, while in Denmark, licences for regional
broadcasting are only granted if the majority
of board members reside in the local area. All
of the above are subject to constant pressures
for change as traditional media grapple with
the challenges and opportunities brought
about by the Network Society. See privatiza-
tion; ofcom: office of communications
(uk); regulatory favours. See also topic
guides under media: ownership & control;
network society.
Cryptography Secret language; the transfer
of messages into secret codes. A cryptograph is
anything written in cypher. See data protec-
tion.
Cues See barnland’s transactional models
of communication.
Cultivation As used by US communications
analyst George Gerbner, the term describes
the way the mass media system relates to the
culture from which it grows, and which it
addresses. The media ‘cultivate’ attitudes and
values in a culture. For example, audiences
are cultivated into rejecting certain acts of
violence while at the same time being cultivated
into accepting or tolerating others. See main-
streaming.
Cultural apparatus ‘Taken as a whole,’ writesfocuses on content, presentation and language.
Emphasizing the importance of the linguistic
assembly of messages in his book Language in
the News: Discourse and Ideology and the Press
(Routledge, 1991), Roger Fowler says that ‘there
are diff erent ways of saying the same thing, and
they are not random, accidental alternatives’;
thus there can never be ‘a value-free reflec-
tion of “facts”’. Two processes occur: selection
(see agenda-setting; gatekeeping; news
values), followed by transformation according
to the dictates of the medium and the infl uences
upon all the encoders involved. See hegemony;
impartiality; journalism; sapir-whorf
linguistic relativity hypothesis.
Cropping Photographs for publication are rarely
printed exactly as they emerge from the original
negative or electronic transmission. They are
very often ‘cropped’, that is cut to fulfi l certain
objectives: the space requirements of a page; to
maximize impact; to serve aesthetic or ideologi-
cal criteria. Generally pictures are cropped to get
rid of redundant detail that might detract from
the central thrust and drama of the picture’s
message. See anchorage; preferred read-
ing.
Cross-media ownership Th at is, where a press
baron or corporation owns a range of media,
newspapers, TV and radio stations within
what, in the US, are described as designated
market areas (DMAs). Resistance to cross-media
ownership acts on the principle that to own the
press and broadcasting in any particular area
- city, district or region – constitutes a threat
to media diversity and hence to the plural-
ity of the media; and such resistance has been
incorporated in many countries in regulations
designed to prevent monopoly.
In contrast, the corporate position is that
regulation of cross-media ownership is an
unnecessary inpediment to business practice
and the making of profi ts. It follows that corpo-
rate owners of media seek deregulation by
pressurizing governments to abandon rules
(generally made in the public interest) in favour
of the free market (generally operating to the
advantage of the corporations).
The issue of cross-media ownership has
become a matter of profound concern, at least
among media-watchers if not the public, because
it trails other critical issues, such as the mainte-
nance of quality, the integrity and independence
of information; in short, the preservation of
public service in the media.
In the UK the job of regulating cross-media
ownership rests with Ofcom, following the