The Pluralist View of Mass Media
Pluralism is the belief that power is spread widely throughout the
world. It is a belief that companies or powerful groups are competing,
but within boundaries of consensus and compromise. The idea of
pluralism descends from functionalism. Functionalism is the view that
society is structured; every institution in society fulfils certain
roles and functions. If there was a disruption in one of these
institutions then it could affect the stability of society as a whole.
Functionalists believe that if something didn’t serve a purpose then
it would not exist.
The pluralist view of the mass media is based on this simple belief.
Pluralists believe that the reason some newspapers or other forms of
media seem biased is because they “simply respond to demand.” The
public has the buying power and the media are simply trying to appeal
to this. If they begin to put forward their own opinions or beliefs
about certain issues, then they are only appealing to the people who
share these ideas. If these ideas are extremely controversial then a
very limited amount of people would buy the newspaper. Therefore, if
the newspapers want to sell very well and make a profit, then they
need to portray views, ideas and beliefs appealing to the majority of
the public otherwise they would “risk going out of business.”
Basically pluralists are saying that the mass media is a democratic
organisation, as it is the public who decides which media product is
successful. “If the media have any influence over people, it is
because they reflect and reinforce society’s basic values, not because
they impose their ideas on the public.”
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...is usually results in the want
to eradicate men from women’s lives completely, resulting in
lesbianism. It is the most extreme form of feminism; it is fully
built on the foundation belief that men have a desire to control
women.
Marxist/Socialist feminism believes in discrimination, and that all
types of ideological control benefit capitalism. It is not only sexism
tied under this belief but class, sexuality, disability and ethnicity.
After looking at several issues to do with the pluralist view on the
mass media, I believe that this ideology gives us a reasonable amount
of accuracy on how our media system works. Marxism and feminism both
challenge this ideology; however they cannot challenge all of the
pluralist ideas successfully. They simply do not hold the answers to
some of the pluralist questions.
The image that is usually placed with feminism is that of a rabid, bra-burning, lesbian running around disclaiming the patriarchy. It could be that of a mid-century housewife complaining about how her only career choices are between teacher and secretary, or even of a woman with a sash and banner walking in front of the White House; preaching about her right to vote. However, this isn't necessarily the case. Ever since the rise of the internet, in the late 20th Century, feminism has had a revival causing it to grow in popularity and spread across forums everywhere. Women are joining this “third wave” movement to bring an end to the societal injustices that still plague the gender today (qtd. in Haslanger et al.). Feminism currently represents much more than it did in its infantile stage, having evolved to include relevant issues that affect every woman in today’s subordinating world. Issues such as rape culture, slut shaming, abortion and the wage gap have all been adapted into the feminist agenda with the hope that, as a united force, women could bring change to a misogynist society. The bra burning days are over, and feminism is on a rise, bringing light to issues that need to be addressed.
In our society today, control is maintained by the authorities through regulation. In North America, major regulatory systems comprise two main systems of expertise. One is the criminal justice system, which is concerned with what will we do about crime and deviance. The other is the academic system of expertise, which is concerned with why crime and deviance exists. Academic expertise is the type of discourse deployed in the article by Michael Conlon to show, with ostensible authority, that maternal smoking during pregnancy is “linked” to adult criminal behaviour.
Page 38).” Liberal feminism believes the main problem of male and female inequality is men dominating all institutes (economic, medical, educational, political, ect.). The idea of liberalism is to change these structures so the power is shared by each gender. Radical believes these structures have been “poisoned by patriarchy” that it will be very difficult to change and the only way that is possible is to rebuild from the ground up (Smith. Page 100). The socialist approach describes oppression based on gender as one piece of the struggle and radical views sex discrimination and men as the main cause of oppression (Napikoski). Socialist feminism focuses more on the inequalities in the works force and how capitalism and patriarchy are a huge
Focusing on gender as a construct that perpetuates inequality between men and women in society, the ideology of Feminism is based on the fundamental principles of Liberalism. While Feminism summarily promotes social, political, and economic equality between men and women, historically it’s fulcrum was and remains to a significant extent the fight for women’s rights and interests.
“The old argument that the networks and other ‘media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore…No we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.” (Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News) This example is tremendously important in the author’s discussion because it proves that news stories do manipulate people through bias. Popular news networks are viewed by thousands of people every single day, thus making it have a huge impact on the public since they believe what they see. When news reporters present their news segments, it is natural for them to give their insights due to human nature being instinctively biased. “The news media is [sic] only objective if they report something you agree with… Then they’re objective. Otherwise they’re biased if you don’t agree, you know.” (CNN’s American Morning) In this quote, the readers are presented to current panelists agreeing that news consumers have a very hard time separating their own view of the news from the perspective of the news reporters because they are presenting their own opinions throughout their segments. This problem exists once again because of the bias that is contained in media
Malcolm X once said “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” In 1990, fifty-nine year old Delbert Ward was accused of killing his brother Bill Ward. Delbert was one of four brothers who lived on the family’s land operating a small farm producing milk from cows. During and after Delbert’s trial, loads of media preyed upon the ill-educated man and the village like vultures. Given his impoverished surroundings and his appearance, the media depicted Delbert as a salvage who killed his brother on the same bed that they shared for years. The documentary “Brother’s Keeper” investigated the truth behind the death of Bill Ward. It presents the argument that media manipulates public opinion. Media does manipulate public opinion using many techniques to influence the minds of the mass. The media’s effectiveness, level of bias present, and types of the media source used to portray information to determine how media influence public opinion, as well as address the opposing view to the argument.
Patriarchy creates a social division. It is often used to describe the power between a male and a woman. This idea is important in Radical Feminism. Seen as the root of female oppression, Radical Feminists recognize that patriarchy is everywhere. Radical feminist came about because they were not happy with the course of action taken by the first wave of feminists. Radical feminists wanted a revolution, not just reform; they wanted to do things their way as opposed to following “the system”. So they came up with their own theories that fit their way of thinking and often were at odds with the reformer feminists...
Many people in today’s world watch television on a daily basis. There are three types of television viewers which are light viewers, medium viewers, and heavy viewers. Mean World Syndrome focus on individuals who fall in the heavy viewer category of television watching. Some common themes and issues that we see on television that portray the world to be mean are rape, murder, terrorism, and communal riots. Television has been noted to fill your mind with negativity about the world and bombard your mind with negatively manipulated images in order to give you a distorted reality. Gerbner believed that violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it is. His thoughts and beliefs led to the
The article “Why Americans Hate the Media” takes a look at how the media has taken their journalistic duties to another level that does not promote the ideas and questions that the American citizens whom the journalist report to are concerned about. The media has found a way to keep their ratings and the hype of politics alive by sensationalizing hot-bed issues. In the article “Why Americans Hate the Media” written by James Fallows it states that “Perhaps the public has good reason to think that the media’s self-aggrandizement gets in the way of solving the countries real problems” (Fallows) which leads to the fact that, although the media knows that they are skipping over the American citizens view and sending their own message, but somehow
The mass media operate other important societal functions as well. Harold Lasswell, political scientist and communication theorist, illustrates three features: surveil¬lance of the world to report ongoing events, interpretation of the meaning of events, and socialization of individuals into their cultural settings (Lasswell 1969). The other fourth function must be added: manipulation of politics. The way that these four functions operate, influences the political destiny of individuals, groups, and social institutions, as well as the course of internal and international politics.
They also suggest that this is how a democratic society should be. Therefore, this paper will demonstrate what form of democracy is best and that we do live in a somewhat democratic society. Pluralism ideologies began to flourish in the 1980s-1990s and have “a more positive reading of the mass media as an embodiment of intellectual freedom” (Jewkes, 2015, p.27), alongside the technological advancements that have occurred
Another critique is that it goes against the basic teachings of feminism, in which men and women are equal. Radical feminist sought to believe that patriarchy is the only reason why women are oppressed in society and all men do not want to see women succeeding in business nor social sector. Due to their misandry towards men, radical feminism theory has often been frowned upon, as it gave the term feminism a bad reputation.
Reality for most people, is what they “assume exists independently of any concept or representation”. (Grossberg, 1998:184) That’s “reality” to us, no second thought about it. Fiske says that reality “is the product of that culture’s codes”; (1987:4) meaning, that our society presents us with “a collection of material facts, that we can accurately perceive”. (Grossberg, 1998:185) The concept that the material facts have to be collected is peculiar. It implies that a negotiation between the public and reality has taken place, that someone, had to decide what was to be collected, and what was to be deserted.
Althusser (1971) explains that, as an ideological state apparatus, media doesn’t use pressure as a way to bind society together under one dominant ideology, but instead uses the will of the people to make them accept the dominant ideology. However, media is also used as a way for people to challenge the dominant ideology. Newspapers, for example, will have articles that openly criticise and oppose the dominant ideology for what it is, whilst at the same time providing perspectives and opinions on different ideologies (such as feminism) that society can believe in. Although these alternate ideological perspectives exist, they are usually overlooked and only ever reach small audiences. Ideology can also help us understand the media because of the way in which it distributes ideology.
The power of the mass media has once become so powerful that its undoubtedly significant role in the world today stays beyond any questions. It is so strong that even politics uses it as a means of governing in any country around the world. The mass media has not only political meaning but also it conveys wide knowledge concerning all possible aspects of human beings’ lives and, what is utterly true, influences on people’s points of view and their attitude to the surrounding environment. It is completely agreeable about what kind of virtues the mass media is supposed to accent. Nevertheless, it is not frequent at all that the media provides societies with such a content, which is doubtful in terms of the role consigned to it. Presenting violence and intolerance as well as shaping and manipulating public are only a few examples of how the role of mass media is misunderstood by those who define themselves as leading media makers.