Clarification of "Exchange"

The term ‘EXCHANGE’ in the spec has worried students and teachers. Here is some help.

The spec says:
‘The technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange’

The word exchange was used in the January exam 2011.
Here are some views on what it means from people who know on the OCR forum.

Brief Definition
Exchange:
The way in which texts are not only consumed by media audiences, but the way media audiences interact with media text in the digital age (issues of piracy, technologies, user-distribution/promotion).

In this digital age we can say exchange refers to the ‘converged’ relationship of audience ‘prosumers’ (i.e. those who used to be consumers but who now produce content) and institutions i.e. to what extent do audiences contribute content, that the institution then uses, and that other audiences then consume.

In the newspaper industry the ‘point of exchange’ means transaction between producer and consumer. Below is an extract from some revision notes:

Newspapers:
Identifying the precise point of exchange between publisher and reader is interesting in the case of newspapers as they run parallel online and printed content. An online reader might have seen a headline on the website encouraging them to buy the print edition, or have been encouraged to go online by an advert seen in the print version. And with subscription models to consider, how might exchange be usefully understood?

For example, an online reader might be sent email content or be paying for access to subscription only content, even when they neglect to check their emails or use the site.

Of course, buying a printed newspaper does not necessarily mean you’ll read it either, so any discussion of exchange must be complicated as we distinguish between the physical product and its content.

The transaction between publisher and consumer, of this product and its content is further complicated when we look again at the issue of APIs and their role in distributing content through other media.

A simple way to describe exchange is to say it is the exchange of money for a product at the point of consumption. However something else can be exchanged in the financial relationships where a text is part of an industry. For example the audience is exchanged for money between commercial TV and advertisers.

Pete says:
‘Exchange’ is an old Marxist term in Media Studies really, but we used it as a catch-all for the moment when money changes hands for a product. It would be slightly different for different media in media-specific language, so for print it might be point of sale of the newspaper, for films exhibition, but for many goods these days it is of course online and for some no money changes hands anyway.

As far as technology goes, this is the key bit in relation to exchange- so examples might be what difference does something like iTunes make for the music or film industry or the internet for Rupert Murdoch selling The Times, etc.

(Source: OCR Media Studies Forum)
FROM Media edusites