2. Topic Points:
O What are ‘We Media’?
O Where / how has ‘We Media’ emerged?
O In what way are the contemporary media
more democratic than before?
O In what ways are the contemporary media
less democratic than before?
3. In The Exam:
O Historical – dependent on the
requirements of the topic, candidates
must summarise the development of the
media forms in question in theoretical
contexts.
O Contemporary – current issues within the
topic area.
O Future – candidates must demonstrate
personal engagement with debates
about the future of the media forms /
issues that the topic relates to.
6. What is ‘we media’
O ‘We the Media’ written by Dan Gillmor
O about how the proliferation of grassroots
internet journalists (bloggers) has
changed the way news is handled
O One of the book's main points is that a
few big media corporations cannot
control the news we get any longer, now
that news is being published in real-time,
available to everybody, via the Internet.
7. What is Web 2.0?
O Aspect of the web that facilitates
participatory information sharing and
collaboration on the World Wide Web
O A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and
collaborate with each other in a social
media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of
user-generated content in a virtual
community, in contrast to websites where
users (consumers) are limited to the
passive viewing of content that was
created for them.
8. Cultural Effects: Marxist
View
O The dominant ideology of a society is
the ideology of the dominant or ruling
class
O The mass media disseminates the
dominant ideology: the values of the
class which owns and controls the
media
O Notion of domination
9. Gramsci: Hegemony
O The supremacy of the bourgeoisie is
based on economic domination
and intellectual/moral leadership
O A class had succeeded in
persuading the other classes of
society to accept its own moral,
political and cultural values
O However, this consent is not always
peaceful, and may combine
physical force or coercion with
intellectual, moral and cultural
inducement
The American Dream?
10. Can the working class
achieve hegemony?
O If the working class is to achieve
hegemony, it needs patiently to build up a
network of alliances with social minorities.
O These new coalitions must respect the
autonomy of the movement, so that each
group can make its own special
contribution toward a new socialist society.
O The working class must unite popular
democratic struggles with its own conflict
against the capital class, so as to
strengthen a national popular collective
will.
11. The Frankfurt School
Modernist Approach
O Mass audience as passive and gullible
O ‘hypodermic needle’ effects model
O Pessimistic claims about media
indoctrination
O Mass culture disseminates the dominant
ideology of the bourgeoisie
O News media controls our ideas and views,
pushing their views onto us, creating a
false class consciousness – Marxist view
12. Chomsky: Manufacturing
Consent
O The main aim of a media company
is to make money
O Newspapers achieve this through
advertising revenue
O This has an impact on the news
values and news selection
O Can lead to editorial bias
O News businesses that favour profit
over public interest succeed
13. Chomsky: Manufacturing
Consent
O Further distortion through the reliance of newspapers on private and
governmental news sources
O If a newspaper displeases, they may no longer be privy to that
source of information
O They will lose out on stories, lose readers and ultimately advertisers
O news media businesses editorially distort their reporting to favour
government and corporate policies in order to stay in business
14. Editorial Bias: Five Filters
(Chomsky)
1. Size, Ownership, and Profit
Orientation
2. The Advertising License to Do
Business
3. Sourcing Mass Media News
4. Flak and the Enforcers
5. Anti-Communism
15. Size, Ownership and Profit
Orientation
O The dominant mass-media outlets are
large corporations which are run for
profit
O Therefore they must cater to the
financial interest of their owners
16. The Advertising License to
do Business
O Media outlets are not commercially
viable without the support of
advertisers.
O News media must therefore cater to
the political prejudices and economic
desires of their advertisers.
O This has weakened the working-class
press
17. Sourcing Mass Media News
O The large bureaucracies of the powerful
subsidise the mass media, and gain
special access to the news, by their
contribution to reducing the media’s costs
of acquiring and producing, news.
O The large entities that provide this subsidy
become 'routine' news sources and have
privileged access to the gates.
O Non-routine sources must struggle for
access, and may be ignored by the
arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers
18. Concept: Fourth Estate
O Is a societal or political force or
institution whose influence is
not consistently or officially
recognised
O Print Journalism
O The concept that the press is
an instrument of democracy
providing a check on the
abuse of government power
O It is the myth that the press is a
vital defender of the people? –
think about Chomsky!
21. The state of the fourth
estate…
O Relationships between powerful people e.g.
Murdoch and Cameron mean that their
agendas are pushed forward in their
publications
O Journalists are not as free because they are
controlled by the conglomerate
O Chomsky: believes journalists were not
representative of the population but instead
influenced, hired and fired by power
corporations
O Newspapers will print stories that sell, leading to
more untrue and fabricated stories to grab the
attention of the audience; this is mostly true of
tabloid papers which focus on celebrities.
22. Key Thinking Points
O Do we have a free press?
O What constraints do journalists face
when working for a corporation?
O Who are the journalists?
O How far is news media controlled or
constrained by those in power?
O Are newspapers really the Fourth
Estate?
23. Leveson Inquiry…
O Into media ethics
O Focusing on the power of the news media
O Relationships between media owners and politicians
O Lord Mandellsson said "arguably the case... that
personal relationships between Mr Blair, [Gordon]
Brown and Rupert Murdoch became closer than was
wise".
O Tony Blair: the word "unhealthy" rather than "cosy" was
a better description of the relationship in some cases
between journalists and those in power.
O Blair: The Sun and the Daily Mail were the two most
powerful newspapers. The Sun was important because
it was prepared to shift its political allegiance
24. David Gauntlett: Web 2.0 (Making
is Connecting – key text)
O Tim Berners Lee invented the Internet with the vision that
people would be connected and creative
O “He imagined that browsing the Web would be a matter
of writing and editing, not just searching and reading” –
Gauntlett
O Web 2.0 invites users to play
O We are seeing a shift away from a ‘sit back and be told’
culture towards more of a ‘making and doing’ culture
25. Web 2.0
O Includes a social element
where users generate and
distribute content, often with
freedom to share and reuse
O Has resulted in an increasing
‘globalisation’
O The birth of a more
‘participatory culture’
O Moving from a
communication model of
‘one-to-many’ to a ‘many to
many’ system
26. David Gauntlett: Web 2.0
O In the case of the media, there
is obviously the shift towards
internet-based interactivity
O At least 3/4th of UK population
are regular internet users
O More than 1/3rd of people have
a Facebook account
O More and more people are
writing blogs, participating in
online discussions, sharing
information, music and photo,
and uploading video.
27. New Media
O Increased interactivity of audiences
O Poststructuralist theory sees the
audience as active participators in
the creation of meaning
O In a postmodern world consumption is
seen as a positive and participatory
act
O An increased ‘democratisation’?
28. Dan Gillmor: Citizen
Journalists
O ‘Big media’ have enjoyed control over
who gets to produce and share media
O Effect on democracy
O Who owns these companies?
O Are we represented?
O Gillmor sees the Internet as a catalyst for
a challenge to this established hegemony
O Gillmor calls bloggers ‘the former
audience’: news blogs a new form of
people’s journalism
29. Citizen Journalism in Iraq
O Blogs offered an alternative to the
Western media’s accounts
O Collaboration of wikispaces, children’s
news blogs and Persian networkers
using the Net for a collective voice in
a country where free speech is
curtailed
O But is it all as rosy as it seems?
30. Clay Shirky
O Focuses on the rising usefulness of networks, using
decentralised technologies for social creation
and open-source development
O New technologies are enabling new kinds of
cooperative structures to flourish
31. Utopians
O One side sees the internet as a
technology of freedom that is
empowering humankind
O making accessible the world’s
knowledge, building ‘emancipated
subjectivities’, promoting a
new progressive global politics, and
laying the foundation of the ‘new
economy’.
O The other sees the internet as an over-
hyped technology whose potential
value has been undermined by
‘digital capitalism’ and
social inequality
32. Dystopians
O The internet came to exhibit
incongruent features.
O It is still a decentralised system in which
information is transmitted via
independent variable pathways
through dispersed computer power.
O But on top of this is
imposed a new technology of
commercial surveillance which enables
commercial operators – and potentially
governments – to monitor what
people do online
O Evgeny Morozov