Understanding Media, Ideology and Power

MDG3 - 01
MEDIA & GLOBALISATION: KEY
CONCEPTS & THEORIES
MODULE 1

INTRODUCTION
 WHAT IS ‘MEDIA’?
1) Technological means of communication
- Extension of ‘medium’: technical means
through which messages are sent & received
 - Technical media prominent throughout
human history: print, broadcasting, telephony
& Internet

INTRODUCTION
 Thompson (1995): Media is ‘the
institutionalized production & generalized
diffusion of symbolic goods via the fixation and
transmission of information or symbolic
content’;
 What is symbolic content: ideas, information
and ideologies

INTRODUCTION – MODULE 1
 A system of ideas and ideals, especially one
which forms the basis of economic or political
theory and policy;
 The set of beliefs characteristic of a social
group or individual.
- http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ideology

INTRODUCTION
 IDEOLOGY: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas … The
class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the
same time over the means of mental production." The entirety or the system of
ideas of the ruling class would be the Ideology of a given society. The function
of ideology would be the continual reproduction of the means of production and
thereby to ensure the continuous dominance of the ruling class. Ideology achieves
this by distorting reality. While in fact the split in ruling and subservient social
classes is artificial (i.e. man made) and serves the needs of the economic system,
the ideas of ideology makes it appear natural. It makes the subordinate classes
accept a state of alienation against they would otherwise revolt. This state of
alienation has also been referred to as "false consciousness".
- KARL MARX & FRIEDRICH ENGELS
- https://faculty.washington.edu/mlg/courses/definitions/Ideology.html

INTRODUCTION
 Thompson (1995): mass communication forms have five
characteristics:
• Development of technical and institutional infrastructure and
media industries;
• Commodification of symbolic forms (media is bought & sold and
acquires economic and symbolic value;
• Structured break in space and time between production and
reception of symbolic forms;
• Extension of the availability and durability of symbolic forms
across time & space;
• Public circulation of symbolic forms; plays a role in ordering public
space and public culture

MEDIUM THEORIES
 Media infrastructure has traditionally
concerned technical aspects & engineering;
focus on impact upon social relations and
human interactions;
 HOWEVER, technical mediums are the key
starting point to understanding social impacts
and implications
 Meyrowitz (1994): MEDIUM THEORIES

MEDIUM THEORIES
 Focuses on CHARACTERISTICS of each
medium to examine whether:
• Communication is bi-directional/uni-
directional;
• Learning to encode/decode in the medium is
simple or complex;
• How many people can attend to the message at
the same time.

MEDIUM THEORIES
 What follows is that global network
communications infrastructures enable
INTERNATIONAL circulation of cultural
commodities, texts, images and artefacts;
 These are central to global commerce, global
politics, global war and conflict, the globalisation
of organisational communication, and the general
global circulation of ideas, information and
ideologies
 Page 2 – “Understanding Global Media”

MEDIUM THEORIES
 LET’S DISCUSS IDEOLOGY
AND GLOBAL POLITICS

INTRODUCTION
 WHAT IS ‘MEDIA’?
2) Institutional and organisational forms through which
media content is produced and distributed; the media
industries
 CORPORATE FORM is the general form institutional
arrangement during the 20th century
 Range of media relationships operate in markets
(variety of forms of transactions between agents)
 Agents can be formal or informal and transactions can
be monetized or non-monetized.

INTRODUCTION
 WHAT IS ‘MEDIA’?
3) It is the “informational and symbolic content that
is received and consumed by readers, audiences
and users”
 Content does NOT exist independently from
technical infrastructures OR institutional forms
through which it is produced or distributed
 Media is integrally connected to culture

WHAT IS CULTURE?
 Descriptive conception: ‘the varied array of values,
beliefs, customs, conventions, habits and practices to a
particular society or historical period’ (Thompson,
1991);
 Symbolic conception: ‘the underlying system of social,
cultural, linguistic, and psychological relationships
through which people, in different places or at
particular times, are engaged in making sense of their
wider social environment and acting within it’
 For instance, CHRISTMAS!

MEDIA RELATIONSHIPS
 3 INTERCONNECTED ELEMENTS OF MEDIA:
- Technical infrastructure;
- Institutional forms; and
- Socio-cultural contexts of reception
 Draws attention to 3 (three) further relationships:
- Media & Power
- Media Markets
- Media & Culture
To be continued…
HOMEWORK: RESEARCH & DISCUSS AN OBSERVABLE IDEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE IN SOUTH AFRICA;
EXPLAIN ITS USE, ORIGIN, MEDIA IMPLICATIONS AND ARGUE WHETHER IT’S A DOMINANT OR
FRINGE
DISCOURSE. THREE LUCKY STUDENTS WILL GET A TURN.

MEDIA & POWER
 POWER = the ability to act in pursuit of one’s aims and
interests; to intervene in the course of events and to affect
their outcome
 Communication = purposeful action
 Power is NOT only relational, but STRUCTURAL (Susan
Strange); i.e. not just the relationship, but the surrounding
structure of the relationship
 Foucault: power relations = the strategies, networks, the
mechanisms, techniques by which a decision is accepted
and by which that decision could not but be taken in the
way it was

FORMS OF POWER
 SEE TABLE 1.1.
 ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, COERCIVE, SYMBOLIC
 MEDIA = CULTURAL & SYMBOLIC POWER
 Symbolic power = means by which actions can
be shaped through transformation of values,
beliefs and ideas; practices & institutions of
culture (Thompson, 1995)

MEDIA & POWER
 MEDIA CORPORATIONS HAVE RESOURCES:
fundamental leadership in the cultural sphere
 Mass Comms of 50s & 60s: liberal pluralism in
social sciences; power = influence, thus media
impact behavioural change (media acting in a
relational sense)
 Media confirms a consensus (not so much the
spread of ideology, but the expression of wider
societal consensus); only impacts behaviour

MEDIA & POWER
 Hall (1982): Media operates in a STRUCTURAL
sense – defines the “rules” of the game; defines
social reality and determines what is “acceptable”
behaviour
 Media thus powerful in CONSENSUS FORMATION
 Media power & ideology = dominant ideology vs.
representation, consent and social construction of
reality (reality effect, Hall)

MEDIA & POWER
 MARXIST CRITIQUE: Structural inequality as dominant ideologies
(capitalist societies) control over subordinate social groupings;
dominant Western interests maintain political & economic power
over ‘less developed, 3rd World’ nations; media formed central part
of capitalist economy (PAGE 7)
 2 CENTRAL ISSUES:
1) Media ownership and control as media are industrial and
commercial organisations producing & distributing commodities;
2) Structures of economic control vs. similar patterns of cultural
production & distribution
“Cultural products” and “material interests” linked; thus media linked
to political & economic interests

MEDIA & POWER
RELATIONSHIP OF ECONOMIC VS.
IDEOLOGICAL = THE POLITICAL ECONOMY
(CHAPTER 2)
• ECONOMY SHAPES CULTURAL
DEVELOPMENTS, WITH VARYING DEGREES OF
DIRECT DETERMINATION/RELATIVE
AUTONOMY
•CULTURAL STUDIES DRAWS ATTENTION TO
THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF SIGNIFIERS
•INVESTIGATE WHETHER MEDIA IS
REPRESENTATIVE OF OTHER FORMS OF
POWER (INSTITUTIONAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL,

MEDIA MARKETS
 THREE MARKETS:
1) CREATIVE CONTENT – material for exchange
2) MARKET FOR FINANCIAL RESOURCES –
finance operations, investment, profits, public
vs. private
3) MARKET FOR AUDIENCES/READERS/USERS –
competition for audience and attention

MEDIA MARKETS
 Garnham (1987): companies/industries
compete in four ways:
1) For consumer expenditure;
2) For advertising expenditure;
3) For consumption time (‘attention
economy’);
4) For talent & specialist labour

MEDIA MARKETS
 MEDIA INDUSTRIES OPERATE IN DUAL PRODUCT
MARKETS
 COMPETE FOR TIME & MONEY OF END-USERS
AND
 COMPETE IN ADVERTISING MARKET SELLING
ACCESS TO THOSE AUDIENCES TO ADVERTISERS
SEE FIGURE 1.1. THE NATURE OF MEDIA MARKETS

MEDIA MARKETS & FINANCING
 Media orgs can finance its activities in 4
ways:
 RETAINED EARNINGS (revenue & sales)
 DEBT FINANCING (bank loans)
 EQUITY INVESTMENT (sale of shares, listing)
 GOVERNMENT FINANCING (subsidy,
incentives)

MEDIA MARKETS & EXPANSION
FORMS OF EXPANSION:
 HORIZONTAL: M & A of competitors within dominant
industries; development of new products & services within
that industry (Disney/Pixar/Marvel);
 VERTICAL: Related acquiring in
distribution/production/packaging interests: Netflix –
distributor AND now producer
 DIAGONAL: expansion into complimentary activities and
enables synergies (AOL Time Warner)
 DIVERSIFICATION: Expansion into non-media activities or vice
versa

MEDIA CONTENT
• Creative content becomes commoditized, yet content distinctive for three
reasons:
1) Risk – content is produced without exactly knowing customer
preferences, with poor prior experience of the content, difficult to
predict results;
2) Message is immaterial/intangible; for instance, a CD is tangible but the
MUSIC is intangible; medium can be durable (DVD) or quickly consumed
and discarded (newspaper);
3) Ongoing demand for originality and novelty = truncated (shortened)
product life cycle for many cultural commodities
In other words, media has high production costs and near-zero costs of
reproduction

MEDIA CONTENT
 Creative industries – cultural, artistic & entertainment value
 Caves (2000): 7 economic properties of creative activities:
1. Demand uncertainty
2. Creative vs. commercial skills
3. Motley crew of diverse talents brought together on contract
basis
4. Infinite variety principle
5. Vertically differentiated skills (A-list/B-list)
6. Need to coordinate activities as projects
7. Durability and the ability to derive economic rents over long
periods

MEDIA CONTENT
 CONTRACTS:
- Asymmetrical information
- Allocation of decision rights
- Institutions integral in managing projects,
contracts, risks, rewards – high fixed costs
due to overheads
- Unions

MEDIA CONTENT
 VIOLATILE & UNPREDICATBLE
 COMPETITION FOR SKILLS AND TALENTS
 HARD TO
INSTITUTIONALIZE/QUANTIFY/ROUTINIS
E CREATIVITY

MEDIA ORGS & POLICY
 POLICY – SYSTEM OF INSTITUIONALIZED
GOVERNANCE MECHANISMS
 DETERMINES STRUCTURE, CONDUCT,
PERFORMANCE
 HISTORIC MEDIA CONGLOMERATION &
CORPORATIZATION

5 FACTORS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION
 DISTINCTIVE LEGAL FORM OF PROPERTY – legal safeguard,
only legally accountable as far as shareholding
 POWERS OF CORPORATION – strategic control
 INCREASING COMPLEXITY – have to minimize risk,
maximize profits & manage uncertainty
 LEGAL CONTRACTS – managing risk & social relations
(nexus of contracts)
 BUREAUCRATIC ORGANISATIONAL FORM – Weber:
hierarchy; division of labour, employment & promotion,
rationalized decision-making, formal rule-bound relations
 BAD MIX BETWEEN ORDER & CREATIVES

ISSUES ADDRESSED BY POLICY
1) CONTROL MARKET ENTRY (PLANNING);
2) LIMITS ON CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP;
3) LIMITS ON FOREIGN OWNERSHIP (NATIONAL SECURITY);
4) PROMOTION OF LOCAL CONTENT;
5) PROMOTION OF CONTENT CATERING FOR SPECIFIC
NEEDS
6) PROMOTION OF PROGRAMMING THAT REFLECTS
CULTURAL, SOCIAL, LINGUISTIC FORMS, DIVERSITY
7) STANDARDS ENSURING FAIR, ACCURATE & REPSONSIBLE
COVERAGE/ FREE OF HATE SPEECH OR VILIFICATION
8) PREVENTS HARMFUL MATERIAL

MEDIA & POLICY
 MEDIA INSTITUTIONS VERY MUCH GOVERNED BY MEDIA POLICY
 GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER TELEVISION SIGNALS AND ASPECTS
OF PROGRAMMING
 MEDIA DEVELOPS NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP, FORMS IDENTITY
THROUGH CULTURE
 MODERN NATIONALISM
 ‘IMAGINED POLITICAL COMMUNITY’ (Anderson)
 Myths perpetuated by media become grounded in community,
symbolic unification (transcends divisions within nations)
 Cultural integration using mass media (as well as
events/places/language policy/formal education/high culture
 National media = communicative boundary maintenance (regulate
flows between global media & local cultural impacts

MEDIA & CULTURE
 CULTURAL & SYMBOLIC POWER
 MEDIA HAS LEADERSHIP IN CULTURAL
SPHERE
 MULTIDISCURSIVE – MOBILIZED IN A
NUMBER OF DISCOURSES
 STATUS QUO TENDS TO BE DEFAULT

MEDIA & CULTURE
 TENSION BETWEEN HIGH CULTURE AND
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CULTURE – what is good
vs. culture as lived experience
 CULTURALISM & STRUCTURALISM
- READ IN CLASS
- Hand outs

MEDIA & CULTURE
 Dominant ideology reflected by those that own & control these institutions (Hall,
Fiske, Turner)
 3 KEY CONCEPTS:
- Hegemony: dominant class wins WILLING consent of subordinate classes to
oppressive system using symbols of ‘unity’ (nationalism);
- Negotiated readings: preferred reading = dominant ideology; contested by
subordinate sections with own social experiences;
- Textual polysemy: polisemy = “MANY MEANINGS”; texts don’t just have own
authored meanings, but have wider social meanings within social structures;
media is polysemic = WILLINGLY open to a range of interpretations to be
popular and commercially successful
- Context, subtext, metatext
- "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?“ (Lasswell)

NEW MEDIA TECH
 RISE of new media; internet critical in revolution
 6 core characteristics of ‘new media’ in digital devices:
1. Convergence of ICT, networks, content & chips
2. Digitization & changeable content stored in small physical spaces
3. Open, flexible, adaptable sharing & expansion (with protocols)
4. Reduced barriers for production & consumption (global implications)
5. Interactivity = constant re-using, remixing, repurposing, modification
6. Many-to-many vs. one-to-many (20th century) = less effective
gatekeeping functions of powerful interests or ‘media workers’ (i.e.
JOURNALISM)

NEW MEDIA TECH
 ‘OLD’ media can adapt; absorb new tech & structures into business models
 Lievrouw & Livingstone (2005): traditional media extends focus to include
aspects of new media namely:
o Artefacts/devices;
o Activities & practices;
o Social arrangements
 New device or new way of behaviour in society (for example, cell phone vs. DVD)
 New media tech tends to impact HEAVILY in society
 For instance, computers assisted with journalism (computer-assisted reporting),
but the INTERNET with blogging and DIY media changes the entire context as old
industries ‘collapse’
 Ultimate question: HOW DOES NEW MEDIA TECH IMPACT ON SOCIAL
ARRANGEMENTS AND ORGANISATIONS/INSTITUTIONS?

MEDIA IN SPACE
 SEE FIGURE 1.2: RELATIONS OF ‘OLD’ MEDIA VS. NEW MEDIA
 ‘Developments in media technologies and forms have impacts
upon wider political-economic and socio-cultural environments’
 Media in globalization NOT just spatial, but largely cultural,
economic, historical, geographic & political
 NOT just an immediate transition because of global
networks/technical grounds (orthodox view)
 Durability of new media = ability to ‘travel’ across borders and
influence sovereignty/maintain centralized rule
 Empires linked to rapid distribution of messages (and RULE) via
primary communication systems
 Focus is on media development from national to global scale

KEY QUESTIONS
 SHIFT OF POWER FROM NATIONAL FRAMES OF REFERENCE TO GLOBAL
MEDIASCAPES?
 IS IMPACT OF MEDIA POWER REFLECTED IN OTHER FORMS OF POWER?
 DO MEDIA MARKETS OPERATE ON A GLOBAL RATHER THAN NATIONAL
SCALE?
 DO MEDIA ORGS. OPERATE ACCORDING TO GLOBAL LOGIC OF EXPANSION
(COLONIZATION?)
 HAVE NATIONAL FORMS OF LAW, REGULATION & GOVERNANCE BECOME
INEFFECTUAL IN THE FACE OF GLOBALIZING FORCES?
 IS THERE A RISE OF A GLOBAL CULTURE WITH MEDIA-INFLUENCED
IDENTITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES?
 WILL NEW MEDIA USURP THE ROLE & SIGNIFICANCE OF TRADITIONAL
MEDIA (PRINT, BROADCAST, CINEMA)?

MDG3 FA1
 FA1 ASSIGNMENT BASED ON CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL MEDIA: KEY
CONCEPTS
BRIEF TO BE HANDED OUT IN CLASS: WEEK 6
(16/18 MARCH)

THEORIES OF GLOBAL MEDIA
 CRITICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY:
- ECO. STRUCTURES OF DOMINANCE IN MEDIA
- PROMOTES HEGEMONIC SET OF IDEAS, I.E.
DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
- CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM = BASES OF SOCIAL
ORDERS IN CLASS-DIVIDED SOCIETIES
- MARX: UNCONNECTED, DISCIPLINE-BASED
APPROACHES COULD BE INTEGRATED INTO
INTER-DISCIPLINARY FORMS OF SCHOLARSHIP

 Garnham (1995): ‘political economy sees class –
namely, the structure of access to the means of
production and the structure of the distribution of the
economic surplus – as the key to the structure of
domination’.

 5 PRINCIPAL PRACTICES RE. CRITICAL
POLITICAL ECONOMY APPROACH TO MEDIA:
1. SOCIAL TOTALITY – ALL POWER CONNECTED TO WIDER FORCES;
2. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE – HISTORY OF ECONOMIC FORMATION
(AND RULE) UNFOLDS OVER TIME;
3. CHANGING BALANCE BETWEEN COMMERCIAL MEDIA
INDUSTRIES & GOVERNMENT SECTOR – HAS DEREGULATION
DECREASED & PRIVATE OWNERSHIP INCREASED?
4. PRAXIS - INFLUENCE OF RESEARCH IN PRACTICE & MANNER IN WHICH
IT SEEKS INFLUENCE; SEEKS TO INVOLVE PUBLIC IN MEASURING
PERFORMANCE OF EXISTING POLITICAL ECONOMY
5. GLOBAL - GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE IS CENTRAL TO CRITICAL POLITICAL
ECONOMY APPROACH (REFER HERBERT SCHILLER)

Herbert Schiller 1:
• INTERNATIONAL
COMMERCIALIZATION OF
BROADCASTING DRIVEN BY RISE OF
US ECI
• ECI = Entertainment, Communications
and Information industries
• RISE OF US ECI NEED TO BE VIEWED
ALONG WITH POLITICAL, MILITARY,
FOREIGN & ECONOMIC POLICY

Herbert Schiller 2:
• US ECI HAS DIRECT IMPACT ON
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS;
• US ECI HAS CAPACITY TO DEFINE AND
PRESENT OWN ROLE TO THE PUBLIC.
= ‘AMERICAN POP CULTURE PRODUCT’:
cultural ideal to which people globally
aspire to & expanding commercialization

Herbert Schiller 3:
• ECONOMIC POWER OF
ECI SECTOR + GLOBAL
REACH OF CULTURAL
COMMODITIES =
CULTURAL
IMPERIALISM!!

“The concept of cultural
imperialism…describes the sum of
processes by which a society is
brought into the modern world
system and how its dominating
stratum is attracted, pressured,
forced, and sometimes bribed into
shaping social institutions to
correspond to, or even promote, the
values and structures of the
dominant centre of the system” –

INTRODUCTION
 IDEOLOGY: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas … The class which has
the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of
mental production." The entirety or the system of ideas of the ruling class would be the Ideology of a
given society. The function of ideology would be the continual reproduction of the means of
production and thereby to ensure the continuous dominance of the ruling class. Ideology achieves
this by distorting reality. While in fact the split in ruling and subservient social classes is artificial
(i.e. man made) and serves the needs of the economic system, the ideas of ideology makes it appear
natural. It makes the subordinate classes accept a state of alienation against they would otherwise
revolt. This state of alienation has also been referred to as "false consciousness".
- KARL MARX & FRIEDRICH ENGELS
- https://faculty.washington.edu/mlg/courses/definitions/Ideology.html
- ‘THE MODE OF PRODUCTION OF MATERIAL LIFE CONDITIONS THE
SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE PROCESS IN GENERAL’

 CONTEMPORARY: ‘WAR ON TERROR’
REPLACES ‘ANTI-COMMUNISM’
 RULING CLASS = RULING IDEOLOGY
 Golding & Murdock (2000): ‘people’s
consumption choices are structured by their
position in a wider economic formation’
 Also applies to cultural consumption; media

NOAM CHOMSKY & EDWARD S. HERMAN –
THE PROPAGANDA MODEL (1988)
“Money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print,
marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant
interests to get their messages across to the public”
5 FILTERS THAT CONTROL FLOW OF IDEAS:
1. Size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit
orientation of the dominant media firms;
2. Advertising as primary income source of the mass media;
3. Reliance of media on info provided by government, business and
‘experts’ funded and approved by agents of power;
4. ‘Flak’ as a means of disciplining the media;
5. ‘Anti-communism’ as a national religion and control mechanism

 Golding & Murdock (2000):
3 FACTORS-STRUCTURAL LIMITS TO DIVERSITY:
• Power relations between corporations & nation-
states = regulation of ‘public interest’
• Dominant economic forces determine range and
diversity of textual forms available = structural and
rhetorical limits to polysemy of media texts
• Income-based barriers to access to cultural and
communications goods and services constitute a
reiteration of class divides (‘digital divide’)

 Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsɨmi/ or /ˈpɒlɨsiːmi/; from
Greek: πολυ-, poly-, "many" and σῆμα, sêma,
"sign") is the capacity for a sign (such as a
word, phrase, or symbol) to have multiple
meanings (that is, multiple semes or sememes
and thus multiple senses), usually related by
contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.

 Schiller (1999): “digital capitalism” – ‘powerful pan-
corporate attempt to subject worldwide
telecommunications policy to US-originated, neo-
liberal regulatory norms’ (commercialization, pro-
market, ‘anti-collectivism’)
 From early 1980s to present: ‘a dramatic
restructuring on national media industries, along
with the emergence of a genuinely global
commercial media market’ (Herman & McChesney,
1997) = concentration of media power on a global
scale in the hands of a small number of MNCs

 Miller (2001): Global Hollywood
 US global media industries structurally separating
‘activities of hand’ from ‘activities of mind’
 Hand – production, material artefacts
 Mind – ideas, concepts, genres
 Production processes being globalized in search of lower
labour costs/costs of production
 Intellectual property ownership remain highly centralized
 Hollywood coordinates and defends its authority over
cultural labour markets

 CULTURAL STUDIES
• Also founded in critical theory of Marxism
• Cultural power = the ways in which a multitude of
cultural forms are produced, distributed,
interpreted and contested through technical means
of communication in an era of widespread access
• Study of entire range of society’s arts, beliefs,
institutions, and communicative practices
• Colonization of capitalism of cultural + ideological
sphere

 MORE COMPLEX THAN MARXIST POWER OF DOMINANT CLASS OVER
SUBORDINATE
 CONSTANT SHIFTING OF POWER BETWEEN IDEAS; NOT RESTRICTED
TO CLASS; SEPARATE INTERMEDIATE CLASSES+PROFESSIONAL
IDEOLOGIES; RESIDUAL AND EMERGENT FORMS OF CULTURAL
PRACTICE;
 IDEOLOGY IS NEVER SIMPLY A TOOL FOR CLASS DOMINANCE
THROUGH THE PROMOTION OF ERRONEOUS/INACCURATE IDEAS;
 NOT SIMPLE CONNECTION BETWEEN ECONOMICS AND CULTURE
‘THERE IS NO PERMANENT HEGEMONY’
- HALL, 1977

 ‘HEGEMONY’
- ROLE OF IDEOLOGY:
COMPETING VERSIONS OF
SOCIAL REALITY MEET
TO ATTEMPT TO ‘WIN
OVER’ POPULAR
CONSCIOUSNESS IN A
CONTINUOUS STRUGGLE
TO DEFINE THE WORLD
IN A PARTICULAR WAY
- Antonio Gramsci

 HALL (1986) – ARTICULATION
HAVE TO ARTICULATE IDEAS BY:
• REVALUE CULTURE OF ORDINARY (SUBORDINATE) CLASSES
(VALUE FOR ITS OWN SAKE);
• TOGETHER WITH STRUCTURALIST TRADITION (ALL ASPECTS
ARE INFLUENCED BY SOCIAL STRUCTURES E.G. CLASS,
LANGUAGE, SIGNIFYING SYSTEMS
• TOGETHER WITH PERSPECTIVE IN A PARTICULAR HISTORICAL
CONJECTURE
• RELIGION VS STATE EXAMPLE: AT ONE TIME, PART OF RULING
CLASS IN ONE SOCIETY, OPPOSITIONAL IN THE NEXT
• ‘DEMOCRACY’ – WHAT DOES IT MEAN IN THIS SOCIETY?

WELCOME
TO THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF
KOREA

 Hall’s MODEL OF ENCODING/DECODING (1980)
- Media text ENCODED with dominant meaning
- Reaches audience by being MEANINGFUL to it
- OR aligns itself with audience expectation
- Audience DECODES message, makes a ‘reading’ that can be:
I. Operate WITHIN dominant code; ‘preferred’ readings;
‘common sense’
II. ‘NEGOTIATE’ the dominant code;
III. Make OPPOSITIONAL readings (‘aberrant decoding’)
See HALL’S MODEL

“THE KEY TO POLITICAL POWER
LIES IN THE ABILITY…TO MAKE
CONTESTABLE
SIGNIFIER/SIGNIFIED RELATIONS
SEEM LIKE COMMON SENSE.”
- Ruddock

- Institutional structures of media
- Organisational cultures
- Production practices

 HALL’S ENCODING/DECODING MODEL (cont.)
- Cultural differences imbedded within structure of society
determine readings:
- POLITICAL ORIENTATION
- FRAME OF REFERENCE
- SOCIAL STRUCTURES
- CAPACITY TO RESIST DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
 Resulting in two economies:
- Financial economy: who can consume which symbolic messages
based on economic structures and economic means
- Cultural economy: popularity of texts based on exchange of
meanings, pleasures and social identities
- Mass media: Site of resistance vs. reinforcement

 CULTURAL STUDIES (contd.)
- Stratton and Ang (1996): a problem arises as societies are
context specific;
- Governing set of principles not universal, but developed
along Western sociological narrative
- Nation-state becomes determining context in ‘master
narrative’;
- What about ‘global’ state? Nations operating outside
national forms = hegemonic mass culture?
- Strong localization and indigenizing tendencies still
remain that puts brake on globalisation

 APPADURAI (1990): CULTURAL
HYBRIDIZATION
 GLOBAL CULTURAL ECONOMY = TENSION
BETWEEN A COMMON GLOBAL CULTURE
AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCE
 HOMOGENIZATION VS. HETEROGENIZATION
 GLOBALISATION VS. GLOCALIZATION

 APPADURAI (1990): GLOBAL CULTURAL FLOWS ACROSS
5 PLANES:
• Ethnoscapes – movement of people
• Technoscapes – movement of complex technologies and
associated capital and skilled labour
• Finanscapes – movement of financial capital (currency,
stock, commodities exchange)
• Mediascapes – movement of images, narratives, media
content on multiple platforms
• Ideoscapes – movement of ideas, concepts, values and
‘keywords’ such as democracy, human rights, climate
change, etc.

 APPADURAI (1990): central to newest wave of
globalisation is CULTURALLY DISTINCTIVE due to
effects of mass migration and electronic media
 APPADURAI definition of ‘culture’: “situated
difference that can constitute the basis for group
identity that can be mobilized as an articulation of
that group identity in other arenas”. = activism in
favour of one’s uniqueness of identity
(“globalisation from below”)

 INSTITUNIONALISM, MEDIA CORPS &
PUBLIC POLICY
• Hesmondhalgh (2002): critical political
economy of media ORGANISATIONS
• ‘How issues of market structure affect the
organization of cultural production and the
making of texts at an ordinary, everyday
level’ (p. 43)

• Scott (1995): institutions = ‘cognitive, normative and
regulative structures and activities that provide stability
and meaning to social behaviour.’
• Cognitive: identity, shared discourse
• Regulative: rules, routines, sanction/reward
• Normative: acceptance of broad values
 Institution responds to environment, shape ideas of key
individuals and disseminated throughout organisation
 HODGSON (1989): Firm is ‘institution of power’ that
protects itself from market speculation; economy is
imbedded in institutional processes

“Over the years, Mr. Murdoch and his lieutenants have
raised hackles for their involvement in the company's news
operations. Former top editors at two of his London papers,
for example, say he ignored an independent board set up to
protect them from his interference, and got involved
directly in firings in the 1980s. In Australia, the former
editor of one of his top papers complains that a News Corp.
executive pushed him for critical coverage of pilots in a
strike that was hurting a News Corp. airline investment.
In China, former employees say Mr. Murdoch's
representatives occasionally pushedreporters to do
more upbeat stories, at a time when News Corp. was
seeking government help to expand its reach there. The
reporters there didn't listen and kept up their often critical
coverage.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/18/flashback-wsj-published-
4000-word-report-on-mur/152905

 ‘WEAK’ INSTITUTIONALISM = individuals agree to rules
systems to maximize personal benefit by working together
(individualism)
 ‘STRONG’ INSTITUTIONALISM = regime of ACCUMULATION
based on six sets of institutional arrangements:
• Wage-labour nexus
• Forms of competition
• Financial markets
• Norms of consumption
• Forms of state intervention
• Organisation of system of international exchange

REGIME OF ACCUMULATION
 Domestic mass production with a range of institutions and policies
supporting mass consumption
 Stabilizing economic policies and Keynesian demand management that
generated national demand and social stability
 Class compromise or social contract entailing family-supporting wages,
job stability and internal labour markets leading to broadly shared
prosperity
 Keynesian = economist Keynes = advocate of mixed economy; economy
requires public sector involvement to rectify inefficiencies;
 Keynes method = reduce interest rates; government investment in
infrastructure

 DISTINCTIVE LEGAL FORM OF PROPERTY – legal safeguard,
only legally accountable as far as shareholding
 POWERS OF CORPORATION – strategic control
 INCREASING COMPLEXITY – have to minimize risk,
maximize profits & manage uncertainty
 LEGAL CONTRACTS – managing risk & social relations
(nexus of contracts)
 BUREAUCRATIC ORGANISATIONAL FORM – Weber:
hierarchy; division of labour, employment & promotion,
rationalized decision-making, formal rule-bound relations

 DUNLEAVY AND O’LEARY (1987): ‘CIPHER IMAGE’ OF
PUBLIC POLICY
• Policy is simply reflection of outcome between bargaining
between powerful government and corporate interests;
• State is thought to ‘create’ policy, but in fact policy is
determined by existing structures outside the policy
making process
• PEARCE (2000): broadcasting policy makers paid no
attention to what they thought was in their interest at the
time…but assigned ‘interests’ based on its own external,
ideological understandings of “public interest” and
“business interest”

 Biggest debate in cultural studies and
policy:
• Policy makers need to think more
sensitively about policy; requires activism
• Remains national and not transnational

 CULTURAL & ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
• FIRST MAJOR IMPACT ON CULTURAL
GEOGRAPHY: Marxist political economy
theory = spatial relations under capitalism;
space serves as a site for capital to ‘renew’
itself
• SECOND MAJOR IMPACT: SINCE 1990s: Post-
structuralism = spatial relations are relations
of POWER and is symbolic of social relations
and ideology

 HARVEY (1989): GEOGRAPHY = MOVES AWAY
FROM FORDIST PARADIGM OF MASS
ACCUMULATION AND CONSUMPTION
(DOMINANT MODES OF PRODUCTION) TO
‘FLEXIBLE ACCUMULATION’ AND
‘DISORGANISED CAPITALISM’
 THANKS IN LARGE PART TO GLOBALISATION
 THUS NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPACE,
TIME AND POWER

 New kind of worker: skilled, knowledge-
based, geographically mobile (time-less, a-
spatial)
 This worker identifies with global
cosmopolitanism
 Capital again accumulates in different spaces
and capitalism benefits from this mobility

 Culture leads the way in dictating forms of
production especially since:
• Organisational cultures have become more
aware of the impact of ‘social’ management on
performance;
• Knowledge economy is embedded in learning,
and learning is embedded in specific
geographical areas
• Cumulative advantage of ‘first-movers’ and
institutional lock-in

 Du Gay and Pryke (2002): Cultural economy is:
• Management of culture + self-realization leads to
greater org. performance
• Deeper relationship between economic processes
and cultural dimension; interpersonal relations and
communication
• Greater role of cultural and creative agencies in
design of production to meet the desires and values
of consumers ; role of networks in time-based and
project-based forms of production

 Amin (2002): questions power shifts between
national, regional and global scales of space: no
true dominance of global networks over local
place, or global capitalism over nation-states,
or global versus local identities
 RATHER there exists a combination of multiple
spatialities of organisation, as rules of time
and space collapse

 STRONG GLOBALISATION
- Strong theories of qualitative and quantitative change
- Castells: New economy = global, networked,
informational
- Information networks are pervasive throughout
global societies
- Impacts on all other aspects of society – economy,
culture, politics
- Networking is in direct contrast with Fordism

 New economy based on 3 characteristics:
1) Informational – capacity to generate knowledge
and learning that influences production and
productivity in economic units
2) Global – activities have the capacity to work in a
unit or on a global scale in real time OR in chosen
time
3) Networked – based on information networks;
short term strategic allegiances (space of flows)

 Castells: ‘Network society disembodies social relationships’
 Leads to virtual cultures;
 Industrial Age – spatial configurations created meaning of
culture and evolution; NOW – Network Age – VIRTUAL spatial
configurations;
 New class divides based on information
 Divide between specialised and ‘generic’ labour
 Castells: Networks signal the end of ‘mass media’ and the
development of national cultures
 Identity and culture based less on locally grounded culture
(sense of PLACE), but within institutions that desire a place in
global networks

 EMPIRE - Hardt and Negri (2000)
- ‘Empire’ is imperialism in globalisation
- Global capitalist system
- Network of entities (outside nation-states)
united under a single form of rule
- Large corporations surpass the jurisdiction
and authority of nation-states
- Power over various populations

 MULTITUDE – Hardt and Negri (2005)
- Can there be effective resistance?
- Empire = global democracy
- Power of nation-states weakened and territorial sovereignty
weakened;
- No longer just economic production, but ‘social production of
communications, relationships and forms of life’
- Global society – infinitely diverse, but can still act collectively;
collaborative networks can act politically
- ‘When the multitude is finally able to rule itself, democracy
becomes possible’

 A CRITIQUE OF STRONG GLOBALISATION THEORIES
• Castells: 7 claims of strong globalisation (page 58-59)
1. Global scale of TNCs operations (Schiller; Hardt & Negri)
2. Less regulated by nation-states (Hardt & Negri)
3. Nation-state in decline (Hardt & Negri)
4. Reforms outside national framework; power resides outside of territorial boundaries
5. Global cultural experience; less bound by geography and nation-state; more by
relationship to global flows (Harvey; Castells; Appadurai)
6. Capitalism now fully fledged global system thanks to ICT (Herman & McChesney;
Schiller)
7. Globalisation = race to the bottom (Miller; Global Hollywood)
 These claims to be addressed going forward

 Globalisation sceptics have counter-claims to each previously
made STRONG claim:
1. TNCs actually less transnational (chapter3)
2. Organisational culture in TNCs not completely homogenized; still adherent to “local
ecosystems”; political systems MATTER
3. Nation-state still more influential in terms of value-added contribution; should consider
overall economic outputs in relation to national inputs
4. WTO, IMF, World Bank member states don’t always have consensus around developmental
directions, and often strengthens domestic policy (see China copyright regime)
5. Earlier cycles of globalisation have seen more trade; evidence of regionalisation, not
necessarily globalisation (expansion into regional spaces)
6. Nation-states have the capacity to resist globalisation; its influence is overestimated
7. ‘Race to the bottom’ argument can be challenged; only really true for manufacturing, but
global industries are largely service industries; which are far more dependent on context and
quality, as opposed to a purely price-driven globalisation (see ‘tendencies of globalisation of
products and services’)

 ‘Two tendencies of globalisation of products
and services’ (Storper, 1997)
 Table 2.1 (page 63)
 Basic differences = cost-driven economy has
more generic factors, low-context, non-specific,
BUT more sensitivity to price factors;
 Quality-driven economy has LESS standardisation,
more skilled and specialist, more specific to
certain clusters of regions, rising expectations
around quality

 Castells, Amin – network society that extends
beyond geographical space; simultaneous
experience of local, regional and global
 Castells: “culture of real virtuality” – tension
between the Net and Self; global products and
local distribution; mass media still has great
ability to centralize media consumers (not as
democratized we would imagine)
 Miller and Slater (2000): Internet is not just a
disconnected ‘virtual world’, but is embedded in
other social spaces in the ‘here and now’

SUMMARY
THEORY DESCRIPTION
Marxist critical political economy / Garnham (1995) False consciousness as consent for ruling class over
subordinate classes
Schiller Rise of American ECI = cultural imperialism
Golding & Murdock (2000) Patterns of consumption influenced by economic position
Chomsky & Herman (1988): Propaganda Model Dominant interest marginalize popular dissent through
media filters
Schiller (1999): digital capitalism Concentration of media power in consolidated MNCs that
influence populations
Miller (2001): Global Hollywood US global media industries structurally separating
‘activities of hand’ from ‘activities of mind’
Culture studies Founded on Marxist theory; allows for intermediate readings

SUMMARY
THEORY DESCRIPTION
Hall’s articulation (1986) Social structures + point in history + cultural relevance
Hall’s model of encoding and decoding (1980) Different readings based on encoding + decoding media texts
Appadurai (1990) Culture hybridization (globalisation vs. localization)
Appadurai (1990) Global flows (-scapes)
Hesmondhalgh (2002) Critical political theory in organisations as reflection of external
environment
Scott (1995) Activities and behaviours in organisations based on cognitive,
regulative and normative structures
Hodgson (1989) Firm is an institution of power that protects itself from true free-
market forces
Dunleavy and O’Leary (1987) Media policy reflection of arrangements already made that reflect
the interests of government and corporations

SUMMARY
THEORY DESCRIPTION
Pearce (2000) Media policy-making based on ideological idea of ‘public interest’
and not necessarily true interest
Harvey (1989) Geography: new form of flexible capitalism/disorganised
capitalism that is globally mobile; new relationships between
space, time and power
Du Gay and Pryke (2002) Greater role between cultural production and economic processes
in globalisation phase; greater role of creative agencies; social and
interpersonal relationships more important than ever
Amin (2002) There exists a combination of multiple spatialities of organisation,
as rules of time and space collapse; no differentiation between
local, regional and global
Hardt and Negri (2000) Empire: Global capitalist system and global corporate imperialism
Hardt and Negri (2005) Multitude: Political reisistance through global collectivism; global
democracy

SUMMARY
THEORY DESCRIPTION
Castells 7 claims of strong globalisation
Storper (1997) New divisions of labour (cost-driven vs. quality driven)
***PLEASE NOTE: MEDIA & GLOBALISATION THEORIES DO NOT BEGIN
AND END WITH THESE LISTED THEORIES AND AUTHORS; NEW PATHS OF
THINKING ARE BEING ESTABLISHED EVERY DAY. THERE IS NO CONSTANT.
YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO RESEARCH THESE THEORISTS AND STUDY
THEIR VIEWS, WHICH MAY HAVE EVOLVED; BUT ALSO THEIR CRITICS’
VIEWS. ALWAYS BE DISCOVERING.

Understanding Media, Ideology and Power

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