Media - Media Ownership

Question 1

How has ownership of the media changed?

Answer 1

• In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies
• In 2011, that same amount of media was owned by 6 companies - Disney, CBS, NBC and others
• White men own over 65% of the media
• Pluralists argue that increasing media concentration is positive - follow a hegemonic / instrumentalist Marxist view with the idea of the market model approach

Question 2

Bagidikan (2004) on new Media ownership

Answer 2

• If the USA’s media were owned by separate individuals there would be around 25,000 owners
• Bagdikian (1989) ‘Lords of the Global Village’ – even 25 years ago the concentration of media ownership meant that a handful of global media companies and moguls dominated the world’s mass media.
• This means they controlled every step in the information process, from creation of the product to all the various means by which modern technology delivers media messages to the public.
• in 1983, 50 companies controlled the vast majority of all news in the USA.
• However, by 1992, 22 companies owned and operated 90% of the mass media - controlling almost all of the USA’s newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos etc.

Question 3

Trends in media ownership in the UK

Answer 3

Who owns the UK Media?
- This report, published in March 2021, shows that just three companies (News UK, Daily Mail Group and Reach) dominate 90% of the national newspaper market (up from 71% in 2015)

Question 4

What has made the change in media ownership possible? (1-5)

Answer 4

Conglomeration -
- One huge company owns a wide variety of products within the media and beyond; Virgin

Technological convergence -
- Combine different media technologies in one single device.
- Apple Products, Smart TVs

Concentration -
- Internet providers, social networking and content of digital media are increasingly being brought by the companies that document the old media
- Disneyfication

Conglomeration and diversification:
- Globalisation has opened up new international markets away from the origin country, particularly with new media such as smartphones and the internet

Synergy -
- Media transnationals using their diversity to package the same product in several different ways, increasing profits as a result e.g. a film and a soundtrack, or film adverts in newspapers - franchise
- Ghost, Twilight or Harry Potter

Question 5

What has made the change in media ownership possible? (6-8)

Answer 5

Vertical integration -
- Refers to the increasing trend of media multinationals to control all levels of media production. Vertical integration therefore gives media multinationals greater economic control over their operating environment as they control production from beginning to end
- BBC, News Corp owns TV and film studios as well as the channels that show them

Horizontal integration -
- Bigger media companies often own a range of different types of media outlets, spreading economic rise as losses in one area are compensated by profits in the other
- News Corp owns Australian and British newspapers and also owns Harpercollins and a chunk of Sky TV

Global ownership / conglomeration -
- Become global and a small number of media companies transformed into transnational conglomerates that monopolise ownership of a diversity of media across dozens of countries.
- Media companies have taken advantage of the erosion of traditional boundaries surrounding media markets.
- Globalisation has opened up national markets and has created international competitions between media companies.
- News Corp

Lateral expansion - Lateral expansion occurs when firms diversify

Question 6

4 features of media ownership concentration

Answer 6

4 distinct features:
- Ownership within a single medium e.g. Company owning several newspaper,
- Owners have an interest in a range of media such as newspapers, magazines, book publishing, the film industry,
- Ownership is international: owners have media interest in many different countries,
- Media conglomerates: companies that have a range of interest in a wide rage of interest in a wide variety of products besides the media. For example Virgin also has an airline, train company, soft drinks, mobiles phones etc
- Curran (2003) - British experience

Question 7

Diversification of a media business case study

Answer 7

DMGT’s moves to higher margin digital:
- DMGT’s consumer national media division, now called DMG Media and including The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro, have gone through the that familiar partial transition from print advertising to digital.
- The division has seen revenue decline by around 15 percent, operating profits have increased 20 percent. It’s the definition of doing more with less.
- DMG Media made £820 million in 2012, three percent higher than in 2011,while £150 million of that was from digital, a rise of 34 percent year on year.
- DMG is quite diverse, including healthy homes and jobs classifieds businesses, but Mail Online, which didn’t exist in 2007 and now makes £45 million a year, is a significant contributor.

Question 8

Effects of the new media on traditional media

Answer 8

• Synergy - New Media supports and interacts with traditional media. Eg: Newspapers often refer readers to their website
• Decline - newspaper sales have declined dramatically in the past 20 years and there is a decline in viewing figures for TV news.
• Increase - Web traffic has increased, and all major TV channels, magazines and newspapers have websites.
• Convergence - There is a joining together of traditional and new media formats.
• Cheaper - more accessible for all
• Expansion of ‘live’ coverage - traditional forms are quickly outdated
• New media creates traditional media - Citizen journalism, bloggers etc are used for traditional media stories
• Criticism - challenge to mainstream views and reports
• Interactive - audience are able to feedback on traditional media stories via social media

Question 9

Is media concentration a problem?

Answer 9

Doyle (2002)
- Concentration should be studied to ensure that media is diverse and a pluralist view is heard.
- Concentration of media ownership is dangerous as abuses of power can go unnoticed.
- Concentration of ownership is a threat to democracy.

6 ways ownership has concentrated:
1) Vertical integration
2) Horizontal integration
3) Lateral expansion
4) Synergy
5) Technological convergence
6) Global conglomeration

Question 10

What do pluralists think of new media ownership?

Answer 10

Modern capitalist societies are democratic, as all interest groups are given a media platform with the most persuasive being voted into power. The mass media is therefore essential and impartial to the democratic ideal, as most people obtain their political knowledge from these sources
- Power in society is spread among a wide variety of interests groups and individuals with no single one having a monopoly of power.
- Media content is driven not by a dominant ideology or the political interests of owners, but by the fight for profit through high circulation and audience figures.
- Wide range of competing newspapers, magazines, television channels, websites and ideas, including those which challenge the dominant ideology.
- Control is in the hands of the consumer – they choose what to read and watch. Owners respond to the audience’s tastes and wishes as they are following the money.
- There is a lot of competition and variety in media content and this prevents owners from dominating the media.
- Regulators prevent owner dominance as well.
- Journalists have professional and editorial honesty and independence. They select a wide selection of views, using news values to maintain and satisfy their audience.

Question 11

Pluralist view of the new media - media concentration is not an issue because of - The Market Model

Answer 11

• Free market and pursuit of profit will always have priority over media influence of political views - media owners compete in a free market to attract consumers, and so consumers hold sovereignty as they choose the success of products
• Market determines content and products, not the owner - Blackberry v Apple
• The global modern marketplace is segmented - variety of products for different markets and this diversity combats influence on mass audience - products are also tailored to specific groups, and this empowers the consumer
• Economic rationality - media products are expensive to produce, and so concentration maximises audience, reduces cost, and conglomerates and globalisation that have resulted simply attempt to expand this audience and profit
• Pluralists maintain processes of vertical and horizontal integration, lateral expansion and convergence look to reduce cost and expand profit
• Whale (1997) - media owners have global problems of trade and investment to worry about, not the details of influencing audiences politically

Question 12

Pluralist view of the new media - media concentration is not an issue because of - The Democratic Mirror

Answer 12

• Range of products is diverse and all democratic views are catered for - if some have a greater media representation than others, it is not bias
• The media simply mirrors what the audience wants to see or considers important
• For example, political scrutiny - owners, editors and journalists are simply reporting what is of current public concern

Question 13

Pluralist view of the new media - media concentration is not an issue because of - Public Service Broadcasting

Answer 13

• Media outlets controlled by the state are impartial, and the BBC is legally obligated to provide specific services of information, education, and entertainment for all audiences
• Reviews of the BBC have stated the importance of news impartiality in reporting - educational for all segments to help create informed political decisions, and pluralists see PSBs as impartial and objective media
• However, some suggest that PSBs are losing their aims as it loses audience to commercial TV, and this has created populist and commercialised BBC and ITV services ; some pluralists argue that this is a rational response that is good for audiences, as it results in more choice

Question 14

Pluralist view of the new media - media concentration is not an issue because of - State control

Answer 14

• In some countries, governments do not allow owners to have too many or too different types of media to prevent dominance
• Many countries, like the US, have cross-ownership rules to prevent companies owning more than one media form in the same area
• Ofcom imposes requirements on the BBC and ITV by monitoring the quality of its media output and investigating complaints
• Pluralists argue that this combination of audience and regulators prevents media owners imposing biased content on the public

Question 15

Pluralist view of the new media - media concentration is not an issue because of - Media professionalism

Answer 15

• State editors and journalists are professional to avoid comprising independence
• Journalists have too much integrity to be biased - media also has a strong trend of investigative journalism to target those in power e.g. Nixon Watergate Scandal in 1972
• UK newspapers have also uncovered high level corruption and forced resignations of politicians, and so the media consistently works for the people

Question 16

Formal regulation of the media in the UK - The Law

Answer 16

• Restricts media freedom to report anything they choose in any way they like
• The laws of libel - forbid publication of false statements about a person that brings them into contempt, ridicule, dislike or hostility in society
• Official Secrets Act - criminal offence to report with authorisation any official government activity which the government defines to be an ‘official secret’
• Defence and Security Media Advisory Notices or DMSA Notices are issued by the government as requests to journalists not to report defence or counter-terrorist information which the government finds damaging to national security
• The Racial and Religious Hatred Act (2006) and Equality Act (2010) - forbids expression of opinions which encourage discrimination or hatred towards any group based on the religious beliefs or ethnicity
• Obscene Publications Act (1959) - forbids publication of anything a court considers to be obscene or indecent, and likely to deprave or corrupt persons who read, see or hear it
• Contempt of Court provision prevents the reporting, expression of opinions or publication of material about cases which are in the process of being dealt with in a court of law and which is likely to jeopardise or prejudice fair trial

Question 17

Formal regulation of the media in the UK - Ofcom

Answer 17

• Furthers the interest of consumers, secures best use of the radio spectrum, ensuring a wide range of television, radio, electronic media and communications networks are available in the UK with high-quality and broad appeal.
• Protects the public from offensive or harmful effects of broadcast media, and safeguarding people from unfair treatment in TV and radio programmes.

Independent Broadcasting:
- Includes all the non-BBC television and radio stations, which are regulated by Ofcom who licence companies that can operate in the private sector and is responsible for the amount and quality of advertising and programmes on independent television and radio and for dealing with any complaints

Question 18

Formal regulation of the media in the UK - The BBC Trust

Answer 18

• Established by Royal Charter and is a state-funded body, governed by the BBC Trust, whose members are appointed by the King on advice from government ministers
• Sets strategic direction of the BBC and has a clear duty to represent the interests of licence-fee payers and ensure the BBC remains independent, resists pressure and resists influence from any source
• Partly regulated by Ofcom also; financed through the state using a television licence fee income with substantial profits and the state can have some control over the BBC by refusing to raise the licence fee - although it is not a private business run solely to make profit, like independent TV and radio, and is not dependent on advertising for its income, it still has to compete with commercial broadcasters for audiences to justify the licensing fee
• October 2015 - government consultation on the constitutionality of the BBC - Royal Charter - which assessed the role and funding / control of the BBC

Question 19

Formal regulation of the media in the UK - IPSO

Answer 19

• Independent regulator of the press in the UK; established in 2014 by the newspaper industry, this replaced the Press Complaints - Commission which was discredited after an inadequate response to journalist hacking of people’s phones which led to the Leveson Inquiry about the culture, practice and ethics of the press
• Monitors and maintains the standards of journalism through the Editor’s Code of Practice, which deals with accuracy, invasion of privacy, intrusion into grief, shock and harassment
• Investigates complaints about the consent of newspapers to breach these standards and journalist behaviour - many people held negative assumptions about IPSO as it was not an independent body and therefore there is a risk of them protecting the interests of the press rather than sanctioning them to protect the public

Question 20

The Leveson Inquiry

Answer 20

• There has been a range of evidence that the media has a much more informal relationship with the subjects of its publishing that it should; celebrities contact paparazzi for photos, the media reaction to Princess Diana and the reaction to the Markle’s and Caroline Flack are all indications of media influence
• IPSO has also been called into question over cancelling of inquiries relating to government
• Phone hacking scandal - Murdoch owned News of the World was taking private recordings from people’s mobiles, resulting in the shutdown of the newspaper from the inquiry and IPSO was established - Murdoch and NewsCorp is horizontally integrated which means that they are unaffected

Question 21

Instrumentalist and Manipulative Marxists on media ownership - Miliband

Answer 21

• Miliband (1973) argues that the media moguls control, manipulate and promote the dominant ideology and preferred or dominant reading which try to create a general consensus or agreement.
• Those that challenge are seen in the media to be unreasonable or extreme – discredited.
• Media have the means to:
  -> complete or distort views
  -> ignore, attack, dismiss or present views as unreasonable which threatens the dominant ideology.
• Journalists have little choice, but to conform to the wishes of the owners.
• Media creates a climate of conformity among the mass of the population which justifies the rule of the rich and powerful.

Example -> Julian Assange

Question 22

Instrumentalist Marxists on media ownership

Answer 22

• Assumes that media owners, wealth-holders and the political elite are all in an ideological conspiracy.
• Silvio Berlusconi’s control in Italy:
  -> 3 TV stations = 40% of Italian audience
  -> Ranked 21 on Forbes’ most powerful people in the world (worth $7.1Bn)
  -> Instrumental in getting his party in power
  -> For the past 40 years, Berlusconi’s family has controlled Italy’s top three national TV channels, known as the Mediaset empire.
  -> Berlusconi has also maintained a tight grip on the “public service” national broadcaster, Radiotelevisione Italiana (Rai).
  -> Mediaset and Rai = 90 percent of national audience and advertising revenue shares.

Question 23

Marxist views of media ownership - Seaton and Curran

Answer 23

Media Owners do interfere and manipulate content

Case Study: Rupert Murdoch (2003)
- Argued for war with Iraq
- All his newspaper editors around the world backed him
- Admitted in 2007 ‘hands on economically and editorially’

Media creates a climate of conformity among the mass of the population which justifies the rule of the rich and powerful.

Question 24

The rise of Rupert Murdoch - case study of New Media ownership

Answer 24

• Owned The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and News World; he was the most famous newspaper owner in the UK, and secured his vast media ownership through a mutual agreement with Thatcher - she would allow him more media ownership that regulation legislation allowed as long as his newspapers supported the Conservative party
• This led to heavy partnership between the media and politics, with Murdoch taking the lateral expansion stance of needing to own all of the media, as pollution of the press led to political pollution
• As a result of the Hayman Island Conference and being at odds with John Major (someone who Murdoch disliked for his stance of Europe and media regulation) led to support of Tony Blair and directly contributed to him being successfully elected in 1997
• Blair’s election piece in the Sun that announced a referendum would be held before the UK considered entering the Euro currency, and this single influence and intervention by Murdoch has affected the relationship between the UK and Europe fundamentally, and according to Farage, was the cause of Brexit
• Case study of the impact of media ownership on politics and why we should be concerned about who owns the media

Question 25

Instrumentalist / Manipulative Marxists on media ownership - Castles and Kosack

Answer 25

• Media representations of ethnic minorities to distract and divide the working class
• It suits capitalists to ensure that the white working class see ethnic minorities as a threat; this distracts them from the real cause of inequality - the capitalist system.

Examples -
- TV - Benefits street gives a damaging image of the W/C, and Crime documentaries look at ethnic minorities being disproportionately negatively portrayed
- Newspapers - headlines used for migrants and immigration tend to be damning of those individuals - a poll by the Runnymede Trust found 94% of Pakistani people found media portrayal of their ethnicity to be negative, falling to around 78% in White and Black Caribbean groups, 68% for Indians and 89% for Eastern Europeans. It also showed that White people were concerned about the portrayal of ethnic minorities. 4 out of 5 people find the British media to be promoting racism.
- George Floyd - accurate media representation

Question 26

Instrumentalist / Manipulative Marxists on media ownership - Marcuse

Answer 26

• The working class is controlled by “Bread and Circuses” - the media is entertainment to keep them docile
• Superficial entertainments used to satisfy populations so they are distracted and diverted from the real issues such as the causes of poverty, therefore keeping them happy and most importantly, docile and ignorant.
• Bread and circuses - media is entertainment to give you just enough of what you need and acts as a distraction.

Examples -
- Love Island
- Matt Hancock on I’m A Celebrity
- Is this still relevant to a New Media generation?

Question 27

Instrumentalist / Manipulative Marxists on media ownership - Tunstall and Palmer

Answer 27

• The government are not interested in regulating the media as they need their support
• The Leveson Inquiry - Uncovered a range of links between media owners and governments
• Media support was given to political parties in return for policies in favour of the owners

Question 28

The Frankfurt School on Media ownership (Marxism)

Answer 28

• Critical theory - Horkheimer; significance of the ruling class ideology (dominance of media) in misrepresenting how human relations occur in the real world and how capitalism therefore justifies and legitimises the domination of people
• The rise of the culture industry leads to promotion of hegemonic thought and entrenching existing authorities - radical arts and music truly represent the proletarian view and capture human suffering, and so these parts of the media and culture are given a moral panic and negative association

Question 29

Evaluating instrumentalist / manipulative Marxist views of the media

Answer 29

1) It is overly deterministic and ignores agency - people choose how they respond to messages in the media and are not passive - Gramsci’s dual consciousness
2) Owners are more concerned with profits, therefore they give the audience want they want to sell more papers - there is no indoctrination of ideology (hegemonic Marxists and pluralists agree on this)
3) Ownership is regulated, and so dominance is difficult - existence of citizen journalism and the new media is a challenge to the dominant media ideology
4) Instrumentalist and Manipulative Marxists are economic reductionists - too concerned with class and inequalities; feminists ignore the role of the patriarchy
5) Most evidence of conspiracy is anecdotal not empirical

Question 30

What are hegemonic Marxists?

Answer 30

Hegemony is the enforcement of a singular ruling class set of ideas over others which the rest of society accepts; the dominance of this singular ideology.

GUMG - Glasgow University Media Group:
- Argue that the media content does support the interests of those who run the capitalist system but this hegemony is accidental due to their backgrounds

The Sutton Trust (2012) identified that over 50% of the top 100 journalists were educated privately, compared to 7% of the population
- They argue they take a ‘middle of the road approach’ to their journalism - radical views are ridiculed as they want to promote what the majority of the population believe for profit motives

Question 31

Hegemonic Marxism on the ownership of media - Economic pressures

Answer 31

• Journalists are concerned about profit not upending ideologies
• Controversial ideas may put advertisers off, therefore they wouldn’t make enough money and controversial issues are ignored as they do not make enough sales - i is not about providing dominant / capitalist ideas
• Editors pull away from controversial issues and creating controversial discussions and so do not want to offend their audience or lose profit, and so dictate the discussions to not compromise their business
• Compared to Instrumentalists -> This proves that capitalism is at the root of all the issues. The advertisers and the owners are all part of the same elite group. This leads to media manipulation that maintains capitalism and spreads the dominant ideology
• Different to I/M -> the consumers have indirect ownership and capitalist reinforcement is unintentional

Question 32

Hegemonic Marxism on the ownership of media - The Establishment

Answer 32

• Media owners, editors and journalists are part of a group called the establishment which is a powerful group bound together by common economic interest and shared mentalities.
• These groups aim to protect their dominant position in society by managing the democracy to ensure their interests are not threatened. Jones; should be the job of the media to scrutinise the activities of the establishment.
• Journalists turn a blind eye to the establishment but instead attack the behaviour of the poor and those who rely on the welfare state. This defects attention away from those who actually wield power in society.
• Consumers have indirect control and those within the establishment indirectly protect capitalism
• Instrumentalists agree there is an elite that control the output of media and deflect attention - they call this manipulation with an aim of false class consciousness

Question 33

Hegemonic Marxists on ownership of the media - Agenda-setting

Answer 33

• As a result of journalistic consensus, says the GUMG, is that the media decide what issues should be discussed by society and which ones should be avoided, known as agenda setting - the media presents a narrow agenda for discussion
• For example, the media happily discusses the appearance of a female celebrity but do not often discuss the massive inequalities that exist in society
• The Sun readers are more likely to be outraged that Corbyn did not sing the national anthem in the 2015 Remembrance Day Parade than by the amount of people living in poverty - ordinary people therefore rarely question the workings of a capitalist society
• The GUMG argues that consequently, we are not presented with the really important information that would help ordinary members of society make real choices about how society is run
• Agenda setting results in cultural hegemony, with the basic principles of capitalism - private enterprise, profit, the free market and the rights of property ownership - being presented by the media as normal and natural
• Compared to Instrumentalists -> There is so much evidence that the agenda is affected by owners and those who are part of the establishment. The agenda is set to manipulate the population and ensure that capitalism is maintained
• Gatekeeping of the media creates folk devils
• Media acts as an ISA (Althusser) and this political socialisation (Cambridge Analytica) leads to imposed elections

Question 34

Evaluation of the hegemonic view of media ownership

Answer 34

• Similar to that of instrumental Marxists - they are vague about what constitutes ideology and the effects it allegedly has upon powerless groups and the GUMG’s exclusive focus on media professionals implies that owners have little or no input into media production, which is probably unrealistic
• Some critics have noted that it is difficult to see the difference between instrumental Marxists focus on manipulation and the hegemonic focus on agenda-setting or the role of the media as part of the British Establishment
• It also neglects to consider that, because the media is largely owned and controlled by men, agenda-setting is a patriarchal exercise that serves to limit women’s role in media production and consent
• Finally, some critics see the new media and citizen journalism as having the potential to counter the influence of the establishment-oriented media identified by the GUMG

Question 35

The difference between hegemonic and instrumentalist Marxists

Answer 35

• Miliband as a traditional Marxist argues that the media is directly controlled by the owners
• The journalists and editors reinforce the dominant ideology and capitalist system in order to keep their jobs, and the public are kept in a false class consciousness because the media is responsible for disseminating the message that power and privilege of the bourgeoisie is justified

However -
- Neo-Marxists agree that the media is reproducing the dominant ideology but not because of the power of the owners
- The GUMG argues that journalists and editors share the dominant ideology because of their socialisation
- Most journalists and editors come from a narrow social group of predominantly white, upper middle class, privately educated men
- The media has established what Gramsci terms hegemony where the dominant ideology is seen as common sense
- The journalists believe in the ideology and repeat it whilst ridiculing alternative views - social construction of the news

Question 36

Postmodernist views on media ownership - Strinati

Answer 36

Strinati (1995)
- Argues that countries such as the UK have been transformed in the last 30 years from an industrial modern society with manufacturing economies to postmodern and post-industrial societies with service economies

Question 37

Postmodernist views on media ownership - characteristics of a postmodern society that impact owners

Answer 37

3 characteristics of postmodern society that impact ownership and control:
1) Media-saturation - Trowler; Haralambos and Holborn (2008) observes that the media is not just one aspect among many of the postmodern condition but it is its defining aspect
2) Globalisation - media transnationals have used communications technology such as the internet and satellite television to remove the distinction between the global and the local and to increase consumer choice in the range of media available for consumption
3) No longer have any faith in absolute truths (metanarrative breakdown) - people have become sceptical, even cynical, about the power of science, politics and media to change the world
- They therefore insist that the truth is unattainable and irrelevant to a postmodern world, and stress the relativity of knowledge, ideas and lifestyles today
- All ideas therefore have an element of truth and Trowler observes, norm is complexity and there are many meanings, not simply one deep, profound meaning

Question 38

Postmodernism on media owners: Two reasons why postmodernists argue these characteristics mean sociologists can no longer claim that editors, owners and journalists influence audiences by creating a particular worldview:

Answer 38

1) Baudrillard (1998) argues that the postmodern revolution in communications media means that audiences are immersed so much information they find it difficult to distinguish between real-lie and the media version of reality known as hyperreality
In a media saturated postmodern world there are multiple versions of hyperreality and this has undermined the power of truth and objectivity and resulted in individuals being subjected to media content in multiple interpretations
- Trowler argues that these media messages are polysemic - each media message or text is now interpreted in multiple ways which makes it difficult for any one message to be more powerful than another
- Postmodernists have argued that this has resulted in a distinction between media producers and media consumers being less clear cut; postmodernists argue that there has been a shift in media production away from global corporations to individuals who are increasingly engaged in the production of new media content such as blogging, vlogging, social media and user-generated websites
- Individuals consumers of the media are also involved in reinventing and subverting the existing media products of global corporations in imaginative and playful ways such as Lego parodies of Star Wars films
- Control of media is no longer exclusively in the hands of global media corporations, owners or advertisers

2) Postmodernists argue that if there are multiple interpretations of media content then the power to disseminate knowledge circulates in a fluid way rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few media owens - Levene (2009) observes that members of society now have greater choice in their access to greater diversity of media, making it easier to reject or challenge the meta-narratives of the powerful; documentation of university students in 2007 were able to utilise media products such as Facebook and Twitter to construct the viral campaign against HSBC who proposed overdraft fees

Question 39

Criticisms of the postmodern view of ownership

Answer 39

• Arguments are often vague, impressionistic and frequently based on anecdotes not research evidence
• Over exaggeration of ‘information explosion’ on ordinary people’s abilities to create change, with evidence suggesting that media saturation has actually created passive participation in a mass culture that makes choice simply more of the same
• Postmodernists also fail to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence for the existence of structural inequalities in wealth and power relations, making it difficult for powerful groups, whatever access they might have to the media, to bring about any meaningful change to their lives

Question 40

Conclusions on ownership

Answer 40

• The pluralist view of the media ownership and control seems increasingly outdated with the modern world as it fails to acknowledge that journalistic or editorial integrity no longer has a great deal of influence in the global marketplace
  Instrumental Marxists are also guilty over-simplifying the relationships between media owners and the political elite
• However, hegemonic Marxist approach of the GUMG is right to stress the way the media is organised and the social background of journalists has generally resulted in media content reflecting the cultural hegemony of capitalist values and ways of seeing the world
• Jones’ contribution to this debate, that the media are part of an informal establishment and so are guardians of specific economic and ideological interests is in need of further investigation
• Finally, the postmodernist contribution claims that if people subscribe to multiple media interpretations is true, then the influence of media owners may not be as powerful as Marxists argue it is