Mass Media

Author(s):  
Barbara Thomaß

A normative or a functionalist perspective on the role of mass media in pluralistic societies is the starting point for analysis of the role of the media in changing societal systems. The correlation between media shifts and societal shifts is striking in transformation processes. Communication scholars have studied this correlation in respect of the transformation in Eastern Europe, the upheavals in the Arab world, but less in the various waves of transformation and case groups. The uncoupling of the media system from the political system, which is typical for the shift from a totalitarian or authoritarian society to a pluralist one, is restructuring processes with an organizational, an economic, and a cultural dimension. It has been modelled in several phases although the actual developments show how these phases can overlap, sustain setbacks, or occur rapidly. Recent research concentrates on these new patterns of transitions and the inherent conflicts.

Author(s):  
Manfred Knoche

Abstract: This paper discusses how the capitalist media industry has been structurally transformed in the age of digital communications. It takes an approach that is grounded in the Marxian critique of the political economy of the media. It draws a distinction between media capital, media-oriented capital, media infrastructure capital and media-external capital as the forms of capital in the media industry. The article identifies four capital strategies that media capital tends to use in order to try to maximise profits: a) The substitution of “old” by “new” media technology, b) the introduction of new transmission channels for “old” media products, c) the definition of new property rights for media sectors and networks, d) the reduction of production and transaction costs. The drive to profit maximization is at the heart of the capitalist media industry’s structural transformation. This work also discusses the tendency to the universalization of the media system in the digital age and the economic contradictions arising from it. It identifies activity fields of the media industry’s structural transformation and shows how the concentration of the capitalist media markets is an essential, contradictory and inherent feature of the capitalist media system and its structural transformation. The paper identifies six causes of why capital seeks to employ capital strategies that result in the media industry’s structural transformation. They include market saturation, overaccumulation, the tendency of the profit rate to fall, capital-concentration, competition pressure, and advertising. The paper finally discusses the role of the state as an agent of capital in general and media capital in particular. It discusses the role of the state in privatisations, neoliberal deregulation, the formation of national competitive states, and various benefits that the state provides for media capital. This contribution shows that capital and capitalism are the main structural transformers of the media and communications system. For understanding these transformations, we need an approach that is grounded in Marx’s critique of the political economy.Translation from German: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-127
Author(s):  
Zhao Yonghua

The main cause of "color revolutions" in the Commonwealth (CIS) countries is the political and economic crisis. The media policies, an-ti-government opinion and western media precipitaed the event. This article discusses the importance and influence of media on the pro-gress of "color revolutions" based on patterns of media and political reforms in the state, industrial development of mass media and media strategy of the Western States (as an example the U.S.) in relation to Commonwealth (CIS) countries.


Author(s):  
Annelise Russell ◽  
Maraam Dwidar ◽  
Bryan D. Jones

Scholars across politics and communication have wrangled with questions aimed at better understanding issue salience and attention. For media scholars, they found that mass attention across issues was a function the news media’s power to set the nation’s agenda by focusing attention on a few key public issues. Policy scholars often ignored the media’s role in their effort to understand how and why issues make it onto a limited political agenda. What we have is two disparate definitions describing, on the one hand, media effects on individuals’ issue priorities, and on the other, how the dynamics of attention perpetuate across the political system. We are left with two notions of agenda setting developed independently of one another to describe media and political systems that are anything but independent of one another. The collective effects of the media on our formal institutions and the mass public are ripe for further, collaborative research. Communications scholars have long understood the agenda setting potential of the news media, but have neglected to extend that understanding beyond its effects on mass public. The link between public opinion and policy is “awesome” and scholarship would benefit from exploring the implications for policy, media, and public opinion. Both policy and communication studies would benefit from a broadened perspective of media influence. Political communication should consider the role of the mass media beyond just the formation of public opinion. The media as an institution is not effectively captured in a linear model of information signaling because the public agenda cannot be complete without an understanding of the policymaking agenda and the role of political elites. And policy scholars can no longer describe policy process without considering the media as a source of disproportionate allocation of attention and information. The positive and negative feedback cycles that spark or stabilize the political system are intimately connected to policy frames and signals produced by the media.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Spitzig

<span id="docs-internal-guid-7857b3e8-90ad-08d2-6f26-3101c7712dac"><span>The events of September 11, 2001 drastically altered the political climate in North America. The atmosphere of fear, mainly instilled by the hegemonic influence of American mass media outlets and government, allowed the Canadian government to take advantage of citizen unease and pass controversial legislation, such as the </span><span>Anti-Terrorism Act</span><span> (2001) and the </span><span>Combating Terrorism Act</span><span> (2013). This critical analysis attempts to divulge into the root meaning of “terror” in order to unpack the motivations of terrorism, and understand how it really operates. Particular attention is placed on the role of the media and the Canadian and American governments in instilling a psychological phenomenon of terror into society. This article seeks to answer whether terrorism poses any real threat to North Americans, and whether the legislation passed by the Canadian government stands up to the </span><span>Charter of Rights and Freedoms</span><span> and democracy itself.</span></span>


Author(s):  
T. N. Samsonova ◽  
E. S. Naumova

The article analyzes the role of mass media in the process of political socialization of the Russian youth in the context of deep socioeconomic and political transformations.Especially significant for the development of political views is the period from 15 to 25 years. Young Russian citizens are just at the stage in the process of developing political habits and are easily influenced by different factors. Much of political information comes from the media, both traditional: newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and innovative — through the Internet. Television helps to shape public opinion by providing political news and their assessment, touching upon important problems, existing in the political sphere. The growth of the Internet is especially significant. News aggregators and online bloggers present a broad range of opinions on political events. The importance of an adequate assessment of the role of the traditional and innovative media in the political socialization of young people, in shaping the political subjectivity of young Russian citizens is obvious.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Matar

The 2011 Arab uprisings have called into question the assumptions and questions that have defined much of the scholarship on the media of and about the Arab world and its various publics. Much of this scholarship remains largely shaped by the ‘political’ agendas of the dominant analytical paradigms prominent in the 1970s, including the modernisation paradigm. Furthermore, many studies consider mediated cultures as being of the ‘here’ and the ‘now’ rather than a product of ongoing historical processes and conjunctures. This short intervention calls for rethinking the broad assumptions about the role of media in the ongoing protests. While not ignoring the role of media, it suggests broadening our conceptual and research agendas to incorporate a historical perspective that would also seriously consider the material and immaterial ‘geneaologies’—particular histories of nation-states, religion(s), capitalist class formations, national, regional and international politics as well as cultural and discursive formations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Dedi Kusuma Habibie

Mass media should provide constructive information in order to full fill its function as a tool for developing nations. However, mass media usually face a conflict of interest in doing the role, for example in the Indonesian case there is a strong political economy interest of media owner that limiting media’s role as political control. This study sees those is a crucial problem of Indonesian media as it will decrease the quality of Indonesian media and as the consequences, it will lose public trust. By using descriptive qualitative method this article doing a theoretical review to explain the role of Indonesian media in the political communication and how the media doing their role as information and political channel in the political communication process. This study suggests the media do a role called ‘dwifungsi media’ that suggest media to do its function comprehensively.


2021 ◽  
pp. 26-37
Author(s):  
Elena N. Malik

The aim of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the main directions of optimizing the system of political socialization of young people in the context of the development of the electronic media environment. The article identifies and reveals the main problems of the influence of media information flows on the formation of socio-political orientations of young citizens. The mass media were and remain the most important institution of political socialization of the younger generation, having a direct influence on the assimilation of social norms by young citizens, the formation of political values among them and, as a result, the expression by the younger generation of various forms of socio-political activity.An assessment of the role of the media in the political socialization of modern Russian youth showed that the activities of traditional media in the Russian political space are noticeably lost in relation to electronic media resources. In the digital age, it is advisable to assess the possibilities of the influence of various digital media channels on the political consciousness and behavior of young people.The conclusion is justified that young people are not only an object, but also a subject of political socialization. Under the influence of the media environment, this process is increasingly not vertical, but horizontal in nature, when young citizens demonstrate alternative forms of socio-political activity and models of political behavior — from electronic elections to the signing of online petitions, as well as continuously choose from possible images of the world thanks to the activities of electronic media, etc. Electronic media, especially network media, are largely responsible for initiating models of socio-political activity of young citizens. Based on a large factual material, the author considers the media preferences of young citizens when exposed to traditional, electronic and online media. The role of Internet socialization of youth in the activation of institutional forms of its participation in the democratization of Russian society is justified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104-109
Author(s):  
Chernysh O.O.

The urgency of the researched problem is connected with the growing role of mass media in modern conditions leads to change of values and transformation of identity of the person. The active growth of the role of the media, their influence on the formation and development of personality leads to the concept of “media socialization” and immutation in the media. The aim of the study is to outline the possibilities of the process of media socialization in the context of immutation in the media. The methods of our research are: analysis of pedagogical, psychological, literature, synthesis, comparison, generalization. The article analyzes the views of domestic and foreign scientists on the problem of immutation in the media and the transformation of the information space. In the context of the mass nature of the immutation of society, the concept of “media socialization” becomes relevant, which is the basis for reducing the negative impact of the media on the individual.The author identifies the lack of a thorough study of the concept of “media socialization” in modern scientific thought. Thus, media socialization is associated with the transformation of traditional means of socialization, and is to assimilate and reproduce the social experience of mankind with the help of new media.The article analyzes the essence of the concepts “media space”, “mass media” and “immutation”. The influence of mass media on the formation and development of the modern personality is described in detail.The study concluded that it is necessary to form a media culture of the individual, to establish safe and effective interaction of young people with the modern media system, the formation of media awareness, media literacy and media competence in accordance with age and individual characteristics for successful media socialization. The role of state bodies in solving the problem of media socialization of the individual was also determined. It is determined that the process of formation of media culture in youth should take place at the level of traditional institutions of socialization of the individual.The author sees the prospect of further research in a detailed analysis and study of the potential of educational institutions as an institution and a means of counteracting the mass nature of the immutation of society.Key words: immutation, media socialization, mass media, media space, information.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.


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