代写 MULT10018 Power and the Media assignment

代写 MULT10018 Power and the Media assignment

Dr Andrea Carson Thursday 20 April 2016 MULT10018 Power and the Media Overview • What is Power • What is the Media? • How do they intersect? • Exercise of media power and contested theories about the mass media and its relationship with society… – The ‘Fourth Estate’ (liberal democratic theory) – Political Economic theories - Control (propaganda theory) – Cultural theories- Chaos theory • The Panama Papers • News of the World • Summary What is power? • The idea of power is a way to grasp the character of social relations. • Investigating power can tell us about who is in control and ‘who benefits’ from such arrangements – Cui Bono. (Craig, Geoffrey (2004) The Media, Politics and Public Life, p.24) • Power can be a zero-sum game of domination. It can also be about people acting together to enact freedom. What is power? • Political power – inherently requires legitimation • Social power – rests on status within a society and is generally attached to positions within functional systems • Economic power – a special form of social power • Media power – is based on the technology and infrastructure of mass media (traditional view – Foucault would argue differently) Habermas, 2006, Europe the Faltering project, pp. 167-168 What is the media? “ The media surround us. Our everyday lives are saturated by radio, television, newspapers, books, the Internet, movies, recorded music, magazines and more. “In the 21st century, we navigate through a vast mass media environment unprecedented in human history. Yet our innate familiarity with the media often allows us to take them for granted. They are like the air we breathe, ever present yet rarely considered.” Croteau and Hoynes (2003) Media Society: Industries, Images and Audiences, p.3 “Those social institutions that are concerned with the production and distribution of all forms of knowledge, information and entertainment’ (Heywood 2007, p. 232) In the West: Media power includes power ... • To shape perceptions • To structure definitions of reality • To influence public opinion • To confer status and legitimacy • To encourage citizens to participate in politics (or not) Different theories shift the emphasis of these capacities Consider the media’s role in non- democratic political systems… Media roles might include: • Contributing to stability • Maintaining ‘social harmony’ • Strengthening ‘social cohesion’ • Strengthening ‘national unity’ • E.g. see People’s Daily (China) editorial - http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90780/91342/7331657.html Political power includes power over the media... • To regulate and censor the media • To suppress and ‘spin’ information • To overwhelm media with media management staff and techniques • To provide ‘information subsidies’ • To impact commercial environment/profitability of media (including political and government advertising)

代写 MULT10018 Power and the Media assignment Why examine Media Power? • “The media are businesses and yet they are ascribed a special function in the democratic health of a society; the media are the news media and function as journalism, but they are also the entertainment media and provide escape from the pressures of everyday life.” Craig, Geoffrey (2004) The Media, Politics and Public Life, p.3 • We will focus primarily on NEWS MEDIA - examining print, radio, television, internet and digital technologies. • We will look at both media and politics, and their intersection, as sources and purveyors of power in society. Media and Democracy? • Jürgen Habermas (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere • public sphere is an ‘ideal’, which emerged in Europe in C17th coming out of the coffee house and tea salons and early pamphlets, which developed into newspapers • a public ‘space’ for political discussion set apart from both state and market (beforehand had to be private) • For capitalism to develop there had to be freedom of thought and action over wealth • A sphere for critical thinking about issues that affect society • The newspaper became its ‘preeminent institution’ The ‘liberal’ narrative of media power • Oldest • Celebrates the evolution of constitutional law and structures of British parliament • Rise of mass democracy • Positive appraisal • Sees democratisation as strengthened by the media 1. Media free of government 2. free media empowered the people. Source J. Curran, 2002, Media and Power pp. 4-5 What are the characteristics of democratic politics? ? Constitutionality – an agreed set of procedures and rules governing the conduct of elections, the behaviours of those who win them, and legitimate activities of those who dissent ? Participation – needs to be a large portion of the population who participate in the democratic process ? Rational Choice– the participants (citizens) must have choice and must be able to exercise McNair, Brian (2003) ‘Politics, Democracy and the Media, pp 18 The ‘ideal’ role of the news media in a democracy • To inform citizens • To educate as to the meaning and significance •  of the facts • Provide a platform for public political discourse • To give publicity to governmental and political institutions • Serves as a channel for the advocacy of political viewpoints. McNair, Brian (2003) ‘Politics, Democracy and the Media, pp 21-22 Fourth estate • Openness, transparency and accountability of the elected representatives to the people have been central tenets of a well-functioning democracy. Edmund Burke 1729-1797‘: ‘there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all'. • The print media has been recognized for this role — no less in the first amendment of the US Constitution. In Australia and Britain, the role is not codified in law, but recognised in High Court interpretations of its Constitution, and successive inquiries into the print media. Critiquing the ‘Fourth Estate’ • ‘ The ideal of the news media successfully fulfilling a political role that transcends its commercial obligations has been seriously battered. • Its power, commercial ambitions and ethical weakness have undermined its institutional standing. • There is now a widespread, and reasonable, doubt that the contemporary news media can any longer adequately fulfill the historic role the press created for itself several hundred years ago.’ • Schultz, J. Reviving the Fourth Estate: Democracy, Accountability and the Media, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 1. Critiquing the ‘Fourth Estate’ • $$ Commercial interests - advertising • Tabloidization – Entertainment values in news • Rise of ‘clickbait’ arising from difficult economic environment for print newspapers – Difficulty also for free to air television – Accusations of dumbing down content • Further resources • Sideshow – Lindsay Tanner • John Lloyd reading – second reading Structural transformation of the public sphere - Habermas • For Habermas, this liberal interpretation of the power of the media theme trails off, around the 1880-90s when two new themes become prominent in liberal histories of the press— 1) falling editorial standards and 2) the rise of the press barons. Source: James Curran, Media and Power p. 6 2. Political economy of mass media– UK • Ralph Miliband, - media are shaped by ‘a number of influences—and they all work in the same conservative direction’. • These merge together, rendering media ‘weapons in the arsenal of class domination’ • (Miliband 1973:203–13). Ownership structures • Family-owned print media – 18 th and 19 th centuries • Barons – early twentieth century • Conglomerates late 20 th century • Multinationals – 21 st century Source:Jean Chabalay (1998) ‘ The formation of the journalistic field’ in The Invention of Journalism The rise of Media Oligopolies • Since the turn of the 20 th century mass media outlets and capitalist industries in general have tended toward concentration – toward systems of oligopoly where a few big players dominate. • The logic of oligopoly in a ‘competitive’ economy is brutally simple: the bigger you are, the more market share you have and the more you can dominate and or incorporate your rivals. • The history of the US media industry, as Dennis W. Mazzocco (1994) has shown, is one of relentless expansion and concentration (deflected only occasionally and temporarily by antitrust laws). • With fewer player around the media product tends to have limited diversity – you stick with what sells. In general terms this restricts innovation, choice and difference. Robert Hassan 2004 ‘Hegemony and Mass Media’ in Media, Politics and the Network Society, p. 44 Political economy – ‘Manufactured consent’ • Herman and Chomsky - controls within media organizations mesh with wider controls in society to render American media ‘effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function’ that supports elites and capital (Herman and Chomsky 1988:306) Control or ‘dominance’ view of the media Herman and Chomsky propaganda model • Money and power filter out the ‘news fit to print’ • No need for state to own or intimidate media • Five ‘filters’ that determine the definition of news as well as what is actually printed/broadcast Source: Chomsky and Herman Manufactured Consent: political economy of the mass media Five Filters 1. Size, ownership, and profit orientation 2. Reliance on advertising 3. Sourcing mass media news 4. Flak and the enforcers 5. A form of dominant ideology that galvanises the citizenry to a common cause and against a common enemy Chomsky: The myth of the liberal Media 2012 Independent Media Inquiry: “The obvious dangers of concentration are: • · a lack of diversity in the views that are given voice • · the possibility that a handful of people (media owners or journalists) will unduly influence public opinion • · a decline in standards because of the absence of effective competition.” Source: Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation p. 280 Australia: daily metro newspapers Concentration of ownership - intensifying • From 1988 to 2004 the share of the top 5 US media companies more than doubled 12.5 per cent to 28.4 per cent • In Australia, about 90 percent of metro daily newspapers owned by two companies, News Corporation Australia and Fairfax Media Media ownership - concentration • Horizontal integration = trying to control as much of the output in a particular field as possible. Ultimate form of this is monopoly. • Conglomeration = having major holdings in two or more sectors of the media such as music, book publishing, etc • Vertical Integration = Owning operations and businesses across various industries and verticals. When company produces the content but also owns distribution channels that guarantee display of that content. Source: Businessinsider.com.au 50  concentrated thru. A&M to  6 A snapshot of multinationals Critiquing control theory: Limits to proprietor power • Ignores structural forces at work • Ignores role of journalists and editors in producing news • Assumes readers/viewers have little agency • Ignores changing nature of media organisations • (source: Tiffen, R, 2006, Political economy and the news, pp 28-42.) Revisionist theories: Revival of pluralism Post-modernism • There is no dominant ideology in media content • People are faced with a proliferation of images from which no objective truth can be drawn • Media texts are ambiguous McNair’s Chaos theory • Brian McNair borrows a 1944 term cultural chaos from German critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horrkheimer, and playfully turns it sideways to describe the current state of the global media as a state, which in a positive way, is underscored by anarchy and disruption and allows for: • ‘… dissent, openness and diversity rather than closure, exclusivity and ideological homogeneity.’ McNair, Brian. Cultural Chaos: Journalism, News and Power in a Globalised World, p. vii. Chaos Theory: Old and New media Freeze frame • Newspapers • Radio documentaries/ news • TV pre – records/programming Flow frame • Radio talk shows • Live TV Both • Online media • Blogs • Microblogging ie Twitter • Social networking sites ‘Crisis’ or new frontiers… • Crowd sourcing – The Guardian MP rorts • Data journalism — Crime stats; govt spending; court lists, etc • Collaborations —Wikileaks; ABC and Fairfax • Pro-am journalism (radio example of Iraq contractors; Huffington Post during election campaigns) • Citizen journalism —eyewitness accounts • Monitory Democracy – John Keane identified the digital age was a time of 'communicative abundance' and provided exciting, new mechanisms for observing and reporting abuses of power. The Panama Papers • More than 370 journalists worked on the Panama Papers, a 12 month investigation that covered almost 80 countries and involved more than 100 media organizations. • Files reveal the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and public officials from around the world • More than 214,000 offshore entities appear in the leak, connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories • Major banks have driven the creation of hard- to-trace companies in offshore havens The Panama Papers Leaks of a different kind? News of the World Scandal Source: Wheeler, Mark (1997) ‘The traditional paradigms: Political theories of the mass media’ pp.1-27 in Wheeler, M., Politics and the mass media, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, p.4. In Sum Media is a source of power in society Several theories to further our understanding of this exercise of media power • Liberal democratic • Political economy • Return to pluralism theories – Post modern theories of the media
代写 MULT10018 Power and the Media assignment