scholarly journals The Media Industry’s Structural Transformation in Capitalism and the Role of the State: Media Economics in the Age of Digital Communications

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

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Knoche

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 arti- cle 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 chan- nels 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 industrys 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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-482
Author(s):  
Matthew Adler ◽  
Marc Fleurbaey

The contributors to this symposium have brought up many important points in their discussions of five chapters of the Report, and we are very grateful to them. Since the authors of the chapters would be better able to respond to many of the specific comments, we will confine ourselves here to a brief discussion of a few major issues highlighted by the contributors. We are in particular inspired by the following comments: Alina Rocha Menocal's point about the role of the state and committed elites; James Deane's description of the deep transformation of the media scene by new forms of communication; Uma Rani's emphasis on the importance of structural transformation and social care policies; and Diana Alarcon's call for paying greater attention to different levels of development and to macroeconomic policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo Indjov ◽  
◽  
◽  

The study examines the applicability of the comparative framework of Hallin and Mancini (2004) with their three models of media‒politics relations (Mediterranean or Polarized Pluralist Model, North/ Central European or Democratic Corporatist Model, and North Atlantic or Liberal Model) to a post-communist country like Bulgaria. The answer to this question is sought through a study of the role of the state in relation to the media system, particularly the state funding of media in its various forms. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the Bulgarian media system is most similar to the Mediterranean Model due to the power of еtatism (the state finances public media, and the government buys media love through state and municipal advertising). At the same time, ineffective media regulation favors media concentration and the instrumentalization of large government media groups. The processes of rapid liberalization, privatization and deregulation in the media sector after 1989 brought Bulgaria closer to the countries included in the Liberal Model. Therefore, its media system is hybrid to some extent, but the similarities with the Mediterranean Model remain in the lead. The clientelism through which they are tamed, resp. corrupt the media, brings Bulgaria closer to the Latin American countries where it is much stronger than in the Mediterranean region (Hallin, Papathanassopoulos 2002). The concluding part predicts that, in the future, the analysis of the Bulgarian media system can be enhanced with a study of the applicability of the concepts of the “captured liberal model” of the media (in Latin America) and the “captured media” in the post-communist world.


Author(s):  
Mike Allen ◽  
Lars Benjaminsen ◽  
Eoin O’Sullivan ◽  
Nicholas Pleace

Chapter 7 draws together some of the lessons that can be learned from the experiences of three small European countries in responding to homelessness. It is clear that responses to homelessness are embedded and enmeshed in the political and administrative culture of the individual countries, particularly the role of the state, both centrally and locally, in the provision of housing, welfare, and social services. Homelessness cannot be responded to as a separate issue from this broader context, and this is particularly the case in Finland and Ireland, where the roles of the state and market are understood very differently.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Benni Yusriza

Employing the concept of unfree labor, this article explores the role of the state in reinforcing victims’ vulnerability and shaping the political economy of trafficking practices. Based on a case study of trafficking victims in Benjina and Ambon, Maluku Province, Indonesia, I argue that Indonesian authorities’ intervention was driven not by humanitarian interest, nor by the concern for the protection of migrant workers’ rights, but rather by the intent to advance a political and economic agenda against the Thai fishing industry. Consequently, the intervention ignored the exploitative relations of production that underpinned the vulnerability of victims, despite being conducted in the name of victim-protection and improving livelihoods.


Author(s):  
Santiago Stucchi-Portocarrero 3 ◽  
Jessica Raquel PÉREZ-ANDRADE 1* ◽  
Humberto MALDONADO-RUIZ 2

Violence against women occurs in all latitudes, countries and cultures, and represents a public health problem. In Peru there is currently a wave of extreme violence against women, which must be understood as a very recurrent phenomenon, but not sufficiently reflected. Citizen movements from social networks and civil society have manifested the alarming number of occurrences of this problem and the media evidence more and more cases of women being violated and even killed with mechanisms as cruel as incineration. This article reflects on the role of the State and health institutions in the attention of violence against women and how through the discourse of hegemonic masculinity, as well as that of the pathologization of the victimizer, can even encourage its perpetuation. This analysis includes those components related to the professional training of health service providers and provides some ideas to improve the sociocultural understanding of the phenomenon of violence against women.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Aid Mršić ◽  
◽  
Larisa Softić-Gasal ◽  

The public service, which should be the guardian of the identity of national minorities, fell under the political pressure. In this way, it came out of the scope of its actions. Leading people in independent media believe that the role of the public service is crucial in protecting national minorities.But the media can not do it alone. First of all, the state must regulate, and respect what it has brought. With strong strategies and the inclusion of national minorities in all social trends, it is possible to achieve, not fully, but partially, the equality of all those who liveon the territory of BiH.On the other hand, the public service must respect what the state says. The Communications Regulatory Agency is obliged to impose rules in an adequate manner and at the same time to monitor how much the media (public service) meets its obligations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
JOÃO GABRIEL DE ARAUJO OLIVEIRA ◽  
RENATO NOZAKI SUGAHARA ◽  
JOANILIO RODOLPHO TEIXEIRA

ABSTRACT This comment came to refute and correct the idea of Charles (2007) about the negatively implications in the income distribution when the government expand the consumption in favour to households. We prove that the political choice, to both cases (increasing consumption or increasing profit), impact positively the income distribution and does not affect the essential nature of the Kaldor neo-Pasinetti dynamic equilibrium results and the “Cambridge Equation”. The stability of the model is guarantee by applying the Olech’s Theorem to the case.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Birgir Guðmundsson

AbstractThe increased importance of social media platforms and network media logic merging with traditional media logic are a trademark of modern hybrid systems of political communication. This article looks at this development through the media-use by politicians before the 2016 and 2017 parliamentary elections in Iceland. Aggregate results from candidate surveys on the use and perceived importance of different media forms are used to examine the role of the new platform Snapchat in relation to other media, and to highlight the dynamics of the hybrid media system in Iceland. The results show that Snapchat is exploited more by younger politicians and those already using social media platforms. However, in spite of this duality between old and new media, users of traditional platforms still use new media and vice versa. This points to the existance of a delicate operational balance between different media logics, that could change as younger politicians move more centre stage.


Politics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Moran

Gramsci revised classical Marxist accounts of the role of the state in society, culture and ideology, and stressed the autonomy of the political process from the economic base. Sociologists often labelled neoWeberian also focus on social change, the state and the political process. Michael Mann, whilst remaining discrete from Marxism has nevertheless moved away from classical Weberian sociology, engaging deeply with materialism in analysing the state. This article compares the work of Gramsci and Mann regarding the state, to examine whether a genuine synthesis is possible between Gramsci (perhaps the first ‘neo-Marxist’) and Mann, a neoWeberian.


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