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Lectures Media, Society, and Politics
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MEDIA, SOCIETY, AND POLITICSLECTURE 1 – WATCHDOG OR LAPDOG .................................................................................................... 2
LECTURE 2 – POLITICAL CONTROL OF THE MEDIA .................................................................................. 7
LECTURE 3 – OBJECTIVITY AND BIAS ..................................................................................................... 12
LECTURE 4 – MEDIA, POPULISM, AND BACKLASH AGAINST NEOLIBERAL GLOBALISATION ................. 14
LECTURE 5 – WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY ......................................................................................... 20
LECTURE 6 – FAKE NEWS & FIXING FAKE NEWS.................................................................................... 23
LECTURE 7 – MEDIA EFFECTS ................................................................................................................ 27
LECTURE 8 – SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS ................................................................... 30
LECTURE 9 – DIGITAL MEDIA & COLLECTIVE ACTION ........................................................................... 33
LECTURE 10 – PROTESTS IN AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES: THE INTERNET AS DEMOCRATISING FORCE?40
LECTURE 11 – DIGITAL MEDIA, DEMOCRATIC BACKLASH & RIGHT-WING POLITICAL VIOLENCE .......... 45
LECTURE 12 – CONSPIRACY BELIEF: CLOSE-MINDEDNESS AND POLARISATION ................................... 50
What to know for the exam:
- 5 principles in political communication (by heart/ for open questions)
- Difference corrective (limiting options) and persuasive (mind) power.
- 5 filters and their meaning (Chomsky
- Mediatisation and indexing theory.
- Bandwagon and Life-cycle voting
,LECTURE 1 – WATCHDOG OR LAPDOG
“Politics is above all a contest”.
Media provides the audience:
The nature of what we call the ‘media’ may have changed considerably after the creation of the
Internet, but the need to be heard remains a central part of the political game.
“If you don’t exist in the media, you don’t exist politically”.
- Become known
- Mobilize supporters
- Influence public opinion
- Influence policy
5 principles in Political Communication
1. Political power can usually be translated into power over all forms of media.
2. When the powerful lose control over the political environment, they also lose control over all
forms of media.
3. Every political story that appears in every form of media is biased -> there is no such a thing
as objective journalism (nor can there be)
4. All forms of media are dedicated more than anything else to telling good stories and this can
often have a major impact on the political processes.
5. Many of the most important effects of the various forms of media on citizens tend to be
unintentional and unnoticed.
Media and politics: competitive symbiosis (the relationship/mutual dependency between political
antagonists/actors and the news media, in which each side of the relationship attempts to exploit the
other while expending a minimum amount of cost. Each side has assets needed by the other to
succeed in its respective role.)
Mutual dependence: publicity versus info
Political power = media power
- ‘Front door’: the powerful are always relevant and thus get more/automatic media access
and positive media coverage.
o Access to attention of journalists/media outlet is important -> paid spokesmen.
- ‘Back door’: ‘powerless’ have to work hard/make themselves relevant/interesting to get into
the media
The more powerful get covered more often and more positively: media bias in favour of the powerful
Elites also get more positive coverage: obsession with elites limit the range of political discourse.
Side door: civil disobedience
State (public) media versus ‘free market’ (private) media: what level of political control?
State media biased towards incumbents.
Inequality is not accidental, but structural (also in media)
The political economy of mass media is missing in the book (the book is very liberal, portraying it as
free for everyone) -> important to understand when inequality comes from
Noam Chomsky: the political economy of mass media
,Edward S. Herman: Developed the ‘propaganda model’ of media criticism arguing that “market
forces, internalized assumptions and self-censorship” motivate newspaper and television networks to
stifle dissent.
➔ Wrote the book ‘manufacturing consent’: Herman and Chomsky describe US media as a
businesses that sell a product [news] (audience = consumers) to other businesses. (They sell
your attention -> news are fillers).
liberal model is naive for democratic nations ->
Media as ‘democratic watchdog’
- Media takes initiative
- Investigative reporting
- Independent scrutiny
- Documenting, questioning, and investigating
- Provide public and officials with timely information
➔ Not really; more of a lapdog
A well functioning media is of paramount importance for democratic societies:
- Report events objectively as they occur, to allow citizens to make informed political choices
- Control power-holders and unearth abuses of power through investigative journalism
Herman and Chomsky: US media fails to perform democratic task and are basically akin to
propaganda systems in totalitarian states:
“It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and
formal censorship is absent. This is especially true when the media actively compete, periodically
attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as
spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest.”
Chomsky and Herman consider that the media is often involved in misinformation, and argues that
the media has ‘extended’ the Cold War. Chomsky even contends that the media is in essence against
democracy.
In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that “propaganda is to a democracy when the bludgeon
is to a totalitarian state.”
“Unlike totalitarian systems. Where physical force can be readily used to coerce the general
population, democratic societies like the US can only make use of non-violent means of control.”
Michel Foucault:
Power is everywhere: Diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and ‘regimes of truth’. Norms
are embedded beyond our perception – causing us to discipline ourselves without any wilful coercion
from others.
Panopticism: the systematic ordering and controlling of human populations through subtle and often
unsees forces (surveillance techniques).
Power = The intentional production of causal effects.
Power is the ability to achieve one’s goals or objectives.
Power is (also) the ability to overcome opposition, to exercise control over people.
Power is hierarchical: A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise have done (Heywood).
➔ Power relations are hierarchical/asymmetric relations between a superior (principle) and a
subordinate (subaltern).
In power relations there is intentional action of a superior. The subordinate always has some
room to manoeuvre, some freedom and choice to resist.
, 4 forms of power:
Corrective forms (affecting the OPTIONS for actions)
1. (Physical) force or coercion on decisions or compliance (zero-sum): literally limiting options.
2. The ability or disposition to change social relationships or to leave them intact, through
manipulation, agenda-setting, and non-decisions: changing the basis of choices so it
becomes ‘rational’ to comply.
Persuasive forms (affecting the REASONS for actions)
3. Preference-shaping via institutions: ‘signification’ or cognitive symbolism: shaping the
‘meaning’ and significance of things.
4. Values-shaping: ‘thought control’: the spectrum of actions of the subaltern is limited via
ideological and discursive hegemony and disciplining.
Force and coercion:
- Physical coercion based on negative bodily and emotional sanctions.
- Violent actions directed against the body or mind of the subaltern (i.e., torture, beating, and
physical threat).
- The principle reduces the options of the subaltern to practically zero.
- Non-violence directed at limiting the freedom of the subaltern (i.e., humiliation).
Manipulation and Propaganda:
The principle changes the bases on which the subaltern perceives the rational bases of action
without the subaltern noticing it.
Subaltern chooses on ‘rational’ grounds what the principal wants (i.e., propaganda, advertising, and
political campaigns).
Signification and cognitive symbolism:
Power relations are articulations of meaning (a particular logic of the signification process).
Propaganda in popular culture subliminal messaging - > words matter: Tax ‘relief’.
Framing: the core idea is that frames “shape individual understanding and public opinion concerning
an issue by stressing specific elements or features of the broader controversy.” (Nelson, 1997)
Frames are ‘ideologically laden’: packages of truth claims about reality.
Frames compete (in pluralistic view)
Dominant ideology:
Ideological hegemony is a situation where a particular ideology is pervasively reflected throughout a
society in all principal social institutions and permeates dominant cultures ideas and most social
relationships.
- Herman and Chomsky: (private as well as public): US media function as a mechanism of
propaganda through ‘five filters’. Most news that are being broadcast have been filtered to
express the dominant ideology and interests.
Media is an ideological apparatus.
Elite-led manipulation through mass media of citizens has been central to the functioning of
capitalism in liberal democracies.
Propaganda model: 5 filters determine media-content.
These five filters produce a very narrow view of the world that is in line with the most powerful
economic (and political) interests.
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