It is not clear if this is merely arrogance or if he is trying to make a point about the definability of news, but it represents to many people the most likely explanation of news output. In this case, the newscaster is the merely the visible point of the news production plant, the bit which we see. However, he is only a small part of the process and really the news is handled by people biased and opinionated, just like the rest of us, but being in the position that they are, they have more power to control our opinions that we do theirs.
If you’ve read George Orwell’s Animal Farm which he wrote in the mid-1940s, it was a satire on the Soviet Union, a totalitarian state. It was a big hit. Everybody loved it. It turned out he wrote an introduction to Animal Farm which was suppressed. It only appeared 30 years later, someone had found it in his papers. The introduction to Animal Farm was about Literary Censorship in England and what it says is that obviously this book is ridiculing the Soviet Union and its totalitarian structure. But he said England is not all that different. People who have independent ideas or who think the wrong kind of thoughts are cut out.
He asks why this happens; well it could certainly be argued that it is because the press is owned by wealthy people who only want certain things to reach the public. The other thing he says is that when you go through the elite education system, when you go through the proper schools in Oxford, you learn that there are certain things it’s not proper to say and there are certain thoughts that are not proper to have. That is the socialization role of elite institutions and if you don’t adapt to that, you’re usually out. Those two sentences more or less tell the story. As you can see, by the intervention of the content in this book being published at the time, the public were being prevented from having information. Whether the information was subjective or not is irrelevant, the point is that the information was censored. When studying the media, the question we need to ask ourselves is this kind of intervention appropriate?
So, from what I have suggested so far, we have established that the media are potentially not only a dominant force in persuading our own ideas and opinions, but they can also be a regulated text through which the Government for example, can prevent the public from knowing any important political facts. Surely this is reason enough to have an excuse for studying the media? To me, this kind of regulation is a form of corruption by the so – called ‘elite’. How can institutions like the Government have the right to control what the public can and can’t know? Likewise….why should media corporations like The Times Newspapers be allowed to have such a strong effect on the views of their audience?
Some might argue that this is an argument ‘for’ the media, they help us to take a position on issues in our culture and the ‘varied’ choice of right to left wing Newspapers is a good enough feature to allow us to make a decision of our own. However, I would argue that this is not the case, especially since many of the newspapers are owned by only once corporation. The Sun, The Herald, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Mercury, The Weekly Times and many others are all owned by Rupert Murdoch’s famous News Corporation. Effectively, the content of each of these newspapers are controlled by the same person and the same set of rules, this can’t be a good thing surely?
I would suggest that as the media has been seen to become recognised as a form of communication and in some cases, a way of giving people access to political theories and ideas is it not right that it should be studied and monitored? Particularly as there seems to be such a large amount of censorship and regulation by big corporations and the Government (both of which are potential corruptors in the media).
‘All media entail is a process that involves senders, messages and receivers as well as a specific social context in which they operate’
(Briggs.A and Cobley.P, 2002, p1).
I believe that this quote from this book effectively sums up what the media is all about. – ‘a process that involves senders, messages and receivers’ – a form of communication, and one that I believe should be challenged and studied by the audience as well as the producers.
When talking about why we should study the media, it is important to note how we should study, and the methods with which we use to study the media. This is because to me, much of the media today is subjective (which in itself is not a bad thing). However, if all the media we experience is subjective and regulated then it will be very rare that we as the ‘audience’ ever get many true facts. It is our job to continually question the intentions of the media producer so that we are in place where we can take our own position and understand our position from a relatively objective viewpoint.
Continuing with his ‘anti-politicised ‘ theory, George Orwell once again indirectly refers to the effect of the media power on the audience (although he is slightly unaware of this at the time). His famous quote
‘Big brother is watching you’
(Orwell.G, 1987, p4)
is a clear reminder of the fact that the belief that we have complete freedom and privacy in this country is a dangerous fallacy. As alluded to in 1984, such a place as Oceania would not be possible without technology or, at the very least, would be much more difficult to establish. How many people really contemplate what actually happens when they send an email, talk on a cell phone, purchase online via credit card, etc, etc. The same technologies that grant one more freedom have the same capacity to harm and to enslave if not respected. Like many, I used to think 1984 was simply a great work of fiction with little chance of actually becoming a reality. The frightening truth is that to a large extent, it seems like it already has and this is why we as the audience must continually question the motives of the producers.
Within the media there are three major sociological methodologies which have several basic principles which we use in our every day lives to look at the world and they can also be used as tools consciously or subconsciously to understand and study the media.
The methodologies involved are the following;
Ontology - or what do we believe exists?
Ontology is a theory of being and concerns with what exists. This involves the fundamental beliefs that someone holds about the nature of the social world and its relationship to individual social actors. It is a theory of being and is concerned with what exists. Ontology answers the following questions;
- What are the characteristics of the physical and social worlds?
- What are the characteristics of the beings that populate the world?
- What are the typical relationships between these beings or individuals?
Epistemology - or what proof will we accept about what constitutes reliable and valid knowledge?
Epistemology is a theory of knowing or how we obtain knowledge of external reality. It is concerned with how those things can be made known to the researcher and answers the following questions;
- How can we gain knowledge of the world?
- Can knowledge of reality be established by some empirical evidence?
Methodology - or how we can go about the task of producing reliable and valid knowledge?
This idea relates to how we go about the construction of theoretical knowledge about the social world and it is concerned with our approach to knowing.
Although for ease of understanding I have separated these three basic principles, it can certainly be said that they are related closely to each other
They are particularly involved with how to acquire valid knowledge and hold several differing positional ideas within their own values.
Positivism is a broad term used to describe any approach that uses scientific methods to study human affairs; it is based on the belief that knowledge can be created based on certain assumptions.
The realist approach says that clear distinctions must be drawn between facts and values, with the assertion that facts are neutral, and as such the social world, like the natural world, is governed and regulated by certain ‘truths’ that can be discovered by theories.
Interpretivists argue that if we want to understand people’s actions we have first to understand those actions in the way that the participants do.
Interpretivists assert;
· The methods of the natural sciences are inappropriate to the study of social life.
· That sociologically significant behavior is meaningful.
· Humans are active, conscious beings, they make choices.
· Understanding cannot be just descriptions it must involve reasons.
· People do not simply respond to external stimuli but actively interpret the world.
· Data has to be interpreted; it does not ‘speak for itself’.
· Human behavior is intentional
In determining which theory is the most appropriate for to adopt when considering how we might study the media a basic understanding of each theory's strengths and weaknesses is necessary.
Max Weber described the interpretive methodology as "a science which aims at the interpretative understanding of social conduct and thus at the explanation of its causes, its course, and its effects."
(Weber.M cited in Mumms.J and Rajan.G, 1995, p239)
Critics of interpretivism and positivists might attack interpretive theory for being subjective and therefore being unreliable. I would suggest that this is not an accurate critique. Just as there can be poor positivistic theories, there can be poor interpretive theories. Likewise, there can be good positivistic and interpretive theories. An analogy to literary critique is the best illustration. As an English student, I have experienced and come to the conclusion that literary critique is always interpretive. For example, a positivistic critique of Hamlet would amount to nothing more than a catalogue of the number of times each word is used, the amount of ink, and the number of pages in the story. It would tell us nothing about the power and strength of the play. Interpretive approaches of Hamlet can be either good or bad. In my opinion, an interpretation that it is a play about "being happy" would be a bad interpretation, while a critique on revenge would be more accurate. The common experience of people who have seen or read the play helps determine the quality of an interpretation. While it is subjective, a reasonable determination can be made as to its value and I believe this to be a much more worthwhile view on this form of media and media as a whole. From this I can conclude that I take an ontological interpretivist position when looking at the world. However, interpretivism is certainly not the only theory that is available for use when studying the media and this should be noted when attempting to understand how the media can be studied.
Bibliography
Briggs.A and Cobley.P, The Media; An Introduction, 2002 Longman
Brinkley.D cited in Marris.P and Thornham.S, Media Studies A reader, 2002 Edinburgh University Press
Fiske.J, Media Matters, 1993, University of Minnesota Press
Orwell.G, Nineteen Eighty Four, 1987 Penguin
Orwell.G, Animal Farm, 1946 New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Inc
Weber.M cited in Mumms.J and Rajan.G, A Cultural Studies Reader, History, Theory, Practise, 1995 Longman