Page 58 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

Chapter 2

Paradigms of media power

Liberal and radical perspectives
on media processes

Introduction
The next two chapters introduce media political economy by considering
problems that this critical tradition identifies and addresses. Chapter three discusses
some of the concrete contemporary problems of the media. This chapter is
broader and traces ways in which problems are identified within different theories
of media and power. It begins with a division between liberal and radical
approaches. This served as a heuristic device and teaching aid for courses in
media studies in Britain from the mid 1970s. The liberal–radical division has too
many limitations to be fully endorsed today, but it provides a useful starting
point from which to expand outwards, to review key debates and consider their
contemporary salience.
Forty years ago, the division between ‘liberal pluralist’ and radical Marxist
approaches was used to structure the nascent field of media studies in Britain
(Curran and Gurevitch 1977: 4–5):
The pluralists see society as a complex of competing groups and interests,
none of them predominant all of the time. Media organisations are seen as
bounded organisational systems, enjoying an important degree of autonomy
from the state, political parties and institutionalised pressure groups. Control
of the media is said to be in the hands of an autonomous managerial elite
who allow a considerable degree of flexibility to media professionals …
Marxists view capitalist society as being one of class domination; the media are
seen as part of an ideological arena in which various class views are fought out,
although within the context of the dominance of certain classes; ultimate
control is increasingly concentrated in monopoly capital; media professionals,
while enjoying the illusion of autonomy, are socialised into and internalise the
norms of the dominant culture; the media taken as a whole, relay interpretative
frameworks consonant with the interests of the dominant classes, …

As Curran (2002: 108) explains, the liberal–radical divide was proposed, in part,
as a pedagogic device to encourage students to ‘think for themselves and decide