Key Sociologists: Ownership & Control

Question 1

Bagdikian (1989)

Answer 1

The ‘Lords of the Global Village’ – a small group of media companies - dominate the world’s mass media and control the information process, from the creation of the product to its world-wide dispersal.

Question 2

Miliband (1973)

Answer 2

There is direct control by owners of the media. The media professionals (i.e. the editors and the journalists in newspapers rely on the owners for their jobs so will not write anything that the owners don’t want to be written)

Question 3

Curran & Seaton (2010)

Answer 3

Found evidence for this e.g. Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation was pro the Iraq War and all 175 newspapers that he owned around the world took a pro- war stance

Question 4

Gramsci

Answer 4

Hegemony: the working class are persuaded to accept the values and beliefs of the ruling class ideology as reasonable and normal, and this ideology becomes part of everyday common sense

Question 5

Tunstall & Palmer (1991)

Answer 5

suggest that governments are no longer interested in controlling the activities of media owners because they need their support to either gain power or hang onto it

Question 6

James Whale

Answer 6

Argues that it is not the views shown in media broadcastings are not based on the media professional / journalists’ opinions but as a results of the market interests

Question 7

Barnett & Weymour

Answer 7

Argue that this isn’t really much choice in the media but in fact just a lot of the same thing