4.1 ownership and control of the mass media - marxist theories

Question 1

What are the general arguments of Marxism?

Answer 1

• they believe that inequalities in wealth and income, and therefore poverty and life chances, are the direct result of the way capitalism is organised

Question 2

What is the role that ideology plays in the media?

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

How does the media act as an ideological state apparatus?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

What does Ralph Miliband argue about the media?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

What is meant by the manipulative/instrumentalist approach of Marxist theory?

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

How did Curran and Seaton(2010) evidence the manipulative/instrumentalist approach?

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

What does the manipulative/instrumental approach assume about audiences?

Answer 7

• media audiences are passive who don’t think critically about what they read/watch or see

Question 8

What does Marcuse argue about audiences?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What is meant by the phrase ’bread and circuses’?

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

What are some criticisms of the manipulative/instrumentalist approach?

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

What is the neo-Marxist approach to media ownership and control?

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

Who’s studies are associated with the neo-Marxist approach?

Answer 12

• The Glasgow Media Group (GMG)

Question 13

What is the emphasis of the neo-Marxist approach?

Answer 13

• the concept of hegemony

Question 14

What is meant by hegemony?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

What does the hegemonic approach suggest about media ownership?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What do the GMG find about point out about journalists?

Answer 16

• 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