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Critiques of libertarian and
social responsibility theories
Chomsky/ Herman, Curran,
McQuail, McChesney
Curran’s ‘radical’ critique

Mass Media and Democracy: a Reappraisal.
Proposes:
– A revised, enlarged, deepened, radical understanding of
the role of journalism in a democracy.
– A new way of organising the media.
Critique of watchdog role
In classical liberal thought the public watchdog
oversees the state, reveals abuses in the exercise
of state authority.
 Watchdog role overrides all other functions of the
media and dictates the form in which the media
should be organised, i.e. the free market.
Independence from government.
 But, does critical surveillance of government justify
continued capitalist organisation of the press?

Is the watchdog role paramount? Most media
these days are given over to entertainment. Only a
small proportion of news is devoted to critical
scrutiny of the state.
 Also, why does the watchdog role only apply to the
state?
 What about the exercise of power through
structures other than the state? Role of the press
as a defence against exploitation in the private
sphere (home and economy)?

Market-based media are not independent of all
structures of power, both private and public.
 Under monopoly capitalism, media have
sometimes refrained from investigating critically
the activities of the conglomerates to which they
belong. Compromises editorial integrity – impairs
oversight of private corporate power.
 Media conglomerates as independent power
centres which use their political leverage to pursue
corporate gain.

The Propaganda Model
Traditional theorists see propaganda as being a
useful conceptual tool to apply to media products
of totalitarian dictatorships while applicable to the
media of Western democracies only in exceptional
periods (war).
 But, Chomsky and Herman argue that the
propaganda function is a permanent feature of
Western media systems.

The powerful elite “fix the premises of discourse,
to decide what the general populace is allowed to
see, hear and think about and to manage public
opinion by regular propaganda campaigns”.
 Journalists’ exalted claims to be working as the
noble Fourth Estate are rhetoric. Media practices
do not reflect genuine public spiritedness but
rather a concern to boost sales/ ratings.
Infotainment accompanies depoliticisation of civil
society.


But, radical accounts that stress the ‘incorporation’
of commercial media by big business also need to
be viewed critically:
– Do they analyse countervailing influences within
media organisations that make for relative
journalistic independence? E.g. The self-image
and professional commitments of journalists
(resistance to owner pressure), normative public
support for journalistic independence.

Public service broadcasting organisations have
also resisted editorial interference from
governments:
– In liberal democracies political elites support
broadcasting independence. Why? Ministers
know that one day they will need access to
broadcasting when they are voted out of office.
(Does this apply in SA?)
– Some broadcasting corporations are difficult to
‘capture’ because power is decentralised within
them or because they are protected by an
internal system of checks and balances.
– The ultimate defence of public service
broadcasting is public support.
Pilger on public broadcasting
“Perhaps in no other country does broadcasting hold
such a privileged position as opinion leader as in
Britain. When ‘information’ is conveyed on the BBC
with such professional gravitas, it is more likely to
be believed. Possessing highly professional talent,
the illusion of impartiality and an essentially liberal
ethos, Britain’s ‘public service broadcasting’ has
become a finely crafted and infinitely adaptable
instrument of state propaganda and censorship.”
John Pilger
So…
Vigilance of the press can be blunted by the
economic interests and partisan loyalties of its
controllers.
 Vigilance of public service broadcasting can be
undermined by covert pressure from governments.
Broadcast authorities can be packed with govt
supporters; financial pressure can be exerted;
informal and formal representations can be made
to promote self-censorship; future of broadcasting
organisations can be threatened through legislative
reorganisation. (SABC?)

Watchdog role does not even characterise most
media, since they are mostly given over to
entertainment.
 The public watchdog role of the media does not
legitimate a free market media system. Liberal
argument based on two false premises:

– State is the main threat to the welfare of society (what
about exploitation and oppression emanating from other
sources?)
– Media become independent by being independent of the
state (private media are increasingly linked through
private ownership to corporate structures of power in a
form that compromise their independence)
Countervailing influences that can prevent
subordination of media to the state or private
interests are highly developed in some public
broadcasting systems, but much less developed in
the unregulated private sector.
 Simple, unthinking subscription to the free market
problematic – instead need practical measures
which will strengthen media vigilance.
 Public watchdog perspective is negative and
defensive. It defines the role of the media in terms
of monitoring government, protecting the public.
 Stops short of the Habermasian conception of the
media as an instrument of the popular will.

One strand within traditional liberal thought with
affinities with Habermas is the ‘Fourth Estate’
perspective. Press subject to an election every time
they go on sale – press as a fully representative
institution and should be accepted as a partner in
the process of government.
 Sovereign consumer – shape and nature of the
press is determined by no one but its readers due
to the hidden hand of the free market. Media
owners must reflect the views and values of
audiences to stay in business.
 Curran: MYTH that the free market produces a
media system which responds to and expresses
the views and values of the buying public.

Free press: “persuasive mythology”
1. Media oligopolies:
–
–
–
–
Reduced media diversity, audience choice and public
control.
Long-term reduction in the number of competing
newspapers (local monopolies and chain ownership).
But, part of the media system has grown (specialised
magazines, internet, local radio stations, satellite TV).
On the other hand, there is increased domination of
the media in national and international contexts.
Enormous resources commanded by conglomerates,
their large economies of scale, and extensive
domination of linked markets (undermines the
functioning of the market as a free and open contest).
2. Rising capitalisation of media industries restricts
entry:
–
–
–
–
Still possible to enter marginal media sectors (local
freesheets, local radio and specialist mags), but they
have little influence.
“We would find it strange now if we made voting rights
dependent upon purchasing power or property rights
and yet access to the mass media, as both channels of
information and for a of debate, is largely controlled by
just such power and property rights.” Garnham
More media outlets now, but has this produced more
diversity/ choice? Markets impose limits on the
diversity generated by expansion. E.g. Why is there no
leftish take on the news?
In the pre-industrial phase it was possible for a wide
spectrum of individuals or social groups to set up their
trestle tables in the free market place of ideas. No
longer the case.
3. The relationship between media and audiences
has been transformed since 19th century.
–
–
–
Audiences much larger and heterogeneous (no longer
shared beliefs/ common interest that can be
‘represented’).
The rise of entertainment content – people don’t
consume media for political reinforcement any more.
The Sun (UK) devotes less than 15% of editorial
content to public affairs news and comment, and sells
to a politically divided audience of 10 million readers.
It connects to structures of feeling among its readers
but does not represent them in a political sense.
4. Do media controllers subordinate their ideological
commitments to the imperatives of the market?
Murdock as evidence to the contrary?
5. The concept of sovereign consumer control ignores
the voluminous sociological literature which
shows the varied ways in which audience
pressures are selectively interpreted, ‘refracted’
and even resisted within media organisations.
6. Idealised notion of market democracy ignores the
central financing role of advertising in media:
 Direct and indirect editorial influence.
 Structure of the press is oriented more upscale than downscale
audiences – larger advertising subsidy per reader.
 Reproduction of economic inequalities – particularly acute in
South Africa.
Professional responsibility model
Cult of professionalism a way of reconciling market
flaws with the traditional conception of the
democratic role of the media.
 Curran critiques professionalism as a rhetorical
strategy to hide journalism’s inherent pro-systemic
bias.
 Professionalism implies standards and procedures,
which means journalists tend to act as responsible
members of the political establishment, upholding
the dominant political perspective.

Professionalism asserts journalists’ commitment to
higher goals – neutrality, objectivity a commitment
to truth. Adopt procedures for verifying facts,
drawing on different sources, presenting rival
interpretations.
 Ensures that the pluralism of information and
opinion, once secured through the clash of
adversaries in the free market, could be recreated
through the ‘internal pluralism’ of monopolistic
media.
 Market pressures to sensationalise and trivialise
offset by professionalism.
 But, journalistic autonomy, professional judgement
not assured within media organisations which do
not have as their central goal the realisation of
professional norms.

Scientisation of news reporting – focusing on
technical, strategic and insider perspectives of
politics – enables reporter to avoid being exposed
as necessarily subjective participants in the
political process.
 Horse race elections, not democratic inquest –
journalists take refuge in a neutral form of
interpretation.
 Mechanistic reliance on conventional news values.

Defects of traditional perspective
1.
Traditional role of media defined in terms of
affording communication between government
and the citizen, and providing the basis on which
public opinion (aggregate of individual opinion) is
formed.
 But, in modern liberal democracies, individuals seek to
influence public opinion and govt through collective
organisations (parties, unions, business orgs, and
myriad structures of civil society). These are the building
blocks of the contemporary democratic system –
traditional liberal theory has nothing to say about how
the media should relate to these, and enhance their
democratic performance.
2. Untenable distinction between information and
representation.
– Detaches information form its political and social
context. Different ways of interpreting and making sense
of society, different linguistic codes and conceptual
categories, different versions of ‘common sense’
privilege the interest of some while disadvantaging
others.
– The media’s informational role is never purely
informational – it is also a way of arbitrating between the
discursive frameworks of organised groups in ways that
can potentially affect the distribution of resources and
rewards in society. Usually, one class or social coalition
is able to naturalise its interests because it dominates
the channels of cultural production. Debate is limited to
‘legitimate’ areas of controversy, assumptions do not
challenge the structure of social power.
3. Overstates the rationality of public discourse. What
about non-rational elements in opinion formation.
4. Entertainment usually omitted from analysis of
media’s democratic functioning – doesn’t conform
to the classic liberal conception of rational
exchange.
– But, entertainment is one means by which people
engage at an intuitive level in a public dialogue about
the direction of society. Media fiction provides cognitive
maps that structure and interpret reality and provide a
commentary on common social processes.
– Entertainment excluded because of the assumption that
the sole democratic purpose of media is to effect
changes in govt policy and exercise control over the
state. (Public-private distinction.)
5. Does not distinguish between the legal right to
publish and the economic opportunity to do so.
Limits the ability of sections of the community to
voice effectively their interests, their opinions, their
view of relative priorities.
Journalists and objectivity
Can journalists transcend their own subjectivity in
accounting for the facts?
 Does such a demand rest on plausible
philosophical assumptions about the nature of,
and relations between, perception, the external
world, facts and values?

The biases of objectivity
Theodore Glasser: As a set of beliefs, objectivity is
rooted in a positivistic view of the world – a
commitment to external, observable, and
retrievable facts.
 Such an ideology promotes three kinds of bias:

Bias against the watchdog role of the media in
favour of the status quo.
To remain value neutral, only news sources with
impeccable credentials (invariably prominent
members of society) are quoted. The democratic
process requires the participation of ordinary
citizens as much as those who are prominent.
1.
2. Bias against independent thinking.
Journalists have to remain impartial and value
neutral – therefore no longer the need nor the
opportunity to develop a critical perspective from
which to assess the events, the issues, the
personalities he or she is assigned to cover.
3. Bias against the journalist’s assumption of
responsibility for what is reported.
News seen to exist “out there” (independent of the
reporter), so journalists can’t be held responsible
for it. The day’s news is viewed as something
journalists are compelled to report, not something
they are responsible for creating. Objectivity in
journalism effectively erodes the very foundation
on which rests a responsible press.

“News is never a mere recording or reporting of the
world ‘out there’ but a synthetic, value-laden
account which carries within it dominant
assumptions and ideas of the society within which
it is produced.”
Theodore Glasser
Development media theory
Developing countries lack infrastructure, finance,
professional skills, even audiences, needed to
sustain media institutions comparable to
developed world.
 Media subject to economic dependence, foreign
domination and arbitrary authoritarianism.
 Media theory for development advocates positive
use of media to promote national development
(economic, social, cultural and political); the
pursuit of cultural and informational autonomy;
support for democracy; solidarity with other
developing countries.


Assumptions:
– Media should make a positive contribution to
national development process (economic, social,
cultural and political);
– State should be able to restrict the media if
economic interests and the development needs
of the society are at stake (responsibilities
emphasised above their rights and freedoms);
– Media should give preference to information
about other developing countries that are
geographically, culturally and politically akin;
– To protect development objectives, state
subsidies and direct control are justifiable.
Democratic-participant theory
Reaction to commercialisation, monopolisation in
privately-controlled mass media, and to
centralisation and bureaucratisation in public
broadcasting.
 Practical realisation of this theory is encountered
primarily in developed societies.
 From the 1960s onwards, calls for alternative,
grassroots media, expressing the needs of citizens.


The theory supports the following:
– Multiplicity/ diversity of media;
– Small scale use of media;
– The right to relevant local information;
– The reciprocal role of communicator and
recipient (right to answer back);
– Horizontal communication;
– De-institutionalising of the media;
– Interaction and involvement (use media for
interaction and social action in small-scale
settings of community, interest group or
subculture).

Principles:
– Individuals and minority groups can claim the right of
access to the media and right to have needs served by
media.
– Organisation of media and content of messages should
not be influenced by political or bureaucratic control;
– Existence of media must be justified in terms of the
needs/ interests of recipients, not in terms of those of
media organisations, journalists and advertisers;
– Groups, organisations and communities should have
their own media;
– Small-scale, interactive and participatory forms of media
regarded as more beneficial than large-scale,
unidirectional media which are used only by journalists;
– Communication is too important to be left to
professionals.
Curran’s ‘radical’ alternative
‘Radical perspective’ – assumes a (masked)
contest between different social classes over
allocation of wealth, power, prestige, public
resources and life opportunities.
 Media are part of this conflictual context – so they
influence the outcome of this contest.
 Key question: “How should media mediate in an
equitable way conflict and competition between
different social groups in society?”

1st strand of ‘radical’ approach:
Similar to classical liberalism - media seen as a
‘representative’ system (but in the radical case
they reflect the prevailing conflictual rather than
consensual structure of society)
 In South Africa we have broadcasting systems that
reflect the balance of social or political forces in
society, as well as conventions that reporting
maintains a ‘fair balance’ between major political
parties.

2nd strand of radical approach:
Media as countervailing agency which should
actively seek to redress what is perceived to be the
imbalance of power in society.
 Expose wrongdoing, correct injustice, attack the
abuse of power, but also – in more overly radical
terms – act as an interventionist agency that
promotes greater equality.
 Subordinate groups less able to articulate and
advance their interests than more powerful groups
– journalism should facilitate subordinate groups’
access to the public domain, and offset their
weakness of organisation or resources.

Liberal vs. radical
Liberal approach = emphasis on media’s
information role framed in a consensus view
of society (‘public’ as an undifferentiated
aggregation of individuals).
 Radical democratic approach = stress
ideological-representational role (conflict
model – media represent opposed or
competing ‘publics’ with divergent interests).
