自从有电子传播媒介以来,人们一直习惯于认为,看电视、听广播不过是听听消息、娱乐娱乐而已,它们是当然的“免费的午餐”。特别是近来的报纸,动辄几十版、上百版,仍不过一两元钱,甚至只有几毛钱。明眼人一算即知,这点钱也许连印刷成本也不够。那么,为什么在这个市场交换的世界里,电台、电视台、报社会如此慷慨大方,难道它们真的会向你提供“免费的午餐”?其实关于这一问题,可以从两个方面来看,一是商品受众及其阅听状况;二是受众所享受、花费的休闲、工作时间。当代大众传播媒介的运作,在经济上有两种方式:一种是由国家支持的,如英国9主要通过向用户征收公共电视收视费来维持媒体的运转;另一种则主要依赖广告的收人来维持媒体的运转、赢利。后者已日益成为当代传媒的基本生存方式。美国政治经济学者斯迈思从商品经济角度对此进行了探讨。他认为,在后工业社会的条件下,受众实际上已成为一种商品,大众媒介其实就是这种商品的生产者(卖方),而广告商则是买主。他指出,由广告商支持媒介的组织化形式,现在已遍及世界,不仅电视、广播、报纸和杂志,而且电影、戏剧、音乐与表演亦无不如此。斯迈思在分析这种组织形式时,特别关注媒介的外显功能(传播信息)和媒介的经济结构之间的矛盾。斯迈思认为问题出在商品上,也就是说,媒介是在向广告商兜售一种商品。这是一种什么商品呢? People have always been accustomed to thinking that watching television and listening to the radio is nothing more than listening to news and entertaining, since they have the electronic media. They are, of course, “free lunch ”. In particular, the newspapers of recent times are often in the dozens of editions and hundreds of editions, but they still have only one or two yuan or even only a few cents. Clear-cut people know that this money may not even printing costs enough. Why, then, are the stations, stations and newspapers so generously generous in this world of market exchange, do they really offer you a “free lunch”? In fact, there are two aspects to this question First, the audience of goods and their listening situation; Second, the audience enjoyment, spending leisure, working hours. There are two ways in which the operation of the mass media can be economically supported: one is state-sponsored. For example, the United Kingdom 9 maintains its media mainly by collecting public television subscriptions from subscribers. The other is mainly dependent on receipt of advertisements People to maintain the operation of the media, profit. The latter has increasingly become the basic way of life for contemporary media. American political economy Smythe from the commodity economy point of view of this discussion. He believes that in the post-industrial society, the audience has actually become a commodity, the mass media is actually the producer of the goods (seller), and advertisers are buyers. He pointed out that the organized form of media supported by advertisers is now spread all over the world, not only on television, radio, newspapers and magazines, but also on films, theater, music and performances. In analyzing this form of organization, Smyth pays particular attention to the contradiction between the explicit function of the media (the dissemination of information) and the economic structure of the media. Smythe think the problem lies in the product, that is, the media is selling to advertisers a product. What is this kind of product?