Page 54 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

What (is) political economy of the media? 33

Mapping differences between North American and
European traditions

From the late 1960s into the 1970s when political economy work was developing
in Europe, the US tradition remained ‘primarily based’ on the work of Schiller
and Smythe (Mosco 2009: 88). Both were ‘less interested’ than European
scholars in developing ‘an explicit theoretical account of communication’, argues
Mosco (2009: 7), who identifies two main directions CPE research has taken.
One, prominent in the work of Garnham, Golding and Murdock, has ‘emphasized
class power’ while another stream (Mattelart) has examined class struggle (Mosco
2009: 7). Mosco reads the first tradition as documenting and examining
hegemonic power while the second foregrounds resistance. There are differ-
ences, certainly: the work of the British scholars tended to be more national in
focus contrasting with Mattelart’s internationalist engagement with national
liberation movements. Some early British studies such as a pioneering analysis of
demonstrations (Halloran et al. 1970: 31) focus on how news is selected and
presented in dominant media rather than outline ‘alternative value systems’.
However, Mosco’s division of work is overdrawn and cannot be sustained in
respect of output and analysis. Hesmondhalgh (2013) goes even further in
distinguishing between a North American tradition and a European ‘cultural
industries’ approach in political economy, favouring the latter and critiquing the
former. For Hesmondhalgh (2013: 35) the North American tradition, identified
with Herbert Schiller and Robert McChesney, is centrally concerned with
‘cataloguing and documenting the growth in wealth and power of the cultural
industries and their links with political and business allies’. The European
‘cultural industries’ approach, associated with Bernard Miège, Garnham and
others is better at addressing the specific economic conditions and organisation
of production in cultural industries, tensions between production and consump-
tion, and complexity and contradictions in cultural provision. The main charge
is that the European tradition engages in more sophisticated cultural theory,
which is lacking in the North American tradition, and consequently is better able
to address the inherent ‘complexity, contestation and ambivalence’ in mass
communications (Hesmondhalgh 2013: 45). As I hope to show, I share the
analytical concerns to address complexity that Hesmondhalgh pursues. However,
I find this mapping of work, like Mosco’s, to be overdrawn and reliant on a
partial, and dismissive, reading of the work of Schiller and McChesney.
Hesmondhalgh finds little evidence of engagement with media and cultural
theory, but ignores Schiller’s powerful critique of revisionist cultural theory in
Culture Inc. (1989) and McChesney’s critical engagement with cultural theorists’
work (2007; 2008). Several of the charges cannot be sustained, notably that the
Schiller–McChesney tradition ignores symbol creators (work on journalism
refutes this most strongly), downplays the processes of commodification (central
to the work of Dan Schiller, Mosco and others) and fails to address both infor-
mation and entertainment (again the extensive work on commodification,