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Politics of the Media

ywfoo@lincoln.ac.uk

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Growing Up

• Political Socialization; how we acquire attitudes towards politics

• Family• Peers• Religion

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Education

• Like the family, education is hierarchical in structure

• As an obvious source of social control, the state watches over the school system with vigilance

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Advertising

• Although most of our advertisements promote a product, they generally subscribe to the ethos of free-market capitalism

• Political parties are now investing enormous funds to sell themselves to voters

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The Press

• 13 million newspapers a week• Broadsheets• Tabloids• Serious weeklies• Major newspapers are

national, providing uniformity of view and centre on London

• Provincial dailies are in decline

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Partisanship

• Freedom of the press is held to be a major characteristic of the liberal state

• Newspaper industry is part of ‘big business’

• Only in times of crisis does the state overtly demand that the press become its instrument

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Partisanship

• Our newspapers have a strong political bias

• Traditionally they have favoured the Conservative Party and the right of the Labour Party

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Profit

• Maximise profit• Appeal to mass readership

ensures stories featuring sensationalism, trivialisation

• Racism• Jingoism (chauvinistic militarism)• Celebrity stories• Tabloid coverage focuses on

immediate events rather than background analysis

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Press Barons

• The Press, a neo-liberal Establishment

• Press Barons regularly recognised by elevation to the peerage

• Newspaper owners exercise editorial control

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Journalists

• Usually from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds

• Good journalists will get to know leading figures in business and politics

• Few journalists would be willing to ‘bite the hands’ of those who can give them information

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Television

• We watch 21 hours of television each week

• Television has become the organ of a truly mass culture and is the principal means of informing perceptions of the political world

• Power of television is recognised both by politicians and the advertising industry

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Regulatory Bodies

• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

• Independent Television Commission (ITC)

• Class bias in news programmes

• Points of view tend to fit within a consensus acceptable to the Establishment

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Political Interference

• Both the BBC and ITC boards of governors are appointed by the government

• Each board delegates day to day operations to a Director General

• Some journalists aim for a more robust style, but they can come under attack

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Media/Internet

Today we are looking at two competing forces in the evolution of a new society; neo-liberal globalization, and an information technology revolution

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On-line

• In mid-February, 2003, millions of people marched in cities across the world in protest of the war in Iraq

• A stunning example of what networked global civil society is capable of: online organizing leading to massive offline direct action

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Seminar

• Look up information about Press Baron Rupert Murdoch

• Discuss Murdoch’s upbringing and his political values

• How do you think Murdoch has influenced the outcome of elections in Great Britain

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Press Baron Profile

• Rupert Murdoch, Born 1931• Known to have conservative

views, but strong supporter of Tony Blair – “Who Blairs Win”

• Pomotes a free enterprise culture

• Disapproves of Britain joining the euro