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58 Consuming Media

TABLE 2.2: Forms of Media Power

Forms of Power Primary Power Resource Institutions
Economic power Economic capital Economic institutions
(companies, markets, trade
associations, private banks,
etc.)
Political power Authority Political institutions (state
Administrative power Legislation apparatus, political parties,
Physical violence/armed forces parliament, local municipalities
etc.)
Communicative power Means of communication Cultural institutions (churches,
Symbolic power Symbolic/cultural capital universities, schools, art
(religious, scientific, academies, media enterprises,
aesthetic, medial) etc.)

This composite model allows a bridging of the gap between cultural studies and
political economy perspectives in media studies, by acknowledging the political and
economic force of societal institutions that frame and regulate mediated communi-
cations, as well as the communicative and symbolic force inherent in specific socio-
cultural interactions. The ‘either/or’ perspective on the sources of power is thus
displaced by the recognition that power runs several ways. It is therefore necessary to
investigate the intersection of many different forms of power in the world of
consumption and media use.
Let us scrutinize the third, cultural level in further detail. What Habermas calls
social and communicative power is based on the interactional resources of civil
society, inherent in people’s lifeworlds. 37 Social power manifests itself in any kind of
enforcement or dominance in human relations, except in situations where people
reach agreement through reasoning and thereby make use of the rationality of
communicative power. These forms are blended in most human practice. For
instance, social power manifests itself in the mobilization of social movements, and
communicative power in the public arguments they use to support their interests or
goals. Although dependent on other forms of power as well as some amount of
expressive freedom, communicative power is a resource that both dominant and
dominated social groups can mobilize, and is thus available for acts both of dom-
inance and of resistance, indicating that there is no clear-cut distinction between
38
resistance and power. The state, the market and the civil society thus have different
power resources at their disposal, and their interrelations may be characterized by
consensus as well as by conflict. Around a particular topic, they may sometimes
temporarily form alliances, giving rise to intersecting patterns of power and resistance
between them. For instance, the official Swedish state policy for culture and the
media has, since the 1920s, built on a strong ideological alliance with civil society in
the form of social movements and associations, aiming to counteract what are