Ownership and control of the media
- Created by: Amy
- Created on: 18-03-21 12:44
View mindmap
- Ownership and control
- Pluralism
- The media as a democratic mirror
- All interest groups are given a media platform to express their views so all points of views in a democratic society are catered for
- Media outlets controlled by the state are impartial (eg BBC and Channel 4)
- BBC set up in 1926 by a royal charter which states the BBC has a legal obligation to remain impartial
- They are restricted (eg in some societies, the government does not allow owners to own too many or different types of media
- The free market and profit will always trump the idea that media corporations are a means by which owners impose their own political opinions on audiences and consumers
- In free market economies, media owners compete against each other to attract people to their product
- The audience holds the power
- Because they exercise consumer sovereignty (the right to buy or to not buy/ freedom of choice)
- If the audience suspected bias they would not buy the product or find another product that reflects their views
- The media company would go out of business
- The market determines media content and product, not the owner
- The global media marketplace is segmented
- Variety of media products aimed at different markets
- This therefore counters any attempt to influence a mass audience
- Variety of media products aimed at different markets
- Media products are costly to produce so the company will want to maximise their audience as much as possible
- Owners don't have the time to control and check every piece of media of theirs produced
- Whale (1977)- "media owners have global problems of trade and investment to occupy their minds"
- Media professionalism- journalists have too much integrity to be regularly biased in favour of one particular perspective
- Criticisms
- Curran argues that media owners have undermined newspaper independence/balance e.g by choosing editors that 'fail' to toe their owner's line
- Over-states the impartiality of journalists. Blumler argues journalists are over reliant on official sources (e.g politicians and the police which undermines journalistic objectivity
- Trowler (2004)- 500 journalists were embedded in the British and American troops during the invasion in Iraq
- Feminists- the range of female voices available in the marketplace is actually quite narrow
- It is difficult for ordinary people to decide what they want to see if the media provide their only source of info
- The media as a democratic mirror
- Marxism
- Instrumental /manipulative
- Miliband (1973)- mass media represents an ideological instrument which plays a key role in the reproduction and justification of class inequality
- By transmitting a conservative and conformist ideology in the form of news and entertainment
- Media owners shape and manipulate how people think about the world they live in
- Media representations of ethnic minorities tend to portray them as criminals, migrants and extremists to divide and rule the working class
- Distracts from the real cause of inequality
- Marcuse (part of the Frankfurt school)- media owners playa key role in helping to control the working class through a 'bread and circuses approach (deliberately make sure the media output is mainly entertainment-orientated to keep people docile and happy)
- Evidence
- Italy- Silvio Berlusconi's control of three television stations (40% of the Italian audience) was instrumental in his party winning the general election
- 1920-1950 press baronslike Lord Beaverbrook who owned the Express newspaper group openly stated their ideological intentions
- Criticisms
- Rarely explain how an owner's media manipulation works in practice
- Feminists-they ignore the role of the media in transmitting patriarchal ideology
- Assumes ruling class ideology has an effect on its audience in the form of a false class consciousness
- Miliband (1973)- mass media represents an ideological instrument which plays a key role in the reproduction and justification of class inequality
- Hegemonic
- GUMG- media content does support the interests of those who run the capitalist system
- Journalists and editors tend to believe in 'middle of the road' (consensus) views
- Criticiams
- Vague about what constitutes ideology and the effects it allegedly has upon powerless groups
- GUMG's focus on media professionals implies that owners have little or no input into media production which is unlikely
- Because the media is largely owned by men, agenda-setting is a patriarchal exercise that serves to limit women's roles in media production
- GUMG- media content does support the interests of those who run the capitalist system
- Instrumental /manipulative
- Postmodernist
- Strinati (1995)- countries such as the UK have been transformed in the past 30 years from industrial modern societies with manufacturing economies to postmodern and post-industrial soceties with service ecomoies
- 3 characteristics that have an impact on the ownership and control debate
- Media-saturated society
- Globalisation
- The truth is unattainable and irrelevant. People have become sceptical so all ideas have an element of truth (Trowler)
- Baudrillard (1998)- the postmodern revolution in communications media means that they find it difficult to distinguish between real life and the media version of reality ('hyper-reality)
- Pluralism
Comments
No comments have yet been made