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media: ownership & control - Coggle Diagram
media: ownership & control
MANIPULATIVE APPROACH
Owners directly control and manipulate the content and audiences to spread dominant ideology- the content of the media is thus narrow and biased
Media editors have little choice but to run the media within the boundaries set by the owners
This approach sees the audience as passive - a mass of easily manipulated, unthinking, uncritical robots that take what they see in the media at face value without questions
A02 Rupert Murdoch’s control of his News Corporation since the 1970s e.g all of his news outlets supported the Iraq War in 2003, a war which he personally supported. It’s unlikely that all the editors of all his newspapers globally shared this view.
Media performs ideological functions in ways such as: favourable representations of the wealthy e.g royalty, through the spreading of the 'myth of meritocracy' e.g dragons den/apprentice, and negative portrayals of EM's and immigrants
AO3:
impractical for media owners of large corporations to control all output on a day to day basis. At some point they have to trust editors.
Pluralist view that audiences are not just passive and unthinking, they are active and critical, and thus not easily manipulated: they can easily choose to switch off if they don’t like what they see.
Pluralists argue that media owners are primarily motivated by making a profit and thus would rather provide audiences with the diverse content they want
HEGEMONIC APPROACH
Although media owners have powerful influence, they rarely have day-to-day control of the media content which is left in the hands of editors & journalists
Therefore staff have some independence, but still support the dominant ideology by choice, not because they are manipulated into doing so- journalists have accepted the ruling class ideology as common sense so spread it subconciously
The GMG state most journalists tend to be white, middle class and male, therefore share the same views as the dominant class
A03
Pluralists point out that this perspective still tends to assume the audience are passive and easily swayed by the dominant ideology. In reality, the audience may be more active and critical.
Traditional Marxists argue that it underestimates the important of economic factors, for example the power of owners to hire and fire journalists
Media managers and journalists don't want to upset owners, but also need to attract audiences and advertisers.
Journalists news values sometimes go against the dominant ideology but this is to attract audiences and make a profit
The GMG explore 'agenda setting' or 'gatekeeping' (keeping some issues out of media so they aren't discussed) which they believe is a process where some news is excluded from reporting
this means that audiences have little choice of media content as products are produced in the framework of the dominant ideology.
PLURALIST APPROACH
Media content is not driven by a dominant ideology or the political interests of owners, but instead the fight for profit so through audience figures
There is a wide range of competing media platfroms and products that reflect a wide range of audiences interests and choices
if a company fails to provide the kind of news and entertainment that people want, customers will stop buying aheir media products and go elsewhere, forcing that company out of business- control f media lies with the consumers, not with the owners as content has to adapt to fit the demands of customers.
media owners want to make money so would rather adapt their media content to be more diverse to keep money coming in rather than use their media channels to push their own narrower subjective views and opinions.
Audiences are active> passive and aren't easily manipulated. they are free to select, reject and re-interpret a wide range of media content.
A03 - Ultimately it is still owners who have the power the hire and fire journalists and they do have the power to select high level editors who have similar views to themselves, which may subtly influence the media agenda.
Owners, editors and most journalists share an upper middle-class background and a conservative worldview.