Q1-Q6 Flashcards
- Clarify the way political economy and cultural studies look at science and our capacity to understand the world as it is; compare to mainstream ‘positivist’ social science. Illustrate with an example.
-Positivist (social science like natural science, human behaviour is patterned and predictable, there are facts)
-Interpretivist (social science different that nat science, interest in how people attribute meaning to behaviour / practices, facts are constructed by social interactions)
-> Both critical thinking traditions
Pol Econ
-looks at prod, distr, …….
-things exist outside of interpretation
-»»» CRITICAL REALISM
Cultural Studies
-society as rel of domination and resistance
-how media reproduces / challenges such relations
-»»»»> SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM
Illustrate with an example:
Roles inside the family
- What are the two contemporary definitions of political economy and how do they relate to (neo-)classical and Marxist economics. Why is this discussion still relevant today? Illustrate your answer with examples from the media.
Two understandings of political economy:
- economic policy (less used nowadays)
- the interconnectedness between the economic and the political
Industrialisation - divorce between Political and Economical
Marginalist Revolution - further technicalisation of the Economics, decontextualisation, disembedded capitalism
- classical and neo-classical economists: v positivist
Marx - reaction again this interpretation of economics (because it is tied to exploitation and is, indeed, still political) -> Is there any Economy without the state
Discussion still relevant today:
- role of the state in the economy
- there are no natural markets
- management of crisises - economic and social
- Explain how (neo)classical economic theory transpires in political theory and subsequently how that way of thinking is transposed in media theory. Demonstrate with examples drawn from the lectures.
Two elements of neoclassical econ that are relevant:
1. Rational choice theory
- econ agents: rational, informed, utility maximisers
- the law of supply and demand
- marginal utility = marginal cost
-competitive landscape, no barriers to entry or exit, price taking producers
Political theory: politicians - free market of representatrion for informed, rational citizens
Media theory: free, unregulated market where consumer’s interests and standards are reflected in market prices and content offered
- Pluralist theory
- agents have bounded rationality (limited type of rationality)
- multiple interests that should be represented in society
- state responsible for correcting market failure
-> media theory: multiple media outlets that represent different interest groups
Example from the lectures
- objectivity of the media as a commercial strategy: competitive players, fighting for objectivity, survival of the fittest
- no such thing as objective media; different viewpoints and lenses - pluralist theory
- Explain how Marxist economic theory transpires in political thought and how this way of thinking is transposed in media theory. Use examples from lectures.
Marx
- writing against the consequences of industrialisation
- observing the rise of the proletariat: economic and social inequality
Production
- who controls the means of production? - property and control
social relations = economically mediated relations of power between agents in society
However: power dynamic tilted - the worker never fully ripes the benefit of this work
Labour theory of value:
The relationship between the exchange value and the use value - triangulation where the object measure is labour time
MARXISM for Politics
Who has political power? Who has access to run for office?
- Looks at who has to lose and who has to win?
MARXISM for Media
Who produces the media? Who controls the media?
+ Ideology and Concentration
-> media used by the ruling elite to sustain and reinforce their hegemonic ideology
Media - market : commodification !
Commodification of
-attention
-audiences
-labour
-content
Hegemony - capitalism : materialism and consumerism
Example: why can media never be objective?
- Explain how media consumption may contribute to political hegemony. Look at the issue both from a political economy and a cultural studies perspective.
hegemony
= intellectual and moral leadership
= practices to win power and sustain power
= naturalised: goes unnoticed in most regards
-> all media has ideological prints inscribed in it: biases, interests, embedded values
Political economy
- production limited to establishment: furthering their interests and needs, shaping the social agenda, reproducing the hegemonic discourse
- barriers to market access
- profit max rationalities: general content, appealing to masses
-increasingly commercial media (audiences = consumers) -> naturalise the capitalist ideology (materialism, consumerism etc)
Cultural studies
- French school: poststructural and post modern
-Language as structure of signifiers loosely connected to reality
-> Looses sight of political, social power dynamics
The British School
- media contributes, paradoxically, both to reinforcing and contesting the hegemonic ideas
-acknowledges power relations
- hegemony and counter hegemony
Audience is (1) active and critically engaged (as opposed to Frankfurt Schule) and (2) there is a connection to objective reality (as opposed to French School)
- What is the link between constructionism and the theories of the French School in cultural studies on truth claims? Apply these insights to the media.
First and foremost:
1. Constructionism
- truth is subjective
-people give meaning to their experiences
-language is referential and detached from objective reality
- French School
- postmodern, poststructural
-language as a system of symbols and meanings that people give meaning to
- structure as a system of signs detached from reality
-emerges within a specific structural context:
Interprets emergent forms of postmodern culture within the context of contemporary capitalism
truth claims - subjective ; no facts : structures of meaning
Cultural Studies and Media
- how users make sense of content and how they interact with the meanings attributed by the content producer
