Media - Media Ownership Flashcards

Question

Instrumentalist / Manipulative Marxists on media ownership - Castles and Kosack

Answer 1

- 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

Answer 2

- 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?

Answer 3

- 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

Answer 4

- 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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

- 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

Answer 8

- 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

Answer 9

- 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

Answer 10

- 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

Answer 11

- 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

Answer 12

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

Answer 13

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

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

- 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

Answer 16

- 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

Media - Media Ownership Flashcards

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