The Media

An Introduction

Daniele Albertazzi, Paul Cobley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317865216
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Today, arguably more than at any time in the past, media are the key players in contributing to what defines reality for the citizens of Europe and beyond. This book provides an introduction to the way that the media occupy such a position of prominence in contemporary human existence.

This expanded and fully updated third edition of the bestselling The Media: An Introduction collects in one volume thirty-six specially commissioned essays to offer unrivalled breadth and depth for an introduction to the study of contemporary media. It addresses the fundamental questions about today's media – for example, digitisation and its effects, new distribution technologies, and the implications of convergence, all set against the backdrop of a period of profound social and economic change in Europe and globally.

Key features:

• Expert contributions on each topic
• Approachable, authoritative contributions provide a solid theoretical overview of the media industry and comprehensive empirical guide to the institutions that make up the media.
• Further Reading and related web-resource listings encourage further study.

New to this edition:

• New five part structure provides a broad and coherent approach to media: Part 1 Understanding the Media; Part 2 What Are the Media?; Part 3 The Media Environment; Part 4 Audiences, Influences and Effects; Part 5 Media Representations.
• Brand new chapters on: Approaches to Media; Media Form; Models of Media Institutions; The Media in Europe; Photography; Book Publishing; Newspapers; Magazines; Radio; Television; The Internet and the Web; News Media; Economics; Policy; Public Service Broadcasting in Europe; Censorship and Freedom of Speech; Audience Research; Sexualities; Gender; Social Class; Media and Religion; The Body, Health and Illness; Nationality and Sex Acts.
• Other chapter topics from the last edition fully updated
• A wider, more comparative focus on Europe.

The Media: An Introduction will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, journalism, film studies, the sociology of the media, popular culture and other related subjects.

Part 1

Understanding the Media

Introduction

Daniele Albertazzi and Paul Cobley

We have said already that this book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. Instead, you should consult parts of it for your own purposes and be dictated by your own needs (although, on the other hand, keep in mind that a little curiosity always pays off in the end). If there is only one part of this book that you have decided to read in its entirety, however, then by all means make it this one. Part 1 works as a long introduction to the whole volume and we see it as invaluable in enabling you to make the best use of what follows.

The first thing you will learn from Part 1 is that both the production and the study of media takes place within, and is informed by, specific perspectives. It is not difficult to understand how this happens to be so in the case of the production of mediated messages, as media proprietors and media institutions will inevitably be characterised by specific interests and views that they may want (or, when times get tough, even need) to promote, and doing so through the ‘all powerful’ media is a temptation that many seem unable to resist. What may be easier to miss, however, is the extent to which research into the media (whether funded by advertisers, private companies and the media industries themselves, or whether carried out by scholars, or both) inevitably reflects approaches, intellectual interests and beliefs that will inescapably generate different forms of understanding. While these interests may all be legitimate, in dealing with them, and in thinking about the possible consequences for the production of knowledge that they entail, you must enquire about what agendas they might in the end serve. This part thus starts with a chapter on ‘Approaches to the Media’ which will help you refine your theoretical tools by making you aware not only of which theoretical approaches have informed the study of media since ‘media studies’ started taking shape as a discipline, but also, importantly, of the political reasons why such approaches have been deployed (or else have been contested and maybe even rejected). Do not be fooled by the bad press some of the ‘isms’ presented in Chapter 1 usually get: not only are they are important (for the reasons mentioned above) but they also have very ‘practical’ applications. When properly understood, therefore, Marxist cultural criticism, for instance, will force you to interrogate the extent to which the mediated text inevitably reveals something about (and, in turn, is shaped by) the (often forgotten) material and social conditions of its production, while feminism will help you uncover the extent to which ‘society constructs and maintains unequal relations between the sexes, what are called patriarchal (male centered) relationships of power’ (Chapter 1, p. 13) also, although not exclusively, through the communication process.

Following this discussion about how the media have been studied and were conceptu-alised in different contexts and for different purposes, the following chapter focuses on the ‘forms’ of representation with which audiences engage. Whatever the mediated ‘content’ you decide (or are ‘volunteered’ by your lecturer) to approach, such content ‘is only rendered through the form’ (Chapter 2, p. 35), i.e. a specific combination of signs, in which it is expressed. The chapter thus illustrates what is involved in formal analysis and explains why you should, as students, care to find out about it. The short answer to this question is that the relationship between ‘form’ and ‘content’ is far from being a simple one and yet remains inescapable, whatever the media we might be using.

Part 1 then proceeds to consider different ‘Models of Media Institutions’, since, after all, these are the very entities that make the production of mediated content possible in the first place. Taking television as a case study, Chapter 3 will reveal several differences in the way this medium has developed in Europe. Focusing on the extent to which institutions reflect and, in turn, affect ‘political systems, political philosophies, cultural traits and economic conditions’ (p. 46), the chapter discusses the effects recent processes of ‘liberalisation’ of the airwaves have had on the quality of programmes, the economics of television, media regulation and the development of public service broadcasting. The existence of a ‘dual television system’ (i.e. based on a model of private television vs. public service broadcasting) is shown to be typical of European broadcasting and crucial to fostering pluralism – a major preoccupation of European nations, and the EU as a whole. In revealing how this dualism is being challenged across Europe by the deployment of new technologies, this analysis opens the way to debating the final topic covered by this first part, i.e. the extent to which it is possible to compare national media systems at all and even talk about a ‘Europeanisation’ of national media in recent years (Chapter 4). As we have signalled in the introduction, and as Chapter 3 itself shows, although the media in Europe remain very national, and even parochial, there are many features of media systems across the continent (an obvious example being the determination with which sectors such as television are subject to regulation, or the extent to which public service broadcasting is still seen as vital) which now look truly ‘European’. Moreover, the EU has indeed provided a framework that is lending European media some unity, while also helping to develop and defend those media. While the issue of the unity of European media still needs discussion, this book works from the observation that Europe provides the specific social context within which national media systems (including the UK one) need to be considered and conceptualised. Chapter 4 will provide you with the grounding to understand why this is the case.

1

Approaches to the Media

Joanne Sayner

Chapter overview

This chapter considers a variety of theoretical approaches to the media. It suggests why they have been useful and what their limitations might be. It emphasises that contemporary media theorists often combine approaches and that their choice depends not only on their case studies but also on their political point of view. The chapter considers the continued influence of Marxism on approaches to media and looks at theories based on political economy and the work of the Frankfurt School. Approaches which focus on reception and the consumption of media, for example ethnography and uses and gratifications theory, are looked at alongside those which posit a more universal understanding of how individuals and language work, for example psychoanalysis and semiotics. The chapter ends by looking at the continued relevance of feminist approaches and also suggests areas which have yet to be developed fully by theorists of the media.

Introducing the terrain

There is no single approach to the media. Media critics have become adept at using all the tools at their disposal to interrogate their diverse and complex case studies. What is required of a media critic today is a willingness to question the usefulness of different theories, to test out their appropriateness for a constantly changing media landscape. This requires an ability to combine different approaches.

No media theories exist in a vacuum and the links, parallels and similarities between them inevitably make the picture more complex. Very often approaches to media are responses to what has gone before. They tackle what are perceived to be past limitations and criticisms. The aim of this chapter is to explain some of the key ideas of some of the key approaches. It will point to why these approaches are, or have been, productive. The following narrative emphasises similarities and links – it could have been told in many different ways and many other theories could have been included.

We students of the media need these tools to help us consider the production, distribution and consumption of the ideas which become dominant in our societies. It is unquestionably significant to think about the role of individuals, of information and of technologies, to be able to examine questions of power and resistance. The following overview looks at approaches based on Marxism, political economy, the Frankfurt School, ethnography, uses and gratifications, psychoanalysis, semiotics and feminism. Whichever approaches you adopt, they will challenge you. Make sure to challenge them back.

‘Replace capitalism with something nice’: Marxist approaches to media

At the heart of many media theories are some key ideas from Marxism. These theories have been understood and interpreted in different ways since they were first written. In his now famous text, ‘Preface’, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy of 1859 (2004), Karl Marx sets out a theory of how the economic conditions of society, the base, determine the ideas, thoughts and beliefs of a society, the superstructure. This theory has fed into different approaches to media, which can be broadly defined as those which focus on the base, those which focus on the superstructure, and those which look at the relationship between the two; although of course, it is always more complicated than that! A strictly determinist reading, one in which the base entirely determines the superstructure, would mean that, for example, a capitalist system would completely shape the dominant ideas of a society in a one directional way. This was because, according to Marx, those who owned the capitalist means of production also had control of these ideas. These ideas, referred to as ideology, would include our culture, our media institutions and all representations. As all elements of production in society involve ideas and communication, all will be affected by the economic base. However, a mono-directional link between the base and superstructures is often referred to as vulgar Marxism; such a reductive reading (one which reduces everything to the economic base) has been rejected by most contemporary media theorists (and arguably by Marx himself). Current approaches prefer to focus on the complex interrelationships between economic conditions and the ideologies and cultures that result from them.

Vital to any approaches involving Marxism nevertheless continues to be the attention to the material conditions we live in at any given point in time. By referring to material conditions, I mean the very practical ways we live our lives at home, at work and in relation to the media. Marxist, materialist critics continue to believe that economic conditions construct and influence our media systems and the production, reproduction and representation of ideas within them. As Marx believed that history progressed in a very specific way an awareness of historical context is vital for such approaches. For him, history was a succession of different models of society from feudal to capitalist, socialist and, ultimately, communist. This idea, referred to as historical materialism, causes us to look at a particular social period and the economic relationships prevailing at that point in time and to link them to cultural production and distribution.

The progression from one type of economic system to another was matched, for Marx, by a change in the relations of production or the class relationships which accompanied it (in feudal times landowners and peasants, in capitalist societies workers and bourgeoisie). Class, as David James explains, therefore ‘designates a position in the economic structure of society’ (1996: 5). Marxist approaches to media aim to highlight these class relations and divisions with a hope of changing them.

The extent to which these ideas are seen to be useful often depends on the critic’s understanding of the relationship between economics and the other questions vital for cultural and media studies, for example ideas of representation and meaning-making. Many current media approaches look at the interaction between cultural, economic and political forces, but for those theorists who approach the media based on theories of Marxism, and particularly that of political economy, economic conditions remain of vital importance.

‘Money, money, money’: political economy approaches to media

Political economy approaches are ones which look at the ways in which economic factors affect the production and consumption of the media. More specifically, they involve ‘the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources’ (Mosco 1998: 25). The inclusion of consumption within this definition is a relatively recent development. Past definitions of political economy margin-alised questions of audiences and media content, of meanings and interpreting texts. Nowadays, however, an understanding of political economy can prove extremely productive as part of other approaches focused on ideas of representation, as Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner insist: ‘Inserting texts into the system of culture within which they are produced and distributed can help elucidate features and effects of the texts that textual analysis alone might miss or downplay’ (2006: xxvii). Contemporary political economy approaches therefore strive to look at the interrelationships between the base and superstructure. An approach based on political economy of the media ‘endeavors to connect how media and communication systems and content are shaped by ownership, market structures, commercial support, technologies, labor practices, and government policies’ (McChesney 2008: 12). Following this, a political economy approach to print media, for example, would consider media institutions (who are the big publishing houses, who owns them?) and their contexts (what regulatory bodies are in operation? who funds advertising?).

Recently, media critics have looked at interactions between structural, economic questions and issues of representation in relation to questions of democracy, nationalism, transnationalism and globalisation (Chakravartty and Zhao 2007). These approaches have been particularly productive in addressing non-European, non-Northern American contexts in terms of power and the media. Approaches of political economy have also proven particularly effective in examinations of the ownership and concentration of new media (Mansell 2004: 98). For example, as the internet becomes ever more present in certain areas of our society researchers are increasingly investigating its i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures, photos and tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Publisher’s acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1: Understanding the Media
• Part 2: What are the Media?
• Part 3: The Media Environment: Policy, Economics and Institutions
• Part 4: Audiences, Influences and Effects
• Part 5: Media Representations
• Index