6.2 Theorists Flashcards
Theories of the media and influences on media content
Murdock and Golding
argument against pluralists
argued that the separation of interests between owners and controllers is more apparent than real, because managers often own the companies they control. They think and act in much the same way as the individual media owners of the past.
Althusser
saw the media as an ideological state apparatus (ISA). The state
attempts to directly assert the interests of a ruling class through an interlocking relationship between the political and economic members of this class.
Owners and controllers use the media to manipulate how subject classes see the world to create the belief that societies work in the interests of all rather than the interests of a few.
In this way, the media create a ‘false consciousness’: the working class co-operates with the ruling class in their own exploitation and against their own interests.
Ralph Milliband
Media is directly controlled by a dominant class who use it as an instrument to control the working class
Althusser
Hegemonic control suggests that beliefs are not simply imposed ‘from above’ by a ruling class but are accepted by the working class. This consent may be actively manufactured through what Althusser called ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) including the media.
Chomsky and Herman
Propaganda model
Related to the Marxist and neo-Marxist views of the media is the propaganda model developed by Chomsky and Herman.
This sees the main role of the media in democracies as ensuring that people support the state and the capitalist system. This is achieved through the reporting only of a narrow range of opinion, with radical alternatives marginalised or ridiculed. ‘Serious’ newspapers and broadcasting appear to cover a range of opinion and allow dissent but this happens only within narrow confines. The news is
determined by a five filters:
1. Ownership: mainstream media are controlled by large conglomerates so what is reported is in their interests. News items that endanger corporate interests will be censored.
2. Advertising: the media have to attract wealthy (affluent) audiences, so that they can deliver those audiences to advertisers. News content therefore has to fit with the interests of advertisers, most of which are large corporations.
3. Sourcing: the media have to rely on sources such as politicians, corporations and trade organisations so the media are reluctant to offend these sources.
4. Flak: this refers to negative responses to news stories – business organisations work together to create flak which allows them to manage public information. An example is the way that oil corporations and others have been able to use the media to question climate change.
5. Ideology of fear: fear and hatred of groups that pose a real or imagined threat. When Chomsky and Herman first wrote about this, it was fear of communism, but after the end of the Cold War the media the threat has been, variously, Saddam Hussein, terrorist groups and Russia.
Criticisms of this model include questioning whether the media all act together in the ways implied, and pointing out that the media do expose cases of wrongdoing by corporations.
Chomsky
Most forms of privately owned media rely on advertising income in order to make a profit. As such, they are unlikely to behave in ways that upset their principal advertisers. Chomsky (1989), for example, documented how pressure from US advertisers resulted in articles and programmes being withdrawn or ‘amended’.
Curran
Curran (2003) suggests that there is a lot of historical evidence of media owners manipulating media content. He carried out a historical analysis of UK media, broken down into four historical periods.
Control by owners was most obvious in the era of the Press Barons in the early part of the 20th century, when some even said that they used their newspapers to consciously spread their political views.
Rupert Murdoch’s control of his News Corporation since the 1970s is another good example of an owner controlling media content. All of his newspapers have a strong right wing point of view, which reflects his values.
A specific example of Murdoch’s control is that all of his news outlets supported the Iraq War in 2003, a war which he personally supported. It’s unlikely that all the editors of all his newspapers globally shared this view.
The Leveson report
Found that news stories frequently relied on misrepresentation and embellishment, and it seems that press watchdogs have little power to enforce journalistic ethics today.
(This is despite all UK newspapers having to sign up to the Press Complaints Commission’s voluntary code of conduct which stipulates that journalists should avoid publishing inaccurate information and misrepresenting people and should respect people’s privacy and dignity.)
Galtung and Ruge
News Values
- Find that visual media involves fast paced, action filled stories.
- Usually on bigger scales; the larger the story the more important and news worthy.
- Media must be simple, even complex events must be reduced to a very black and white image, leaving no room for nuance.
- stories need to be contextual in the sense that it has continuity.
- And lastly it must also be meaningful to connect with the audience culturally.
Chibnall
News Values
News has to be topical/relevant. It should be daramatic or sensational to appeal to more audiences. Important people (celebrities / politicians) are focused on more in most media.
“sex sells”
There is structured access; reporters and experts have more opportunity to define the meaning of an event. Hierarchies of credibility imply that greater importance is given to certain ‘definers’ or news than others.
Novelty news; rare events are more newsworthy
Lanson and Stephens
News Values
- An event’s significance in relation to other, current, stories.
- Arguments and debates increase newsworthiness.
- Does the story help people understand the meaning of something?
- Extent to which people are taught something.
Fiske
Found that news reports on industrial disputes tended to report on managers as ‘asking’ whereas trades unionists tended to reported as ‘making demands’, presenting the former as more reasonable.
Hall
Argued that journalists offer a preferred reading, that is, the audience are given not only information but also told how to interpret it.
News stories are framed; the position that the reporting takes on a story influences the audience’s interpretation of the story.
Cohen
Developed the concept of folk devils, people who are believed to threaten the established moral order.
While different societies have different folk devils, common examples include:
* the poor, constructed in ways that blame poverty on the individual
* welfare claimants who are seen as receiving payments they do not deserve
* immigrants who are seen as failing to integrate into a dominant culture.
Thornton
Found that the media failed to generate a moral panic over rave culture, mainly because youth culture had become mainstream by that point, as had the taking of drugs such as ecstasy.
Critic of moral panicks
