Demystifying Political Economy of media

Part 1

03 November 2021
What is political economy?
• Developed in the 18th century as the study of the
economies of states
• Political economy is a broad field, Karl Marx used it
to criticize capitalism
• The interaction between political and economic
processes in a society; including
• the distribution of power and wealth between
groups and individuals, and
• the processes that create, sustain and transform
these relationships over time
• Contestation of power between different groups and
individuals
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What is PE of Media?
• Examines the institutional aspects of media and
communication systems, with particular
attention to the historical relationships between
owners, labor, consumers, advertisers, and the
state
• Political and economic systems of the society in
which the media operate
• Political economic factors that shape the news
and advertisements
• The political and economic factors affecting the
choices of audience and their participation in
the democratic governance processes
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News is a matter of perspectives

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News-making process
• Video

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Gate-keeping
• Gate-keeping is the process through which
information is filtered for dissemination, be it
publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some
other type of communication.
• The theory was first instituted by social psychologist
Kurt Lewin in 1943

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How does media use its power?
• Several ways:
• 1) Access—controlling the means of mass
communication is one of the crucial conditions of
social power in contemporary information societies.
• Leading politicians, managers, scholars, or other
professionals have more or less controlled access to
many different forms of text and talk, such as
meetings, reports, press conferences, or press
releases. This is especially true for their access to
media discourse.
• Journalists will seek to interview them, ask their
opinion, and thus introduce them as major news actors
or speakers in news reports. If such elites are able to
control these patterns of media access, they are by
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definition more powerful than the media.
Contd…
2) Influence and social cognition: Rejection,
disbelief, criticism, or other forms of
resistance or challenge may be involved and
thus signal modes of counter power
3) Understanding: a lack of education may
seriously limit news understanding, as is
shown by much empirical research.
• In other words, powerlessness may involve
limited (passive) access to mass mediated
discourse due to a failure (fully) to understand
news texts themselves or the events such
texts are about.
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Contd…
• Fear mongering
• Demonization of the opposition
• Smear tactics: discredit, stain or destroy the
reputation of someone
• Fake News
• Government Propaganda through
Prepackaged News
• Subliminal perception is a deliberate process
created by communication technicians,
whereby you receive and respond to
information and instructions without being
aware of it 9
Elites are everywhere
• Mills : Every people is governed by an elite, by a
chosen element in the population
• Elites exist in all societies: a few exercise a
relatively great weight of power, and the many
exercise comparatively little-
• 200 elites in the UK, Jeremy Tunstall
• Journalists in the US: Strategic elites
• Are Bangladeshi journalists elite?
• Agents of elites (Reeves, 1993)
• Tech-elites, most rich people from Silicon Valley
• A “class for itself”—a social group that shares
particular views of the world 10
What is public opinion?
• No agreed definitions, at least four conditions:
1) there must be an issue
2) there must be a significant number of individuals
who express opinions on the issue
3) there must be some kind of a consensus among at
least some of these opinions, and
4) this consensus must directly or indirectly exert
influence
Question?

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What is agenda-setting?
• Agenda-points to be discussed; sometimes refers to
the list of topics itself :
• Agenda-setting--"ability [of the news media] to
influence the salience of topics on the public agenda."
• The more salient a news issue is - in terms of
frequency and prominence of coverage - the more
important news audiences will regard the issue to be
• Theory developed by Maxwell McCombs and
Donald Shaw in the late 1960s
• “Mass media have the ability to transfer the
salience of items on their news agendas to the
public agenda.”
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Contd…

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Seven laws of journalism
• J. Herbert Altschull (1984)
1. In all press systems, the news media are agents of those who
exercise political and economic power.
2. The content of the news media always reflects the interests of
those who finance the press
3. All press systems are based on belief in free expression, although
free expression is defined in different ways;
4. All press systems endorse the doctrine of social responsibility,
proclaiming that they serve the needs and interests of the people,
and state their willingness to provide access to the people;
5. The press of the other models is perceived to be deviant;
6. Schools of journalism transmit ideologies and value systems of
the society in which they exist and inevitably assist those in
power to maintain their control of the news media; and
7. Press practices always differ from theory
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Manufacturing consent
• EDWARD S. HERMAN and NOAM CHOMSKY 1988
• America has a system of indoctrination (including a system of
propaganda imposed largely by media)
• Five "filters" – Ownership of the medium, Medium’s funding
sources, Sourcing, Flak (negative statement against media
reporting), Anti-communist ideology
• Chomsky asserts that in order to break free, citizens must take
2 actions:
1. They must seek out information from ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
(media outside the mainstream and usually having a
particular point of view)
2. they must move toward change by becoming engaged in
community action -- because people can use their ordinary
intelligence to make changes in their lives and communities.
Grassroots movements begin there 15
Media biases
• Every news story is affected by: thoughts ,
opinions , background of these people:
interviewer , reporter , photographer, editor
• Bias through
• Selection and Omission
• Placement
• Photos
• Names and titles
• Statistics
• Word Choice & Tone
• Source Control
• Tone 16
Results of media bias
1. Ownership of media is held by major
corporations with interests and goals similar
to power elite elements of society
2. People with different views, "dissenting
voices," are not heard much
3. The breadth of debate is limited
4. The official stance and institutional memory
prevail and become history
5. People's interest and attention are often
diverted away from issues about which they
could become concerned 17
Public sphere
• The place or environment within which a person or thing exists
• Used to denote participatory democracy
• The arena where citizens come together, exchange opinions
regarding public affairs
• A central aspect of good governance
• The ideal public sphere is truly participatory and the best
protection against abuse of power
• German theorist Jurgen Habermas 1962
• The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• “made up of private people gathered together as a public and
articulating the needs of society within the state”
• A place where society discusses the issues that affect
everyone, it links us all together as one large community
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 Five pillars
• Constitutionally
guaranteed civil
liberties
• Free, plural, and
independent media
system not under
state control
• Access to public
information (RTI)
• Civil society
• Sites of everyday talk
about public affairs 19
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References
• Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky, Excerpted
from Manufacturing Consent, 1988,
https://chomsky.info/consent01/
• The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964)
Author(s): Jürgen Habermas, Sara Lennox, Frank Lennox
• The Influence of News Media on Political Elites:
Investigating Strategic Responsiveness in Congress,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24583048
• How Reliable is Your News Source? Understanding
Media Bias, https://
my.lwv.org/california/torrance-area/article/how-reliabl
e-your-news-source-understanding-media-bias-2021

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Do social media unite or divide us?

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