The Political Economy Mechanisms in Mass Media - Essay Example

106245 Gramsci The influence of mass media in our time is so great that it even received the status of the fourth power in society on the hand with legislative, executive and judicial. The power of mass media lies in its ability to create public opinion and to reflect current events in the way that can create different attitudes. In many ways media is equally influential as political power and economy. Today it is even more obvious that all three branches of power are interdependent with mass media as each of them can influence the function of others and of mass media in particular. The influence of mass media can be observed through a number of examples: public approval of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, overthrowing of authoritarian regime of Milosevic in Yugoslavia and other examples. It had been historically formed that media always represent corporative or private interests and that's why it can be effectively used manipulations with public opinion and for creating positive or negative attitude in society. As mass media is often regarded to be a production on the hand with commodities production, a number of political, economical and sociological theories can be applied to explain its influence on society and observe the structure of its functioning and mechanisms of influence. Today it's obvious that in the most developed countries of the world such as the USA and economical giants of the European Union mass media are owned by corporations and they represent certain political and economical interests of their owners: "Over the past generation, it has become increasingly clear to those on the left that the U.S. mass media, far from performing an autonomous and adversarial role in U.S. society, actively frame issues and promote news stories that serve the needs and concerns of the elite. Moreover, the importance of the leading corporate mass media in contemporary politics radically transcends the role of the mass media in earlier times. Hence, the Left has begun to pay considerable attention to how the media are structured and controlled and how they operate. Nevertheless, the ideology of the "free press" has proven to be a difficult adversary for left critics; as the media's operations are central to the modern polity, their legitimacy is shielded by layers and layers of ideological obfuscation." (from Robert W. McChesney The Political Economy of the Mass Media Monthly Review, January, 1989) One of the most exhaustive and full analyses of today's media tendencies was made by Herman and Chomsky in 1988 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. In this book both authors propose the propaganda model in contemporary American society, saying that the purpose of media is to "serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity." (p.11) On the hand with the function of subjective propaganda, media executes other flexible functions as the situation "in a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest" (p.1) makes it to do so in order to create at least formal balance of opinions. The process of establishning mass media is described by Comsky as "the preselection of right-thinking people, internalized preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of a number of objective filters." (p.17) The main feature of media in the developed capitalist society according to Noam Chomsky is the existence of self-censorship as a part of propaganda model and its dominance over state censorship. It's explained that big media owning corporations often have no reason to contradict the governments and its official policies as often governments serve as guarantees of security of their business. It is the main difference from mass media in authoritarian regimes and most countries of Eastern Europe, where mass media is regulated and officially censored by bureaucracy in to keep only to government-accepted line in covering current events. According to Herman and Chomsky objectivism and formal independence of media in capitalist societies is explained by no formal media ideology and absence of agreement on a number of questions. That's why these authors agree that media is regulated by opinions of certain parts of political or business elites which use a system of self-censorship or filters as it's referred by Chomsky: "(1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) flak' as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) anticommunism' as a national religion and control mechanism." (p. 28-29) Having conducted a deep reasearch of current issues in mass media, authors analyzed the influence of separate representatives of corporations and organziation which had the direct relation to the mass media on the developemnt and forming of social themes, informational and social norms in general making very interested observations: "the mass media are drawn into a symbiotic relationship with powerful sources of information by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest" (p. 14) The most interesting conclsuion made by the authors is that economical model of free market will have inavoidable affects of single sided and regulated function of mas media. This conclusion is not popular among the media society memebrs but is very objective according to the studies of Chomsky and Herman. It's the main feature of political economy of mass media. Authors show that in daily practice mass media means stand for economical, social and political values of society's elites. That is the modern political economy model of mass media theory which is applied not only to massmedia but to education, social tendencies in society, etc. The first of political economy of mass media was proposed by K. Marx and was integral component of his matrialist philosophy and communist ideas. In the middle of the nineteenth century Marx and Engels came to the conclusion that working class after it appeared on the world area, had a different ideology from the existing universal ideology of the ruling classes and corporative interests as it represents the humanity in general. Marx made a prediction that "proletariat would save the world". In German ideology this quality is formulated as a law of revolutions: "it means that every new social class puts himself on the place of the class which was ruling before him and in order to achieve its purpose it has represent its interests as the interest of the whole society or of its all members in general. And so the new class has to represent its values and interests as universal and as common virtues." (K. Marx 1848 p.59) Karl Marx in his critics of political economy differentiated society on two classes: capitalists and proletariat. Capitalists were the owners of means of production: factories, machines, tools, land and other material goods used as means of production. Proletariat or workers were used only as working force and didn't own means of production. So, political economy of Karl Marx was viewed simply through this prism of economic relations. Economical relations according to Karl Marx dominated over other relations in society and they managed the work of governments and political parties, which had little independence from capitalists. According to Karl Marx the state was simply a "committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie" (Marx, 1848/1988). The followers of Karl Marx in their analysis of media relied on class inequality and dictatorship of the ruling class of capitalists. That's why according to his views mass media was used to produce "false consciousness" in the oppressed classes. Daniel Chandler in Marxist Media Theory argues that media was used directly to spread political and ideological thought of ruling class, ignoring interests of workers. Understandably according to Karl Marx who analyzed capitalist development in the nineteenth century and who made a exhaustive analysis of capitalist political economy, the meaning of mass media was single valued for a number of reasons: besides representation interests of ruling classes, newspapers carried the role of propaganda of capitalist virtues among the proletariat creating public opinion and general view which wasn't created by the reaction of readers on the events but by press itself. A number of historians makes parallel with Marxist view on media with Marx's theory of economy processes, for example Kellner described it as follows: "One major flaw of many neo-Marxist theories of the consumer society, evident sometimes, but not always, in Critical Theory, is a totalizing view and denunciation of the commodity, consumer needs and consumption. On this view all commodities are uniformly seductive instruments of capitalist manipulation, which engineer homogeneous false needs and consciousness. ..... Commodity fetishism and false needs, then, supposedly enchain willing consumers into the institutions, practices and values of consumer capitalism. .... Commodities and consumption are negatively presented, simply as means of class domination, and the model also assumes a magical, diabolical power on the part of capital to create unreal false needs which it is then able to manipulate in its own interest." Kellner (1989b : 158-9) Such authors as Curran and Gurevitch give the following definition to Marxist theory of media: "Marxists view capitalist society as being one of class domination; the media are seen as part of an ideological arena in which various class views are fought out, although within the context of the dominance of certain classes; ultimate control is increasingly concentrated in monopoly capital; media professionals, while enjoying the illusion of autonomy, are socialized into and internalize the norms of the dominant culture. The media, taken as a whole, relay interpretive frameworks consonant with the interest of the dominant classes, and media audiences, while sometimes negotiating and contesting these frameworks, lack ready access to alternative meaning systems that would enable them to reject the definitions offered by the media in favor of oppositional definitions."(Curran and Gurevitch 1977 pp. 4-5) Marxist theory of mass media was derived from the political economy views and Marx philosophical concept of base and superstructure. Marx argued that economic basis was more important than political, civil and cultural "superstructure" represented by state institutions and civil society. Marx proved it on various historical examples and on capitalist society in general: development of society was caused by economical factors and labor advance. Marx even proposed economical theory of state and private property origins, where economical relations played an important role. The same thing according to Marx is observed in media; mass media means are submitted to capital and corporative interests, which often interweave with government's interests due to the close ties of business and politics in capitalist society: "The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."(Marx & Engels: The German Ideology, cited in Curran et al. 1977: 22). But again, Marxist theory of media had a lot of weak points as it couldn't be viewed only from the point of economical domination of one class over other. In many respects social and ideological domination was more important than economical. Gramsci argues that society wasn't ruled by capitalists only, and that's why media take into consideration different social opinions and represent different interests. An example can be a republican party which is formed not only by representatives of big corporations, but by a number of middle class Southerners, Christian fundamentalists and representatives of working class. Gramsci developed idea of hegemony on the base of historical events and contemporary political situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. Analyzing failure of European socialist revolutions (in Germany, Hungary, and revolution movement in Italy) Italian communist Antonio Gramsci came to the conclusion that in different European capitalist states bourgeoisie not only relied on the power of the state system, its oppressive function but also on the power of "habits" of common people, on their moral, cultural and political submission to the interests of bourgeoisie. In order to prove it he revised the reasons of the failure of socialist movement on the example of his motherland- Italy, a country with European values and prolonged European cultural tradition. So he stated that strikes of workers and their further occupation of enterprises they worked on failed not because they were oppressed by army or police, but instead, because the prime-minister, a liberal politician Giovanni Giolliotti in order not "to annoy" workers proclaimed his neutrality and neutrality of the government to their affairs, so that works trusted reformist leaders of trade-unions, who as a result returned the situation to the starting point of normal functioning of country's working infrastructure. If in Russia business elite relied only on oppressive organs and police or on state violence, than in the West on the hand with jails, courts and police there existed a number of institutions which provided up-bringing to workers in the spirit of obedience, developing a whole system of moral norms and traditions which would guaranty non-rebellion attitudes of the working class. In order to give an exhaustive analysis of the nature of social relations in the capitalist society he supplemented the theory of the state which was often referred as "violence apparatus" by a theory of hegemony or social domination of a ruling group of society which dictates political and social order to the rest of society. The nature of relations in bourgeois society according to Gramsci define the role of mass media and communications as it only promotes further order and understanding among representatives of different classes in society. A very important role in the spread of hegemony is played by intelligentsia. Intellectuals, according to Gramsci are the managers of ruling group, they provide the consensus of common people with the way of life which is dictated by the ruling class. Gramsci writes that in Europe the development of modern states is connected with the alienation of intelligentsia from church and this process was finished by French revolution or by the creation of the first bourgeois state: " the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as 'domination' and as 'intellectual and moral leadership' The 'normal' exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterized by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent" (Gramsci 1971, p.215) Another important part in the spread of hegemony according to Gramsci had to be played by mass media and communication matters, which were regarded to be an effective instrument of the propaganda spread and reinforcement of the ideology of the ruling class. From the other side Gramsci also assumed that mass media could be used in order to spread counter-hegemony: "...Pop culture and the mass media are subject to the production, reproduction and transformation of hegemony through the institution of civil society which cover the areas of cultural production and consumption. Hegemony operates culturally and ideologically through the institutions of civil society which characterizes mature liberal-democratic, capitalist societies. These institutions include education, the family, the church, the mass media, popular culture, etc." (Strinati, 1995: 168-169) So in many respects the views of Gramsci and Marx are the same as both of them regarded mass media to be the mean of persuasion of working class in the correct nature of ruling class morals and its ideology. Mass media are often used as the main and the most powerful tool in establishing hegemony, and in the wars of monopolies over customers or during election campaigns in order to attract the biggest number of voters. Media workers also lack independence as they have to serve not the civil society ideals but they have to serve to the interests of different corporations or political parties. Such situation transforms the original purpose of mass media: to deliver truth as truth is often delivered in diverged form, which only satisfies a certain part of society. Such authors, as Hallin state that mass media is the main and nearly the only most powerful tool to spread the hegemony over the whole society. In example he gives US mass media companies, which were covering the most burning political, foreign issues starting from 1960's. Media campaign against communism which was covering only government allowed material promoted the spread of anti-communism in the USA and the spread of hatred to everything Soviet and communist. The strategy was very skillful as all the discussions started from the historical fact that Soviets stole the project of atomic bomb from the USA, that they aided puppet communist governments of Korea and Vietnam to invade US controlled territories, etc. Other arguments included Cuban experience and missiles crisis and a number of other historical facts, which contributed to the creation of "evil" image of the USSR so that anti-Soviet military campaign in different parts of the world done by the USA got public approval and none would argue about the expediency of spending government funds on these wars. The main accent was made on the success of US troops, on the support in form of world community and support of European armies (like in the case with Vietnam war when even Australian soldiers were sent to aid Americans). In this situation there was nothing said about another side of the problem, the side that was perceived by the natives of the conflict: Koreans, Vietnamese, Nicaraguans and others. In the case with Korea and Vietnam for both parts of the country Americans were aliens, strangers and occupants which penetrated in their local affairs and cared more about their strategic and corporative interests than about the destiny of common people. From this point the positions of Soviets in these conflicts were more favorable as Soviets aided "oppressed part of the population" which was nearly 90% in these countries as they differed by high poverty level, besides, Soviets didn't have any obvious economical interests in these regions only a possible bridge-head for further expansion of socialism and alliance against "capitalist and imperialist world". As a result of effective use of mass media and effective construction of world history and geography education in the country it became possible to manipulate with people's opinion and get universal approval of military interventions. Analyzing the representation of conflicts in Vietnam and Nicaragua Hallin outlined that these events were presented without giving any considerable background, any clear information about the country and its history, which as a result created a conclusion in the minds of people that conflicts in that regions are endemic and that people who inhabit that countries have no experience of democratic values and of Western culture. In fact mot of these news reports had nothing similar to the military anti-communist propaganda, which was nearly official doctrine of the US government since Truman's administration developing into a powerful tool of influence under Nixon and Reagan. These news reports gave evaluation to the events from the perspective of a democratic citizen, a representative of Western "civil society" so that none could doubt the truth. From this point the main purpose of hegemony idea of Garmsci is observed. Mass media for Garsmci was a tool to integrate society, unite it under the common slogans convincing small social groups, which don't share common beliefs in their creditability and importance. Media's role was to inspire, not to strictly persuade and convince. Garmsci also stated that in order to save stability and trust to the ruling class ideology shouldn't be delivered directly in media, otherwise people would lose interest to media as to independent source of information. Ideological ideas have to be delivered indirectly: through hints in newspaper articles, advertisements, TV programs and shows showing that ideology already exists in public life and had integrated with it. Even after September 11th majority were not able to say anything about Afghanistan and could hardly find it on the map. This fact only proves that in such situation the hegemony of mass media is observed and that mass media could present this country in any form from bad or good side, in both cases people would believe. Just little information, which was available right after terrorist acts allowed to say that Al Kaida was supported by Taliban regime of Afghanistan and so Afghanistan and Muslims turned into possible "enemies" of the USA. The interesting thing is that none in media said it directly; such public conclusions were drawn simply from previous experiences of mass media hegemony starting from 1960's. Gitlin explains the main features of media hegemony which make mass media reports the most persuasive and widely accepted, in fact methods used to manipulate public opinion: - Trivialization (making light of a movement's language, dress, or goals) - Polarization (emphasizing counterdemonstrations, no matter how small; identifying protestors with "extremism," and equating all protestors as equivalently "extremist") - Emphasizing internal dissension within the movement - Marginalization (showing demonstrators as deviant or unrepresentative of the public, focusing on the most inflammatory rhetoric or figures in a movement) - Disparagement by numbers (undercounting protestors at demonstrations to belittle their significance) - Disparagement of movement's effectiveness (portraying protest as futile) - Emphasis on violence at protests, or the possibility of it - Delegitimizing the claims and labels of the movement (e.g., presenting demonstrators as taking part in a "so-called peace march," or characterizing protestors as "self-appointed community leaders.") (from http://codesign.scu.edu/chad/120/heg.html) Gitlin also states that in times of social unrest mass media is the best tool of struggling classes or social groups to inform and persuade others as it makes information universally accepted. Television and press for example can be not substituted by any other mean of communication and attract a big number of people, as there is no other mean to mobilize society to express protest. Analysis of "velvet revolutions" in Eastern Europe shows they were made only thanks to television channels, which represented opposition, as demonstrations and actions of civil disobedience were broadcasted countrywide so that anyone could see them and make his own conclusion about situation. This serves as a bright example of mass media hegemony as due to its universality and influence any borders of state censorship can be overcome. Such evidence also witnesses about the weak points of political economy theories of mass media, as it shows that in particular cases in instable societies ruling class and government are not able to save existing regime and are very likely to fail. Making a conclusion it's important to note that different mass media theories can be applied for modern media. In many respects they have nearly the same meanings and explain different social aspects in the same manner. But Marxist theory and other political economy theories of modern authors state that that today's purpose of media is more propagandist then independent, due to economical particularities of free market economy and the role of government especially in covering of foreign events. Political economy theory of mass media states that media are controlled by the means of self-censorship and state censorship and that journalists also can be regarded to be a working class as they are also in dependence from the will of media-holdings owners. Even though that it's widely suggested and agreed that "free media" of the western world has independence and freedom of word it's quite rare to find opposition to existing government in media. Even the growing number of privately owned companies in the USA doesn't witness for total independence of mass media from the role of government and private corporations especially in covering international news bloc: "Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45% (formerly 35%, up from 25% in 1996) of that market." (from Wikipedia Concentration of media ownership http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership ) But on the hand with political economy theories which view media as a mean of formal domination of ruling class over the rest of society, other authors such as Gramsci propose the theory of free ideological domination which is based on perceieving valus of the ruling class in a free volunteer form in the hidden messages of advertisments, news, tv shows and other means of popular culture. The use of politcal economy mechanisms in mass media will have a negative impact on media system in whole and will definitely affect media soruces which are under vivid control of government or corporations. It will descrease trust to government as strict censorship wittesses about poor functioning of the state machine, it will also result in lower trust to the controlled media sources. These outcomes of politcal economy of mass media were clearly explaind by Chomsky and Herman. From this point the theory of hegemony is more applicable as it will not result in open violation of democratic norms of civil society. As a result Gramsci's theory of hegemony had a further development in sociology and theory of public relations. His historical interpretation of hegemony origins, its roots in social relations it's role in civil society in many ways had determined the understanding of hegemony in today's society as the most important tool of achieving social stability and order. Analysis of hegemony in different bourgeois societies, description of failure reasons of proletariat revolutions in Western Europe and description of hegemony's functioning defined future concept of relations of the ruling class with the rest of society all over the world. Mass media, which is the main tool of hegemony, should be used the most effectively as it has the biggest influence on the consciousness of society. References: 1. Gramsci, Antonio. (1971). 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Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, London and New York. 18. Robert W. McChesney 1989 The Political Economy of the Mass Media Monthly Review available on: www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n8_v40/ai_6944368 19. Herman, E. Chomsky, N. 1988 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Pantheon 20. McChesney R.W. 1998 Capitalism and the information age - the political economy of the global communications revolution. New York, Monthly review press Read More