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‘We Media’ & Democracy<br />

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Topic Points:<br />What are ‘We Media’? <br />Where / how has ‘We Media’ emerged? <br />In what way are the contemporary media more democratic than before? <br />In what ways are the contemporary media less democratic than before? <br />

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In The Exam:<br />Historical – dependent on the requirements of the topic, candidates must summarise the development of the media forms in question in theoretical contexts. <br />Contemporary – current issues within the topic area. <br />Future – candidates must demonstrate personal engagement with debates about the future of the media forms / issues that the topic relates to. <br />

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Theorists/Theories<br />Marxist Theory/Gramsci/Frankfurt School<br />Chomsky – Media Control<br />David Gauntlett<br />Dan Gillmor<br />Fourth Estate<br />Chris Anderson – The Long Tail<br />

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Cultural Effects: Marxist View<br />The dominant ideology of a society is the ideology of the dominant or ruling class<br />The mass media disseminates the dominant ideology: the values of the class which owns and controls the media<br />Notion of domination<br />

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Gramsci: Hegemony<br />The supremacy of the bourgeoisie is based on economic domination and intellectual/moral leadership<br />A class had succeeded in persuading the other classes of society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values<br />However, this consent is not always peaceful, and may combine physical force or coercion with intellectual, moral and cultural inducement<br />The American Dream?<br />

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Can the working class achieve hegemony?<br />If the working class is to achieve hegemony, it needs patiently to build up a network of alliances with social minorities. <br />These new coalitions must respect the autonomy of the movement, so that each group can make its own special contribution toward a new socialist society.<br />The working class must unite popular democratic struggles with its own conflict against the capital class, so as to strengthen a national popular collective will.<br />

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The Frankfurt School Modernist Approach<br />Mass audience as passive and gullible<br />‘hypodermic needle’ effects model<br />Pessimistic claims about media indoctrination<br />Mass culture disseminates the dominant ideology of the bourgeoisie<br />

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Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent<br />The main aim of a media company is to make money<br />Newspapers achieve this through advertising revenue<br />This has an impact on the news values and news selection<br />Can lead to editorial bias<br />News businesses that favour profit over public interest succeed<br />

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Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent<br />Further distortion through the reliance of newspapers on private and governmental news sources<br />If a newspaper displeases, they may no longer be privy to that source of information<br />They will lose out on stories, lose readers and ultimately advertisers<br />news media businesses editorially distort their reporting to favour government and corporate policies in order to stay in business<br />

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Editorial Bias: Five Filters<br />Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation<br />The Advertising License to Do Business<br />Sourcing Mass Media News<br />Flak and the Enforcers<br />Anti-Communism<br />

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Size, Ownership and Profit Orientation<br />The dominant mass-media outlets are large corporations which are run for profit<br />Therefore they must cater to the financial interest of their owners <br />

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The Advertising License to do Business<br />Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising advertisers have acquired a "de-facto licensing authority". <br />Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. <br />News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. <br />This has weakened the working-class press<br />

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Sourcing Mass Media News<br />The large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidise the mass media, and gain special access to the news, by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring and producing, news. <br />The large entities that provide this subsidy become 'routine' news sources and have privileged access to the gates. <br />Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers<br />

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Concept: Fourth Estate<br />Is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognised<br />Print Journalism<br />The concept that the press is an instrument of democracy providing a check on the abuse of government power<br />It is the myth that the press is a vital defender of the people? – think about Chomsky!<br />

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Editorial Bias Anyone?!<br />

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Concept: Fourth Estate – The Radical Press<br />Early 1800s the printing press became accessible to all<br />Radical journalists starting addressing vital issues through the press<br />Challenged mainstream editors<br />Poor Man’s Guardian linked to National Union of the working classes<br />Independent of established political pressure and still free from any commercial influence<br />A working class movement<br />Libel prosecution<br />Press taxes<br />It was agreed among the elite that it was dangerous to social order for the working class to have a printing press<br />

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Key Thinking Points<br />Do we have a free press?<br />What constraints do journalists face when working for a corporation?<br />How far is news media controlled or constrained by those in power?<br />Are newspapers really the Fourth Estate?<br />

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David Gauntlett: Web 2.0<br />Tim Berner’s Lee invented the Internet with the vision that people would be connected and creative<br />“He imagined that browsing the Web would be a matter of writing and editing, not just searching and reading” – Gauntlett<br />Web 2.0 invites users to play<br />We are seeing a shift away from a ‘sit back and be told’ culture towards more of a ‘making and doing’ culture<br />

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Web 2.0<br />Includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and reuse<br />Has resulted in an increasing ‘globalisation’<br />The birth of a more ‘participatory culture’<br />Moving from a communication model of ‘one-to-many’ to a ‘many to many’ system<br />

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Keith Bassett: Cyberspace Democracy<br />“The public intellectual of today must now be much more alive to the possibilities for participating in what could become a new ‘cyberspace democracy’ – an expanded public sphere which is less academic and less elitist”<br />

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David Gauntlett: Web 2.0<br />In the case of the media, there is obviously the shift towards internet-based interactivity<br />At least 3/4th of UK population are regular internet users<br />More than 1/3rd of people have a Facebook account<br />More and more people are writing blogs, participating in online discussions, sharing information, music and photo, and uploading video.<br />

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New Media<br />Increased interactivity of audiences<br />Poststructuralist theory sees the audience as active participators in the creation of meaning<br />In a postmodern world consumption is seen as a positive and participatory act<br />An increased ‘democratisation’?<br />

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Citizen Journalism<br />Theorist Mark Poster says the internet provides a ‘Habermasian public sphere’ – a cyberdemocratic network for communicating information and points of view that will eventually transform into public opinion.<br />

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Dan Gillmor: Citizen Journalists<br />‘Big media’ have enjoyed control over who gets to produce and share media<br />Effect on democracy <br />Who owns these companies?<br />Are we represented?<br />Gillmor sees the Internet as a catalyst for a challenge to this established hegemony<br />Gillmor calls bloggers ‘the former audience’: news blogs a new form of people’s journalism<br />

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Citizen Journalism in Iraq<br />Blogs offered an alternative to the Western media’s accounts<br />Collaboration of wikispaces, children’s news blogs and Persian networkers using the Net for a collective voice in a country where free speech is curtailed<br />

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Chris Anderson: The Long Tail<br />How the Internet has transformed economics, commerce and consumption<br />Revenue from niche products now adds up to the same as from blockbuster products<br />Internet allows people to look for and share a wider variety of products<br />Range of filtering services<br />Broadband allows us to behave in ways that fit our instincts<br />

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Is New Media Equal?<br />Not a symbol of ‘participatory culture’, the Internet is regarded by some as a dangerous and out of control technology that undermines civil society<br />An instrument of repression?<br />‘Digital divide’<br />‘Myth of interactivity’ <br />China?<br />

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Utopians<br />One side sees the internet as a technology of freedom that is empowering humankind <br />making accessible the world’s knowledge, building ‘emancipated subjectivities’, promoting anew progressive global politics, and laying the foundation of the ‘new economy’. <br />The other sees the internet as an over-hyped technology whose potential value has been undermined by ‘digital capitalism’ andsocial inequality<br />

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Dystopians<br />The internet came to exhibit incongruent features. <br />It is still a decentralised system in which information is transmitted via independent variable pathways through dispersed computer power. <br />But on top of this isimposed a new technology of commercial surveillance which enables commercial operators – and potentially governments – to monitor whatpeople do online<br />

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For The Exam<br />Explore both sides of the argument that media is becoming more democratic<br />Explore the difference that ‘we media’ makes to citizens<br />You must explore two types of media e.g. news and social networkin<br />