Page 122 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

Concentration and commercialisation 101

Corporate bias
Capitalist media enterprises owned by profit-driven corporations may be expected
to favour the fundamentals of the market economy and to give editorial support
to political parties that favour their business interests. A useful distinction is
made, however, between instrumental and structural influences on media content
(Murdock 1982; Manning 2001: 82–83). Media owners may intervene directly,
instrumentally, in shaping editorial. Rupert Murdoch has a lengthy record of
such proprietorial interference as a long list of former executives, editors, com-
petitors, critics and biographers attest (see Neil 1997; Street 2011: 159–84;
Curran and Seaton 2010). Murdoch told a House of Lords Communications
Committee (2007) he was a ‘traditional proprietor’ exercising editorial control
over his UK tabloid papers, but argued he did not instruct the editors of The
Times or Sunday Times, complying with measures established when he bought the
papers to protect editorial independence. Manning (2001) and others show that The
Times and Sunday Times became more partisan in news reporting under Murdoch. A
survey of editorial coverage in 2003 found that the most influential of the 175
newspapers owned by News Corporation worldwide unanimously supported the
US-led invasion of Iraq (Greenslade 2003). However, overt intervention is less
common than more subtle alignments between the outlook of editors and their
internalised awareness of Murdoch’s political and other interests (Neil 1997).
Other influences are more entirely structural. Advertising placement is not
usually governed by the political prejudices of advertisers. Rather, the cumulative
decisions made by advertisers tend to favour certain media outlets over others
(Gandy 2000). The result is a largely structural influence but one with tremendous
importance for advertising-dependent media markets (chapter six). In more
deterministic accounts, the influences of ownership and advertising tend to be
seen as acting in one direction, imposing control on content from above. However,
radical sociologists have acknowledged the complexity and indeterminacy arising
from the interplay of sources of power, while insisting on investigating patterns
of dominance. For instance, market forces are capable of constraining political
partisanship by owners and so limiting owner power. Large numbers of readers
did not share the right-wing enthusiasm of UK press magnates in the 1980s and
1990s yet needed to be persuaded to buy their papers if these were to be profitable.
Staff power and the upholding of principles of journalistic independence and
professional integrity can also act as countervailing forces (Curran 2002). Yet,
proprietors can influence editorial behaviour, especially through exercising
‘allocative’ control over senior appointments, policy and resources (Murdock
1982). Further, as Murdoch’s interventionist record illustrates, the claim by liberal
pluralists that ‘media controllers subordinate their ideological commitments to
the imperatives of the market is only partly true’ (Curran 1996: 95).
The influence of owners over the behaviour of business units and employees
remains a vital issue. Yet this needs to be broadened to examine the complexity
of media work and labour relations, as well as shifts in the economic and cultural