Lecture 1 – Controlling the media
Politics is above all a contest.
5 priciples of political communication (Wolfsfeld):
1. Political power can usually be translated into power over the news media
2. When authorities lose control over the political environment, they also lose control over news
3. There is no such thing as objective journalism
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 effects of the news media on citizens tend to be unintentional and unnoticed
The media provides the audience à if you don’t exist in the media, you don’t exist politically.
Political power = media power
- Front door: powerful political actors are always relevant and easily get positive media coverage, VIP’s.
- Back door: less powerful actors need to make themselves interesting.
- Side door: less powerful people that are getting into the media by breaking the law and waiting to get a
reaction. Victim of the government.
Politics: ideally politics allows for the non-violent resolution of societal conflicts through the representation of
interests.
Media biases:
- Media bias in favor of the powerful – the more powerful get covered more often and more positively.
- Obsession with elites limit the range of political disclosure – elites also get more media coverage.
- All media biased toward the one in power.
Power:
- Outcome
- Agenda
- Frame
Journalists need politicians for:
- Information
- Legitimacy
- Impact
There is a competitive symbiosis, journalists and politicians need each other to get what is best for their side.
Mutual dependence, publicity vs information.
Social media can act as a megaphone, but now everyone has one. Number of media is multiplied but the
audience’s capacity/attention is still limited. New ways to bypass gatekeepers is needed.
,The political economy of mass media is missing in Wolfsfeld theory.
The Herman-Chomsky propaganda model
The media is supposed to be a democratic watchdog. He claims that the media power is too dominated by the
dominant forces, so it is not democratic or objective. Describe US media as businesses that sell a product to other
businesses (Naive liberal model).
The five filters:
1. Ownership: The first filter scrutinizes the corporate structure and economic interests behind media
organizations. For instance, if a media conglomerate owns both media outlets and various other
businesses, the content will likely avoid critical coverage of those business interests.
2. Advertising: The second filter emphasizes the role of advertisers in shaping content. Since media
organizations rely on advertising for revenue, they are incentivized to produce content that attracts and
retains the advertisers' target audience.
3. Sourcing: The third filter looks at where the news comes from. Official sources such as government
agencies, corporations, and institutional experts are preferred due to their perceived legitimacy and
accessibility, skewing the news towards these perspectives.
4. Flak: The fourth filter involves feedback and pressure mechanisms. Negative reactions from powerful
entities can lead to repercussions for the media outlet, prompting self-censorship or cautious editorial
decisions to avoid such outcomes.
5. Fear of the enemy (Ideology): The fifth filter examines the overarching ideological context. During the
Cold War, this was anti-communism; today, it could be anti-terrorism, nationalism, or other dominant
ideological frames that serve to reinforce the interests of powerful groups.
Indexing theory:
Sources and views in media are indexed according to power balance among political institutions and actors.
Journalists mostly cite/use dominant actors, views, frames.
Reasons:
- Dominant actors are most likely to determine political outcomes.
- Dominant actors give legitimacy to a story.
- Journalists need formal challengers to keep alternative view in the news.
,A well-functioning media is a 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.
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 media actively compete, periodically attack and
expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for
free speech and the general community interest.”
- Chained fist.
Manufacturing consent is mostly ignored in mainstream media and science, the model predicted this as it goes
against dominant interpretation.
Related to:
- Indexing theory (Bennett)
o The sources and views in the media are indexed according to the power balance among
political institutions. Dominant actors are most likely to determine political outcomes, they
give legitimacy to the story.
o Media as democratic watchdog:
§ Media takes initiative
§ Investigative reporting
§ Independent scrutiny
§ Documenting, questioning, and investigating
§ Provide public and officials with timely information.
- Power is everywhere (Michel Foucalt)
o Power is diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and regimes of truth.
o Norms are embedded beyond our perception, causing us to discipline ourselves without any
willful coercion from others.
o Panopticism: the systematic ordering and controlling of human populations through subtle and
often unseen forces.
- Spheres of consensus (Hallin)
o There are three spheres in disclosure:
§ Consensus: journalist as a cheerleader
§ Legitimate controversy: journalist as natural/objective
§ Deviance: ignored by journalist
o Political power gives power over media
§ At the micro level – more powerful actors have easier coverage
§ At the macro level – dominant political forces determine the debate
, Power
The intentional production of causal effects. It is the ability to achieve one’s goals or objectives. Power is (also)
the ability to overcome opposition, to exercise control over people.
Power is hierarchical: A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise have done (Heywood).
Forms of power:
1. Physical force or coercion on decisions or compliance (zero-sum): literally limiting options.
2. The ability or disposition to change social relationships or leave them intact, through manipulation etc.
changing the basis of choices so it becomes rational to comply.
3. Preference-shaping via institutions: shaping the meaning and significance of things.
4. Value-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.
- The principal reduces the options of the subaltern to practically zero.
- Non-violence directed at limiting the freedom of the subaltern.
Manipulation and propaganda:
- The principal changes the bases on which the subaltern perceives the rational bases of action without
the subaltern noticing it.
- Subaltern chooses on rational grounds what the principal wants.
Framing
The core idea is that frames shape individual understanding and public opinion concerning an issue by stressing
specific elements or features of the broader controversy.
- Frames are ideologically laden – packages of truth claims about reality.
- Frames compete
Chomsky on the acquisition of language
Dominant ideology – value shaping: 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.
- Ideological hegemony: US media function as a mechanism of propaganda through five filters: express
the dominant ideology and interests.
- Media is an ideological apparatus
o If the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is
allowed to see, hear and think about, and to manage public opinion by regular propaganda
Politics is above all a contest.
5 priciples of political communication (Wolfsfeld):
1. Political power can usually be translated into power over the news media
2. When authorities lose control over the political environment, they also lose control over news
3. There is no such thing as objective journalism
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 effects of the news media on citizens tend to be unintentional and unnoticed
The media provides the audience à if you don’t exist in the media, you don’t exist politically.
Political power = media power
- Front door: powerful political actors are always relevant and easily get positive media coverage, VIP’s.
- Back door: less powerful actors need to make themselves interesting.
- Side door: less powerful people that are getting into the media by breaking the law and waiting to get a
reaction. Victim of the government.
Politics: ideally politics allows for the non-violent resolution of societal conflicts through the representation of
interests.
Media biases:
- Media bias in favor of the powerful – the more powerful get covered more often and more positively.
- Obsession with elites limit the range of political disclosure – elites also get more media coverage.
- All media biased toward the one in power.
Power:
- Outcome
- Agenda
- Frame
Journalists need politicians for:
- Information
- Legitimacy
- Impact
There is a competitive symbiosis, journalists and politicians need each other to get what is best for their side.
Mutual dependence, publicity vs information.
Social media can act as a megaphone, but now everyone has one. Number of media is multiplied but the
audience’s capacity/attention is still limited. New ways to bypass gatekeepers is needed.
,The political economy of mass media is missing in Wolfsfeld theory.
The Herman-Chomsky propaganda model
The media is supposed to be a democratic watchdog. He claims that the media power is too dominated by the
dominant forces, so it is not democratic or objective. Describe US media as businesses that sell a product to other
businesses (Naive liberal model).
The five filters:
1. Ownership: The first filter scrutinizes the corporate structure and economic interests behind media
organizations. For instance, if a media conglomerate owns both media outlets and various other
businesses, the content will likely avoid critical coverage of those business interests.
2. Advertising: The second filter emphasizes the role of advertisers in shaping content. Since media
organizations rely on advertising for revenue, they are incentivized to produce content that attracts and
retains the advertisers' target audience.
3. Sourcing: The third filter looks at where the news comes from. Official sources such as government
agencies, corporations, and institutional experts are preferred due to their perceived legitimacy and
accessibility, skewing the news towards these perspectives.
4. Flak: The fourth filter involves feedback and pressure mechanisms. Negative reactions from powerful
entities can lead to repercussions for the media outlet, prompting self-censorship or cautious editorial
decisions to avoid such outcomes.
5. Fear of the enemy (Ideology): The fifth filter examines the overarching ideological context. During the
Cold War, this was anti-communism; today, it could be anti-terrorism, nationalism, or other dominant
ideological frames that serve to reinforce the interests of powerful groups.
Indexing theory:
Sources and views in media are indexed according to power balance among political institutions and actors.
Journalists mostly cite/use dominant actors, views, frames.
Reasons:
- Dominant actors are most likely to determine political outcomes.
- Dominant actors give legitimacy to a story.
- Journalists need formal challengers to keep alternative view in the news.
,A well-functioning media is a 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.
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 media actively compete, periodically attack and
expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for
free speech and the general community interest.”
- Chained fist.
Manufacturing consent is mostly ignored in mainstream media and science, the model predicted this as it goes
against dominant interpretation.
Related to:
- Indexing theory (Bennett)
o The sources and views in the media are indexed according to the power balance among
political institutions. Dominant actors are most likely to determine political outcomes, they
give legitimacy to the story.
o Media as democratic watchdog:
§ Media takes initiative
§ Investigative reporting
§ Independent scrutiny
§ Documenting, questioning, and investigating
§ Provide public and officials with timely information.
- Power is everywhere (Michel Foucalt)
o Power is diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and regimes of truth.
o Norms are embedded beyond our perception, causing us to discipline ourselves without any
willful coercion from others.
o Panopticism: the systematic ordering and controlling of human populations through subtle and
often unseen forces.
- Spheres of consensus (Hallin)
o There are three spheres in disclosure:
§ Consensus: journalist as a cheerleader
§ Legitimate controversy: journalist as natural/objective
§ Deviance: ignored by journalist
o Political power gives power over media
§ At the micro level – more powerful actors have easier coverage
§ At the macro level – dominant political forces determine the debate
, Power
The intentional production of causal effects. It is the ability to achieve one’s goals or objectives. Power is (also)
the ability to overcome opposition, to exercise control over people.
Power is hierarchical: A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise have done (Heywood).
Forms of power:
1. Physical force or coercion on decisions or compliance (zero-sum): literally limiting options.
2. The ability or disposition to change social relationships or leave them intact, through manipulation etc.
changing the basis of choices so it becomes rational to comply.
3. Preference-shaping via institutions: shaping the meaning and significance of things.
4. Value-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.
- The principal reduces the options of the subaltern to practically zero.
- Non-violence directed at limiting the freedom of the subaltern.
Manipulation and propaganda:
- The principal changes the bases on which the subaltern perceives the rational bases of action without
the subaltern noticing it.
- Subaltern chooses on rational grounds what the principal wants.
Framing
The core idea is that frames shape individual understanding and public opinion concerning an issue by stressing
specific elements or features of the broader controversy.
- Frames are ideologically laden – packages of truth claims about reality.
- Frames compete
Chomsky on the acquisition of language
Dominant ideology – value shaping: 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.
- Ideological hegemony: US media function as a mechanism of propaganda through five filters: express
the dominant ideology and interests.
- Media is an ideological apparatus
o If the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is
allowed to see, hear and think about, and to manage public opinion by regular propaganda
