The crisis-ridden capitalist mode of production as driving force for restructurations and transformations in and of the media industry : explanatory theoretical elements of a critique of the political economy of the media

The goal of this article is to explain long term restructurations and transformations of the media industry. In order to do so, the article uses theory elements of a critique of the political economy of the media. The paper is a contribution to the development of theoretical approaches that provide a theoretical analysis of the media in capitalism based on Karl Marx’s concepts. The capitalist mode of production is the primary driving force of media corporations‘ strategic action and of the media economy’s structural transformations. Factors that are of particular relevance in such structural transformations include profit orientation, capital accumulation, capitalist crises, state policies, behaviour of producers and consumers, private property, class relations, the antagonism between productive forces and relations of production, the antagonism of variable and constant capitalism, the antagonism of use-value and exchange-value, and competition. Competition, capital’s need to survive, and capitalism’s immanent crisis potentials force corporations try to create innovations such as new digital technologies. Informatisation, which includes the use of the computer as universal machine and the Internet, is the provisionally latest stage in the development of the productive forces that has affected media technologies and the media industry. The capital-driven structural digital transformation of the media industry has resulted in the convergence of production, distribution and consumption, the creation of a variety of non-tangible digital products, digital rationalisation and automation, and the universal real subsumption of labour under capital. These developments have also created the potential potentials for overcoming the capitalist character of the media economy and advancing decommodification based on the emergence of a universal digital media system.

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Capitalisation of the Media Industry From a Political Economy Perspective

tripleC Communication Capitalism & Critique Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society ◽

10.31269/triplec.v19i2.1283 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 325-342

Author(s):

Manfred Knoche

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

The Political ◽

Communication Studies ◽

Media Industry ◽

Historical Materialist ◽

Development Processes ◽

The Media ◽

Media And Communication ◽

Further Development ◽

Mode Of Production

Approaches to the critique of the political economy of communication in society belong to the “forgotten theories” in media and communication studies. But in view of the unmistakable structural change of a media industry “unleashed” by deregulation, privatisation, digitalisation, concentration, globalisation, etc., it seems from an academic perspective necessary to analyse the development of the media industry in close connection with the equally unmistakable general development of an “unleashed” capitalism. This article therefore shows that the analysis of the development processes of capitalism as the undoubtedly globally dominant economic and social system from a political economy perspective makes it possible to analyse, explain, and partly forecast the economisation or commercialisation process in the media industry in an academically appropriate way with regard to its causes, forms, consequences, and further development. Theoretical explanations are offered by the further developments of the analysis and critique of contemporary capitalism based on Marx’s critique of the political economy as a historical-materialist analysis of society. In doing so, the permanent fundamental characteristics, modes of functioning and “regularities” of the capitalist mode of production and the capitalist formation of society are analysed in connection with the particularities of the current capitalisation process in the media industry.

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Media, Elections, and Ethnopolitics in Kenya: In the 2017 Elections Reportage, Ethnicity still Mattered

Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications ◽

10.30958/ajmmc.7-3-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 151-164

Author(s):

Michael Ndonye

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Mass Media ◽

Media Coverage ◽

Policy Formulation ◽

The Political ◽

Media Industry ◽

Electoral Process ◽

Political Economy Of Media ◽

The Media ◽

Interpretative Approach

This study examined the value of ethnopolitics during media reporting of the 2017 electoral process in Kenya. The study relied on the political economy of media theory by Vincent Mosco the propaganda theory by Herman and Chomsky and the theory of agenda-setting by McCombs and Shaw. The study used descriptive research design with the population of the study drawn from Nakuru Town Sub-County. Our research relied on observation schedules to obtain data from the televised political analyses shows and propaganda political videos clip. Interview schedules were used for media practitioners (editors, reporters and media sellers) and politicians (MPs and MCAs), while unstructured questionnaires were used for the media consumers (audience). All qualitative data were processed and analysed using the critical interpretative approach, while the quantitative data were presented descriptively in tables, graphs, charts and percentages generated using SPSS software. The study findings indicated that during the 2017 electoral process in Kenya, political players used ethnopolitics to capture extensive media coverage. Similarly, there was a direct influence of ethnopolitics and ethnopolitical journalism on the media consumer knowledge and ethnopolitics normalisation. The study recommends that media, being the most influential cultural institution and player in the political economy, self-regulates to minimise ethnopolitics dissemination. The output of this study adds to the existing knowledge in communication and media studies and the political economy of mass media. The findings should be able to inform policy formulation among the mass media industry and media regulatory bodies in Kenya. Keywords: ethnicity, ethnopolitics, ethnopolitical oligarchy, political economy of communication

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The Political Economy of Media in Turkey

Advances in Wireless Technologies and Telecommunication - Handbook of Research on the Political Economy of Communications and Media ◽

10.4018/978-1-7998-3270-6.ch010 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 181-205

Author(s):

Çağrı Kaderoğlu Bulut

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Economic Activity ◽

Social Institution ◽

The Political ◽

Media Industry ◽

Statistical Classification ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Political Economy Of Media ◽

The Media

This study examines the infrastructural features of the media industry in Turkey in the 2000s. The study posits that the analysis of the inner workings of the media as an industrial-social institution is a way of understanding how the media is related with the overall system it is a part of. In order to do that, it is crucial to undertake the infrastructural mapping of the media. In this study, the dimensions of the media industry such as the branches of economic activity, geographical distribution, corporate structures and scales, employment, wages, gender distribution, and unionization levels are discussed as the basic indicators forming the infrastructure of the media industry. The datasets which the study is based on are taken from the NACE codes, which are used in the statistical classification of economic activities in Europe and are also valid for Turkey. The boundaries of media industry are defined through six basic branches of economic activity classified in NACE 18, 58, 59, 60, 63,73 codes and these fields of activity are discussed both by themselves and as a relational whole.

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Introduction: Rereading Capital

Marx's Inferno ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691180816.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

William Clare Roberts

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Political Theory ◽

The Other ◽

The Political ◽

Capitalist Mode ◽

First Time ◽

Mode Of Production

This book examines Karl Marx's critique of capitalism by rereading his Capital as political theory. It considers Capital's ambition to lay bare, for the first time, the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production and the political economy that analyzes it. It argues that, in Capital, Marx had a grand aspiration—to write the definitive analysis of what is wrong with the rule of capital—and that he modeled this aspiration on a grand literary framework: rewriting Dante's Inferno as a descent into the modern “social Hell” of the capitalist mode of production. The book also contends that Capital is best read as a critical reconstruction of and rejoinder to the other versions of socialism and popular radicalism that predominated in France and England in the 1860s and 1870s. This chapter provides an overview of the book's argument.

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Media Concentration: A Critical Political Economy Perspective

tripleC Communication Capitalism & Critique Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society ◽

10.31269/triplec.v19i2.1298 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (2) ◽

pp. 371-391

Author(s):

Manfred Knoche

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

The Political ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Country Comparison ◽

Different Types ◽

The Media ◽

High Level ◽

Media Concentration ◽

Media And Communication

This article presents foundations of the analysis of media concentration from the perspective of the approach the critique of the political economy of the media and communication. It outlines the dangers and problems of media concentration, discusses the question of how to measure media concentration, identifies different types of media concentration, and gives a systematic overview of empirical studies of media concentration. As a result of the country comparison on a theoretical (macro) level with an analytically required high level of abstraction, first and foremost identities, commonalities and similarities with regard to the development of media concentration including its causes and consequences can be recognised. The author argues that media concentration also needs to be theorised. It distinguishes and discusses two such theoretical approaches: apologetic-normative competition theories of media concentration and critical-empirical theories of media concentration. Critical-empirical theories of media concentration situate media concentration in the context of the development of capitalism, which requires to use the critique of the political economy as theoretical foundation.

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EKONOMI POLITIK MEDIA: PADA PEMBERITAAN MENJELANG PEMILIHAN GUBERNUR BANTEN 2017 OLEH RADAR BANTEN DAN BARAYA TV

INFORMASI ◽

10.21831/informasi.v46i2.12247 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 155

Author(s):

Achmad Nashrudin P

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Qualitative Approach ◽

The Political ◽

Media Relations ◽

Economic Interests ◽

Political Economy Of Media ◽

Political Interests ◽

Depth Interview ◽

The Press ◽

The Media

Research on Political Economy of Media: At the news ahead of elections for the governor of Banten in 2017 by Radar Banten and Baraya TV, phenomenon triggered by the loosening of the values of objectivity and independence of the mass media in carrying out its functions as set in the Press Law and the Broadcasting Law. At the time of the campaign, the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are competing to get the “place ‘and is known well as sell to prospective election promise to get sympathy. At the time, the media seemed to forget the function and position. This study aims to determine the phenomenon of media relations with the candidates and how the phenomenon of the political economy of media in both institutions (Radar Banten and Baraya Pos) at the time before the election for governor of Banten in 2017. This study uses this study used a qualitative approach, with the constructivist paradigm and using the method of data collection through the depth-interview, the informant was elected. The results of the study illustrate that media relations (relations between) media with prospective relatively loose, drawn from observations and interviews show that the two media are “very affectionate” with the candidates, and the media policy in lifting more headlines have suggested the economic interests vis a vis political interests.

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Re-Engaging Critical Communication Studies With Social Classes

Advances in Wireless Technologies and Telecommunication - Handbook of Research on the Political Economy of Communications and Media ◽

10.4018/978-1-7998-3270-6.ch005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 78-97

Author(s):

Gökhan Bulut

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Class Struggle ◽

Capitalist Society ◽

Social Classes ◽

Homogeneous Structure ◽

The Political ◽

Class Relations ◽

The Media ◽

Communication Practices ◽

The Relationship

This article is an attempt to reestablish the linkage of the political economy of communication with the field of social classes and class relations. Studies in the field of political economy of communication are mostly shaped within the scope of instrumentalist explanation: Social communication institutions such as communication and media are perceived as a very homogeneous structure and these institutions are directly considered as the apparatus of capital and capitalists. However, in this study, it is argued that in capitalist societies, communication, and media should be understood as a field and medium of class struggle loaded with contradictions. Another point is that the political economy of communication is mostly limited to media studies. However, in today's capitalist societies, the media is not the only structure and actor in which communication forms. In this study, communication practices in capitalist society are discussed in the context of class discussions and the relationship between class struggle, culture and communication is discussed.

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