Sociological Perspectives Flashcards
Miliband (1969, The State In Capitalist Society, London)
The media encourages the proletariat to be subordinate and happy to serve the bourgeoisie.
Also refers to the mass media being the “new opium of the people”
Herbert Marcuse (1964)
The media promotes consumerism and gives people “false needs” - the belief that they ‘need’ things the don’t necessarily need.
Marx and Engels (1985, the communist manifesto Harmondsworth, first published 1848).
The ideas and values of the ruling class are spread by the mass media, and presented as if they’re the most natural and obvious thing to believe
Nick Jones (1986, studied reporting of strikes)
There was a balance and equal reporting when reporting industrial disputes in the UK.
Individual reports may have been bias but the overall presentation was neutral.
Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955, studied media before a U.S. election)
The media influence was considered unpredictable and is often severely limited.
Not all people get exposed to media messages and necessarily internalize them either. Due to other important factors like family members influences.
Jean-François Lyotard (1979)
Postmodernism rejects the idea of “grand narratives” (or metanarratives). Grand narratives are large-scale theories and philosophies - ideas like “Marxist revolution will end capitalism”
Gans (1979)
Describes how the editors decide what becomes ‘news worthy’ and how much space is provided for the story.
Gans says it operates like a gate, letting some stories in and closing it for other stories.
Dutton (1986, the media, London: Longman)
“Editors fulfill a filtering role since there is usually an excess of material available to fill limited newspaper or broadcasting space”
Glasgow university media group (GUMG, 1970-1980)
Looked for evidence of bias as they focused on particular on coverage of workplace strikes. Using detailed content analysis of television news bulletins.
Selection of news, voice overs, management access, filming and editing.
Feshbach and Singer (1971)
Studied the catharsis theory, by allowing boys aged 8-18 watch aggressive and violent which made them less aggressive.
Buckingham (1993)
Audience members actively interpret film and TV violence, and make their own minds up about the rights and wrongs of what they see on screen. (even young children do this)
Morrison (1999)
Makes an important distinction between serious, disturbing violence and light-hearted comedy violence. E.g. a photo of a prisoner of war getting shot is completely different to scenes from ‘Jackass’ and ‘South park’.
Cohen (1973)
First used the term “Moral Panic” to describe how the media reporting identifies something as a serious threat to society.
Martin Baker (1984)
Analysed a 1980s moral panic about low-budget violent horror films know as “Video Nasties”. These videos were blamed for violent crime, which gave way to tabloid press to an epidemic of violence if they weren’t banned.
Ferguson (2008)
Claims that the generation gap fuels moral panics about video games - most anti-game campaigners are older than most gamers, and often have never playing video games.
