Sociology of Media (2) Approaches to Media Analysis I:

Political Economy (31.10.2007)

Overview

i. Theoretical orientation

ii. Ownership and monopolization

iii. From Fordism to Post-Fordism

iv. The role of the State: Law, Licensing and Regulation,

v. Media as Institutions

The Law of Supply and Demand

Political Economy

• economic processes cannot be reduced to market forces only.

• For economic processes to take place, they have to be embedded in institutional forms (e.g. law, monetary structures)

• Mode of Production = Forces of Production + Relations of Production (Marx)

Nicos Poulantzas (1936-1979)

from Wikipedia• Poulantzas's theory of the state was reacting against what he saw

as more simplistic understandings within Marxism. Instrumentalist Marxist accounts held that the state was simply an instrument in the hands of a particular class. Poulantzas disagreed with this, because he saw the capitalist class as too focused on their individual short term profit, rather than on maintaining the class's power as a whole, to simply exercise the whole of state power in its own interest. Poulantzas argued that the state, though relatively autonomous from the capitalist class, nonetheless functions to ensure the smooth operation of capitalist society, and therefore benefits the capitalist class. In particular, he focused on how an inherently divisive system such as capitalism could co-exist with the social stability necessary for it to reproduce itself - looking in particular to nationalism as a means to overcome the class divisions within capitalism.

(a) Increasing income:

• 1. selling programs to audiences (distribution)• 2. advertisement revenues (selling audiences to advertisers)

(distribution)• 3. selling productions (or broadcasting rights) to distributors (production)• 4. revenues from license fees (public sector media)

(b) Reducing costs:

• 1. reducing labour costs (wages, replacement with mechanical labour)

• 2. increasing efficiency of production, e.g. standardization

Two regimes of accumulation:• Fordism :• Mass Production • Standardization • Mass Marketing • Social Class • Bureaucratic • Integration • Life Long • Career • Corporate Identity• Membership

• Post-Fordism:• Diversification• Flexible Specialization• Niche Marketing• Life Styles and Values • Adhocratic • Outsourcing• Temporary • Project• Professional Identity• Contract

Law (England)

• Libel or Defamation Law

• Decency Laws

• National Security (anti-terrorism) legislation (Official Secrecies Act)

Two Forces Shaping the Media

• Market

• State: Law + Licensing + Regulation

Media as Institutions

Media as part of the state, reflected in:

• (a) its role as a means of government (its representational function);

• (b) its role as a means of control (i.e. the public sphere) and

• (c) it’s own conditioning by the state through law, licensing and regulation.

Three functions of the media

• Information

• Education

• Entertainment

These were expressed by Lord Reith, the first director of the BBC at the launch of the corporation in 1923.

Information: a double-edged sword?

• Economics

• Politics

• Warfare

Education Function

• Cognitive Skills

• Social Skills

• Socialization

• Ideology

Entertainment

• Occupying time

• Brainwashing and Dumbing Down

• Activating Concern

Logic of Operation

• Louis Althusser: Media as an Ideological State Apparatus (reproduction of relations of domination)

• Michel Foucault: Media as a Panopticon (expanding systemic disciplinary power)

Surveillance and Policing