Examine the ways in which the output of the mass media may be influenced by owners and journalists.

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                                                          Amy Amin 12.3

                                                

             Examine the ways in which the output of the mass media may be influenced  

                                       by owners and journalists.

The mass media are organisations and forms of communication used by specialist social groups to convey messages to a large, socially mixed and widely dispersed audience, without any personal contacts. Those who control the programming and editorial content are strongly encouraged to deliver what the audience wants. Their jobs are to attract a large, desirable audience.

Traditional Marxism would be in favour of the view that the media output is influenced by the owners. Traditional Marxist would say all historical societies contain basic contradictions, which means that they cannot survive forever in their exiting forms. These contradictions involve the exploitation of one social group by another. In capitalist society, employers exploit their employees.  This creates fundamental conflict of interest between each social group, since one gain at the expense of another. In Marxism, there is a large believe in patterns and structures in society. This structure is based on conflict and is known as conflict structuralism.  

This view believes that ideologies are set by owners, and that the owners control the media. The owners – usually rich and successful, ruling class people benefit from capitalism, as the media help to promote a set of believes and values which are favoured towards them. The ruling class, therefore, have a vested interest in ensuring its survival. Ideology is a set of ideas and beliefs that benefit the interests of certain groups. In this case, ideology tends to favour the status quo of the ruling class, because the ruling class own and therefore dominate the production and distribution of ideas and meanings. Ideologies role in this is to promote and disguise the ideas of class domination, so that it becomes accepted by the majority of people as being normal.  According to Marx, the ideas of the ruling class are fed in to the brains of the subject class in the interests of the ruling class. Hence, the ruling class maintain their power. The ruling class own the media and make sure their ideas are given prominence to them.  As the control over the production and distribution of ideas is concentrated in the hands of those few who own the means of production, capitalist power is maintained. The media in this way, projects messages, which reinforce the ideology of the ruling class. Evidence to back this up, refers to Louis Althusser (1918) who was a French Marxist philosopher.  Althusser argued that the media is part of the Ideological State Apparatus (superstructure). This refers to the different formative functions of religion, family, school etc. He believed that these organisations generate systems of ideas and values, which we as individuals believe.

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The media contributes to false class consciousness. The Marxist view sees ideology as a set of illusions, something which is false and not real. It enables the ruling class to maintain their dominance. They achieve this through their control and ownership of institutions for disseminating ideas, by manipulation or censorship. Owners have interests that they wish to promote. Rupert Murdoch, a newspaper owner, made sure that his bid for Manchester United was reported in a way that showed him in a positive light in his newspapers. This evidence suggests that owners do, in fact, influence the output of the ...

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