Mass Media - Sociologists Views: Marxism and Neo Marxism

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  • Mass media: Sociologists
    • Marxists
      • Althusser: Media is apart of the ideological state apparatus - a form of capitalist brainwashing
      • Miliband: Role of media is to shape how we think about the world, suggest audiences are rarely informed about important issues. The capitalist system is rarely challenged or criticised.
      • Turnstall and Palmer: Governments no longer interested controlling activities of media owners because they need their support to either gain power or hang onto it
      • Curran: Evidence from Murdoc's media empire. Papers change political alliamce to ensure the government ket them do what they want and make profit.
        • They acted as a phantom prime minister under Thatcher but supported Blair once he was in power.
      • A03
        • Assumes that the audience is passive
        • Economically deterministic - only focuses on profit
        • We can chose actively to engage in media / capitalism
        • Media owners can't control all content of media (Editors and Journalists do)
    • Neo-marxism (Hegemonic)
      • GUMG
        • Argues that journalists aren't motivated by a desire to defend capitalist interests.
          • Media companies are profit - making businesses. They write stories which make them money, Avoiding controversial topics.
            • Capitalism is presented as 'normal' and 'acceptable' as no alternative is presented/
        • Suggests that the media content does support whoever is in the capitalist system but this is an unintended by-product of the social backgrounds of journalists and broadcasters rather than a conscious capitalist conspiracy
      • Barnett and Weymour: TV has become dumbed down - there are less documentaries on TV now - this means audiences are less educated, therefore not challenging the dominant ideology and then creating false class consciousness
  • AO3
    • Not all journalists are right-wing - newspapers exist with left leaning viewers
    • Whale - The media content reflects the demands of the audience
    • We have diversity in the media - we can chose to read / watch what we want
    • Hard to prove the relationship between hegemony and views

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