4.1 ownership and control of the mass media - marxist theories Flashcards
What are the general arguments of Marxism?
- they believe that inequalities in wealth and income, and therefore poverty and life chances, are the direct result of the way capitalism is organised
What is the role that ideology plays in the media?
- the ideological role of the media is concerned with the extent to which the media socialise audiences into a particular view of the world and the society in which they live in
How does the media act as an ideological state apparatus?
- it seeks to induce in the mass of people a false consciousness of their exploitation and their real interests
- they persuade people to accept that everyone benefits from the way society is presently organised and that is fair and just
What does Ralph Miliband argue about the media?
- the media play an important role in spreading the dominant ideology
- the media controls access to the knowledge which people have about what is happening in society, and encourage them to accept the unequal society in which they live
What is meant by the manipulative/instrumentalist approach of Marxist theory?
- it suggests that the owners directly control media content, and manipulate the content and media audiences to protect their profits and spread the dominant ideology
How did Curran and Seaton(2010) evidence the manipulative/instrumentalist approach?
- they found evidence that suggests that media owners did interfere and manipulate newspaper content, at the expense of the independence of journalists and editors, to protect their own interests and supported or witheld criticisms of govts which defended their interests
- in 2003 = Rupert Murdoch was arguing strongly in interviews for a war with Iraq and all 175 of his newspapers around the world backed him
What does the manipulative/instrumental approach assume about audiences?
- media audiences are passive who don’t think critically about what they read/watch or see
What does Marcuse argue about audiences?
- the media owners play a large role in helping to control the working class through a bread and circuses approach
- the owners deliberately make sure that media output is mainly entertainment focused so that people are kept happy and docile
What is meant by the phrase ’bread and circuses’?
- it is used to describe superficial entertainments used to satisfy populations so that they are distracted from real issues such as the causes of poverty
What are some criticisms of the manipulative/instrumentalist approach?
- pluralists = argue there is a wide range of opinion in the media and the media owners are only concerned with making profits
- the state regulates media ownership so that no one person has too much influence
- audiences aren’t as gullible and easily manipulated as the approach suggests
- they fail to acknowledge that many journalists and media publications still see themselves as the guardians of the public interest and dedicate their careers to exposing members of the establishment who abuse their powers
What is the neo-Marxist approach to media ownership and control?
- the mass media do spread a dominant ideology that justifies the power of the ruling class BUT it also suggests that they rarely have day-to-day control of the content of the media which is left in the hands of managers and journalists
Who’s studies are associated with the neo-Marxist approach?
- The Glasgow Media Group (GMG)
What is the emphasis of the neo-Marxist approach?
- the concept of hegemony
What is meant by hegemony?
- the idea that, through the spreading of the dominant ideology, other social classes are persuaded to accept that the values and beliefs in that ideology are reasonable and normal, and form a consensus that becomes part of everyday common sense
- this enables the ruling class to rule with the consent of those they rule over
What does the hegemonic approach suggest about media ownership?
- media managers and journalists have some professional independence; they still generally support the dominant ideology, but by choice - not because they are manipulated to do so
What do the GMG find about point out about journalists?
- most journalists tend to be white, MC, and male and their socialisation means they share a similar view of the world to that of the dominant class
What is meant by news values and how does it relate to the idea of hegemony?
- they are stories that are considered as important and means that sometimes journalists don’t always present the dominant ideology, but sometimes develop critical, anti-establishment views that strike a chord with their audiences
What is gate-keeping?
- deciding which stories are covered or ignored
What is agenda-setting?
- deciding on the tone of a story to influence how audiences discuss a news item
What did Philo find about the media coverage of the global banking crisis in 2008?
- the media focused attention predominantly on the views and solutions offered by the three main political parties and the bankers themselves
What are some criticisms of the neo-marxist approach?
- it underrates the power and influence of the owners; they can appoint and dismiss managers and editors who step too far out of line
- gatekeeping and agenda-setting mean audiences have little real choice of media content
- pluralists suggest the rise of the new globalised digital media and the internet has undermined the traditional influence of media owners and put more control into the hands of media users
What conclusions can be drawn about the neo-marxist approach?
- the GMG are probably right to stress that the way the media are organised, and the social backgrounds of journalists, have resulted in media content generally reflecting the cultural hegemony of capitalist values and ways of seeing the world
