Marxism and the media

Question 1

What are the 2 types of marxists?

Answer 1

Instrumental and Neo

Question 2

What do instrumental Marxists say about the role of the media?

Answer 2

Primary role: to promote a myth of meritocracy and keep a largely passive audience from criticizing capitalism
> maintains status quo = ‘alienating man for his potential’

Question 2

What do Marxists say about media owners?

Answer 2

Part of the ruling class who consciously manipulate media content to transmit a conservative ideology to control the wider population and maintain their wealth and privilege

Question 2

What do Marxists say about media content?

Answer 2

• Narrow and biased, reflecting the opinions of the ruling class generally and media owners in particular
• Government doesn’t effectively regulate media content because the political elite are part of the ruling class

Question 3

What are instrumental and neo marxists?

Answer 3

• Instrumental: Traditional - all about ideology and conscious manipulation
• Neo: New - more about hegemony and cultural ideology

Question 3

Who speaks about the 5 ways of ideological manipulation?

Answer 3

Miliband

Question 4

What are the 5 ways of ideological manipulation?

Answer 4

1) Many favorable representations of the wealthy
2) It spreads the myth of meritocracy
3) News often dismisses radical view points as extremist, dangerous, silly and a conservative (ruling class) view of the world as normal
4) Negative portrayal of ethnic minorities and immigrants serve to divide the working class and discourages criticisms of the ruling class

Question 4

What is the ideological nature of the media according to instrumental Marxists?

Answer 4

The primary role of the media is to spread ruling class ideology and maintain status quo
- keeping the current unequal capitalist system in place

Question 5

What do Marxists assume?

Answer 5

The audience is passive
- audience: mass of unthinking robots who’re passive and easy to manipulate
- essentially take what they see in the media at face value and believe what they see without questioning it

Question 6

What do Adorno and Horkheimer talk about?

Answer 6

Mainstream, mass culture is mostly produced in an entirely rational way
- creative decisions intertwined with commercial decisions

Question 7

When do Adorno and Horkheimer talk about media?

Answer 7

1940

Question 8

What’s an example of A&H’s point?

Answer 8

In movies: stories, characters and actors are all chosen because they’re considered to be the most appealing to a particular audience

Question 9

What are the problems with mass culture?

Answer 9

Products of this culture industry encourage us to conform and obey
> more in common with propaganda than real culture

Through:
- The way culture is produced
- How it’s presented
- How we consume it
- The ways it encourages us to think or not to think

Question 10

What do A&H view as real culture?

Answer 10

Should challenge us, stimulate critical thought and encourage individuality
- Valuable to help cultivate a critical disposition in people

Question 11

Who supports A&H point?

Answer 11

Curran - 2003

Question 12

What does Curran do?

Answer 12

Found lots of evidence owners directly manipulating media content
- middle of 20th century: ‘press barons’ open about their protagonist role
- Always been a lot more conservative-supporting newspapers than critiques
(reflects them serving the interests of their wealthy owners)
- Later 20th century/today: more interventionist (eg: Rupert Murdoch)

Question 13

How is Rupert Murdoch an example?

Answer 13

His control of the news corp since 1970s = an owner controlling media content
- all of his newspapers have a strong right wing pov (reflects his values)
- all his news owners supported the Iraq War in 2003, a war he personally supported
- Unlikely that all the editors oif all

Question 14

What’s a critique of the ideological manipulation of media owners?

Answer 14

• Impractical for media owners of large corps to control all output on a day to day basis
• at some point they have to trust editors

Question 15

What do pluralists argue?

Answer 15

Media owners are primarily motivated by making a profit thus would rather provide audiences with the diverse content they want rather than use their media companies to spread their own narrow view of the world

Question 16

What do pluralists say about the audiences in addition to their critique?

Answer 16

Audiences arent just passive and unthinking, theyre active and critical thus not easily manipulated
- can choose to switch off if they don’t like what they see

Question 17

What do neo marxists emphasise?

Answer 17

Cultural hegemony

Question 18

What is hegemony?

Answer 18

Norms and values of the ruling class are taken as common sense

Question 19

Why do neo marxists emphasis cultural hegemony?

Answer 19

The reason why we have a limited media agenda because of cultural hegemony
- cultural factors are more important than economic factors in explaining narrow media content

Question 19

Why do journalists share the same world view as the ruling class?

Answer 19

Partly due to journalists themselves being white & middle class with more than 50% going to private school
- thus presents a conservative/neoliberal view of the world on autopilot

Question 20

How about cultural hegemony in the context of journalists?

Answer 20

Journalists have accepted the conservative worldview of the ruling class as common sense
- share this world view with the ruling class thus unconsciously spread the dominant ideology themselves without the need for direct control by media owners

Question 21

Why do journalists voluntarily spread the dominant ideology?

Answer 21

Because they have freedom to report as they please
> other factors besides economic control/ownership determines media content such as the interests of journalists and industry news values

Question 22

What is the broad agenda of the media?

Answer 22

Still limited because the journalists share the same world view as the ruling class and the owners (aka cultural hegemony)

Question 23

Why else might they share that world view?

Answer 23

Journalists don’t want to risk their careers by annoying owners and so are reluctant to publish content that may annoy them

Question 24

How do journalists limit media content?

Answer 24

Agenda setting and gate keeping
- normally used in relation to the selection and presentation of the news

Question 25

What are gatekeepers?

Answer 25

The process of choosing which items are selected for coverage and others are kept out

Question 26

What is agenda setting?

Answer 26

Deciding how media items are going to be framed
EG: whose going to be invited to discuss topics and what kind of questions are going to be asked

Question 27

What do agenda setting and gatekeeping result in according to neo Marxists?

Answer 27

Tend to result in issues which are harmful to the elite being kept out of the media thus reinforcing the dominant ideology

Question 28

Why do traditional Marxists critique neo Marxists?

Answer 28

It underestimates the importance of economic factors (eg: owner power to hire and fire journalists)
> role of new media may make this perspective less relevant
> much harder to maintain dominant ideology

Question 28

What are examples of agenda setting and gate keeping?

Answer 28

Only 2 political parties discuss a news item = rarely hearing from the green party
- focus on violence at riots and protests rather than the causes of them
- News taking the side of the police and the government rather than hearing from criminal/terrorists

Question 29

What do pluralists argue?

Answer 29

Point out that this perspective still tends to assume the audience are passive and easily swayed by the dominant ideology
- in reality, audience may be more active and critical

Question 30

Who are part of the Frankfurt school?

Answer 30

A group of neo-marxists
- Adorno
- Marcuse
- Horkheimer

Question 31

What do the Frankfurt school claim?

Answer 31

Claimed that contemporary societies are ‘mass societies’
- Means that social community has been lost with the rise of mass communications, the media has become worthless

Question 32

What do the Frankfurt school say about bread and circuses?

Answer 32

Sees modern equivalent of bread as being all consumer items that modern capitalism can provide
- circuses are the many elements which collectively comprise mass culture
Eg: royalty, Tv stars etc.

Question 32

What is the theory of bread and circuses?

Answer 32

It pacifies the working class
- Rulers belief of the working class that all they need to do is keep them full and busy their minds with entertainment so they won’t give any trouble

Question 33

What do authorities in capitalism do?

Answer 33

Propagate with myth of freedom and choice
- keeps masses happy, don’t recognize the repressive nature of their ‘freedom’
- hypnotic power of mass medias deprives us of the capacity for critical thought (essential to change the world)

Question 34

What does Marcuse say?

Answer 34

Mass culture is the route to a mass society

Question 35

What is the stance of the Frankfurt school?

Answer 35

Highly critical of capitalism
- believe that the working class both dynamic and progressive once
- capitalisms system made that class soulless and one dimensional
> big businesses and the state have replaced traditional centers of authority (eg:family)

Question 36

What do the upper class do according to the Frankfurt school?

Answer 36

Provide a schooling system, lifestyle and entertainment = passive, uncritical and unthinking working class
- believing they’re free when people are really manipulated
- believe they’re happy and in a euphoria of happiness