Assess the pluralists view on media ownership

The majority of the pluralists would argue that the public have the power to resist the media and have the ability to use the media and have an input (air their views) rather than be controlled by the media. They also believe that we can affect the media because we live in a “democracy” thus enabling us to choose whether we decide to read a paper or watch the BBC news and therefore have a minority influence. To some extent pluralists believe that the media responds to public demand rather than the public responding to media demands [by this I mean if the public want to know about a certain story then the media is likely to provide a story, however it can be argued that the media decides the stories and the public responds by reviewing the media therefore they are supporting the media financially]and it can be argued that the media can be used to satisfy human needs such as entertainment (the Sun), information (BBC news) etc. With that in mind it could be argued that the media does not use the interests of the capitalists [right wing] as other theories such as Marxists would argue.

With pluralists believing in a democracy they believe that anyone can change what they want and if linked to the media, the public can air their views whenever they want to. However through another theory Marxism it can be argued that even if someone from the working class can express their view, there will always be someone higher up than that person (bourgeoisies) who will have more power, control and influence on what is expressed in the media. Without a great deal of cash it’s also harder for proletariats to sustain an opinion in the media without having the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Supporting the claim from Post-modernists that the media is in fact not controlled by bourgeoisies or anyone is that the media can be titled as “free” in which the majority of views can be expressed before any real censorship is concluded and the only censorship that can be used is if the media owner decides that the story or view is unsuitable to broadcast. However this view can cross over with the post-modernists view on “anything goes”. Comparing both Marxism and post modernism one can argue that with the majority of views being aired nowadays [e.g. Robert Kilroy Silk’s article on terrorism] anyone can put across a view yet the higher up you are in the hierarchy the more likely your view can be expressed due to one possessing more power to manipulate and control the media. Another factor supporting the post modernist view is that due to the rapid advance of technology producing live satellite links its hard for anyone [including bourgeoisies, therefore no matter how high up in the hierarchy one is] its mere impossible to maintain any sort of control over live media coverage.

In conclusion its fair to say that both Pluralism and Marxism share a great deal of similar interests as they both contain issues of power and distribution, but where Marxists believe that there are the bourgeoisies controlling the working classes, Pluralists argue that everyone has a say in the media and that power is equal amongst all of us. Furthermore with this in mind Pluralists believe that the media does not represent the view of one person but in fact represents the views of many and has a diversity of messages from different medias. But again there is a fault in this as in America it was reported that there should be over 2,500 different media sources yet in fact there are only 10, therefore proving that there are 10 major companies [bourgeoisies]owning a variety of smaller [proletariat]businesses.

Time spent writing: 23 minutes Preparation time 10 minutes