Pluralists view the media owners as interested in profits rather than promoting their ideology, thus have little direct impact on the media content since all their efforts are put into maximising profits. In order to maximise profits, the media owners create conglomerates, whereby the concentration of media ownership is increased. Since conglomerates have shared ownership, the owners’ power is diluted. DAVIES argues journalists have become ‘churnalists’, i.e. processors of unchecked information, who are not interested in the content as much as profit due to commercial pressure. However, Marxists argue the media owners have direct control over editors and indirect control over journalists by having the power to hire and fire, thus interfering in the media content by ensuring conformist views of the editors. Murdoch arguing in favour of the Iraq war and all of his newspapers around the world backing his views proves this point. Neo-Marxists have a slightly different explanation to why such interference occurs, citing similar educational backgrounds of journalists and editors that naturally force them into acceptance of hegemonic values of the ruling class without necessarily making them actively wanting to impose their ideology onto the audiences. Nonetheless, people like Murdoch are not representative of all media owners, who in fact do not take such a prominent role in determining the media output; some media are owned by trusts (eg. The Guardian), which diminishes the possibility of the owners’ intervention.
Pluralism argues the media owners want to satisfy and maintain the audiences, and they try to do so by producing a diverse range of media content with a wide representation of views. Pluralists thus argue the media companies producing niche material merely do so according the audience demands, not in an attempt to exclude some audiences. The audiences are seen as active in shaping the media content though the market mechanism of supply and demand. WHALE exemplifies this view with the Sun’s move from a socialist to tabloid newspaper as a result of losing its popularity (and partly due to a changing political situation). Postmodernists support Pluralists in noting the active role audiences play, particularly in interpreting and choosing media content. However, Marxists and Neo-Marxists argue that it is media that shapes the public demand (primarily through ads), not the other way around.
Pluralists also note the important role of the media regulations that prevent the media owners from dominating the output. Besides OFCOM, Pluralists argue the media is protected from bias by the PSB. PSB is the epitome of impartial and objective media. PSB ensures a plurality of views represented in the media, particularly TV programmes. Eg BBC protects news and children’s programmes from domination of a certain viewpoint, as well as protecting from harmful content like graphic violence. PSB is impartial by law, thus Pluralists argue these regulations prevent the media owners from imposing bias. However, Marxists point out that even PSB is not protected from impartiality: for a long time the Chairman of the BBC Trust used to be Patten, who had been a Tory MP and a cabinet minister, which suggests inevitability of influence of political bias.
Pluralists see the media owners as facilitators of democratic political processes as well as providers of political awareness and education. Representation of the views of active audiences, who, according to Pluralists, shape the media output, is the key element of upholding democracy. Even though Murdoch’s influence on his media may be seen as undemocratic, it can alternatively be considered democratic, according to WHALE. He argues that by transforming the Sun, Murdoch gave the consumers what they wanted, thus represented their views. However, it does not outweigh the significance of close cooperation between Murdoch and high profile politicians, which inevitably leads to some views being more prioritised. Nonetheless, Pluralists note the importance of investigative journalism in preventing the dominance of the powerful. The importance of Washington Post journalists in the Watergate scandal proves this power.
In conclusion, Pluralists view of the media ownership is rather too positive. While focusing on how the media represents a plurality of views due to economic importance of audience demand, Pluralists overlook the importance of concentration of media ownership. Given the Marxist and Neo-Marxist take on the negative consequences of concentration of media ownership, the main Pluralist arguments about representativeness and impartiality do not stand up to scrutiny.
by
repinaleragmailcom (student)
