Evaluate the pluralist view of the ownership and control of the mass media free essay sample

There are a wide variety of conflicting views of the role of the mass media in society. There are two dominant views, the pluralist and Marxist theories of mass media, which shall be evaluated in depth during the course of this essay. The mass media is defined as, the means by which messages and images are communicated to a mass audience, through various ‘Mass Communication Technologies’ (MCTs). For example, the Internet is a very powerful and influential MCT, used for communicating and sharing important information worldwide. MCTs serve to educate, persuade and inform and entertain their audience. Pluralists believe that the mass media is reflective of social reality, and acts as a mirror. They say that the mass media has a functional role in meeting the demands of its mass audience, and owes a duty to the people. Marxists argue, the mass media constructs desires and creates social reality based on the rich and powerful people’s views. In other words, Marxists believe that it is a sculptor of a worldview and distorts social reality, which is based on exploitation of a powerless majority. This makes it an ideological tool of the powerful bourgeoisie and reflects their interests predominantly. Pluralists believe that the view of the mass media is to ensure that society consists of complex competing groups and interests, which all interact with one another. These groups are important to an idealistic democratic society, where a neutral state provides them with equal access to resources and influence. Pluralists feel that the mass media are free of government control, the audience actively choose the version of reality that they absorb. Audiences provide feedback by conforming or disagreeing with a particular medium’s view of reality. The media is seen as reflecting society, it does not have a significant role in changing it. Jones (1986), argues that radio news is â€Å"neutral, balanced and fair†. This would mean that radio news is unbiased and reports facts. However, it must be noted that Jones is a correspondent on BBC radio, and is thus a biased source himself. The recent phone hacking scandal suggests that employees at News International newspapers have been prepared to break the law in order to secure information, which has infringed individual privacy. However some would argue that this story has come to light in the mass media, which illustrates its investigative qualities. This would provide support for the democratic pluralist approach to the study of the mass media and that if Rupert Murdochs plans to take full ownership of Sky are blocked, this would theoretically help to restrict the extent of monopoly ownership and control within the mass media. Recent trends in media ownership and control suggest that the number of companies controlling global mass media has significantly shrunk in recent years. Bagdikian (2004) notes that in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the USA, but by 2004 media ownership was concentrated in seven corporations. Curran (2003), notes that ownership of British newspapers has always been concentrated in the hands of a few powerful ‘press barons’, for example, in 1937, four men owned nearly one in every two national and local daily newspapers sold in Britain. Today, seven powerful individuals dominate the ownership of British national daily and Sunday newspapers. The content of commercial terrestrial television is mainly controlled by one company, ITV plc. Whilst access to satellite, cable and digital television in Britain is generally controlled by two companies – News Corp, (Rupert Murdoch), which owns Sky, and Virgin Media (Richard Branson). Pluralists also argue that concentration of ownership is a product of economic rationality rather than political or sinister motives. It is driven by the need to keep costs low and to maximise profits. Globalisation too results from the need to find new audiences rather than from cultural imperialism. Pluralists argue that it is practically impossible for owners to interfere with the content of newspapers and television programmes because their businesses are economically far too complex for them to regularly interfere in the day-to-day running, or the content. Marxists argue that the economic system of Britain, capitalism, is characterised by great inequalities in wealth and income, which have been brought about by the exploitation of the labour power of the working classes. Marxists believe that in order to legitimate and reproduce this system of inequality, the capitalist class uses its cultural power to dominate institutions like education and the mass media and transmit ruling class ideology. The function of these agencies is to socialise the working class into accepting the legitimacy of the capitalist system and capitalist ideas through what the mass mediated news is feeding its audiences. The audiences are expected to passively accept what they are being ‘fed’. Consequently, Marxists argue working class people experience false class-consciousness – they come to accept that capitalism is a just system that benefits all social groups equally. They fail to see the reality of their situation that they are being exploited by a system that only benefits a powerful minority.