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MEDIA, MAATSCHAPPIJ EN POLITIEKLecture 1: Media and Power
October 27 2020
3 perspectives in the book
1 + 2: political actors
3 + 4: media
5: public
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.”
Being heard and seen is very important for politics.
“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 the book
1. Political power can usually be translated into power over the news media.
2. When the authorities lose control over the political environment, they also lose control over the
news.
3. There is no such thing as objective journalism (nor can there be).
4. The media are dedicated more than anything else to telling a good story and this can often have a
major impact on the political process.
5. The most important effect of the news media on citizens tend to be unintentional and unnoticed.
Media and politics: competitive symbiosis.
Mutual dependence: publicity vs. info.
Politicians need good media coverage.
Journalists need information and justification.
2 theories: mediatization and indexing
“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 success in its respective role.”
Political power= media power.
Front door: the powerful get more/ automatic media access.
Back door: ‘powerless’ have to work hard to get into the media, do something outrageous to get
attention.
Side door: civil disobedience, probably negative media attention; it’s not about the topic but about
the obedience.
media bias in favor of the powerful. They get covered more often and more positively.
the same for elites.
State (public) media vs. ‘free market’ (private) media: what level of political control?
1
,Inequality is structural and not accidental.
The political economy of mass media (Noam Chomsky)
Edward S. Herman developed the ‘propaganda model’ of media criticism arguing that ‘market forces
internalized assumptions and self-censorship’ motivate newspapers and television networks to stifle
dissent.
Consent is manufactured by capitalism.
Herman and Chomsky describe US media as businesses that sell a product (audiences=consumers) to other
businesses.
Naïve liberal model= democracy.
Media as ‘democratic watchdog’
Media takes initiative
Investigate reporting
Independent scrutiny
Documenting questioning and investigating
Provide public and officials with timely information
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 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.
“Propaganda is to a democracy what 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.”
Power
Power is hierarchical; A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise have done.
Principle (superior) & subaltern (subordinate) hierarchical/ asymmetrical relations.
4 forms of power
Corrective forms
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
2
, 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 (e.g. torture).
The principal reduces the options of the subaltern to practically zero.
Non-violence directed at limiting the freedom of the subaltern (e.g. humiliation).
Manipulation and propaganda
o The principal changes the bases on which the subaltern perceives the rational bases of
action without the subaltern noticing it.
o Subaltern chooses on ‘rational’ grounds what the principal wants.
Signification and cognitive symbolism
o Power relations are articulations of meaning (a particular logic of the signification process).
Deeply imbedded, in all the communication is propaganda.
Words matter
Framing: shape individual understanding and public opinion concerning an issue by stressing
specific elements or features of the broader controversy.
o Frames are ‘ideologically laden’ packages of truth claims about reality.
o Frames compete (in pluralistic view).
Dominant ideology= value shaping
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 cultural ideas and most social
relationships.
Propaganda-model of Chomsky
“Most news that are being broadcast have been filtered to express the dominant ideology and interest.”
Five filters, they produce a very narrow view of the world that is in line with the most powerful economic
(and political) interest. The propaganda model traces the routes by which money and power are able to
filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private
interests to get their message across to the public.
5 filters:
1. Size and ownership
a. In capitalism democratic societies, mainstream media is trapped by ownership, the interest
of advertisers and the authority of the government.
b. The size and profit-seeking imperative of dominant media corporations create a bias.
c. There is no case of media as the ‘watchdog’.
d. Since mainstream media outlets are currently either large corporations or a part of
conglomerates, the information they present to the public will favor these interests.
e. Main interest is making money!
2. Advertising
a. News is a ‘filler’ to get privileged readers to see the advertisements.
b. Profit orientation.
c. The people buying newspapers/magazines are the actual product which is sold to the
businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a marginal role as the product.
3
, 3. Sourcing
a. If you need commentary, you invite the ones you want to hear and not those who are
critical.
b. Mass media need stable and reliable news-material flow.
c. Economics dictate concentration of resources where significant news is most likely to occur:
media-outlets are commercial companies, simply unable and unwilling to spend too much
resources on reporting.
d. Media are ‘gatekeepers’.
4. Flak and enforcers
a. (afweergeschut)
b. “negative responses to a media statement or a TV/radio programme”.
c. Also orchestrated complaints, petitions and protests or funding think-tanks or PR/media-
campaigns.
d. They work because they involve costs: either withdrawal from advertisers or loss of viewers/
listeners.
5. Dominant ideology/ Self-censorship
a. Deviant opinions are marginalized
b. The way artificial fears are created with a dual purpose; partly to get rid of people you don’t
like but partly to frighten the rest. Because if people are frightened, they will accept
authority.
Lecture 2: Political Control of the Media
October 30 2020
“When the authorities lose control over the political environment, they also lose control over the news.”
Media-politics-media cycle
A cause and effect type relationship that begins with an event that alters the political landscape which the
media is forced to respond to.
Politics are then further impacted by the media’s coverage of the initial event.
Political react again, and so on…
Political change leads to changes in the way the media cover issues which leads to further political
change.
News media do not merely reflect political change; in many cases they can magnify and accelerate
change. If the media highlights something, it becomes important.
Always in a certain direction, with certain actors framing the news.
Many alternatives and actors are ignored.
Media role changes from critically following the propositions to amplifying a specific viewpoint.
Determining the political landscape.
Change in political control over the media or media over politics?
Influence of media is increasing (as media is an important tool in all political contests) plus functional loss
of political parties (reducing direct contact with voters).
Actors adapt to ‘media logic’ as a strategy (forget the political logic of things).
Media logic influences political behavior (e.g. campaigning becomes a media campaign).
= mediatization theory.
4
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