Page 216 - Critical Political Economy of the Media
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Chapter 9
Media power, challenges
and alternatives
Introduction
How should we understand and assess the alternatives and challenges to ‘big
media’ in an era of increasing digital communications? Are distinctions between
radical, alternative and community media pertinent? How do they relate to
media personalisation and new forms of exchange as digital tools for creativity
and communication become more widely diffused? How should claims of a
power shift from producers to producer–consumers be assessed? What is the
contribution of political economy in assessing the challenges and implications of
alternative media? During the twentieth century, the radical tradition called for
greater media diversity and argued that this required structural reforms in media
systems and the break-up of corporate giants in oligopolistic markets. This
chapter returns to consideration of the degree to which these arguments remain
compelling, and addresses the extent to which they are challenged by the way
media markets, and social movements, have developed.
Conceptualising media power
For Thompson (1995: 16) symbolic power ‘stems from the activity of producing,
transmitting and receiving meaningful symbolic forms’. This includes power over
how people and things are represented. Media power is defined by Couldry
(2002: 4) as ‘the concentration in media institutions of the symbolic power of
“constructing reality” (both factual representations and credible fictions)’.We
can justify focusing on various aspects of media power – for instance how
resources for symbolic meaning are organised and concentrated in media
organisations – the focus of political economy. But meaning is the complex
outcome of social interaction. If symbolic power is the power of media to
construct reality then a full account of symbolic power must include reception
and audiences, what people think and do. Symbolic power is one of four main
types of power and can be understood best in relation to the others: economic,
political and coercive (Thompson 1995). These are analytically distinct but
combine in complex ways. Investigating connections between symbolic power