Page 73 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

52 Mapping approaches and themes

‘objectivity’ and ‘authoritative’ reporting defer to institutional sources, already
legitimated by their power and expertise, who serve as the ‘primary definers’ of
news. Media-source relations are based on structured preferences for official
sources. The authors (Hall et al. 1978: 58) found evidence of:

a systematically structured over-accessing to the media of those in powerful
and privileged institutional positions. The media, thus, tend faithfully and
impartially, to reproduce symbolically the existing structure of power in
society’s institutional order.

‘Primary definers’ of news, including governing politicians, senior police, judges,
business leaders and other establishment figures ‘will almost always succeed in
shaping news agendas and interpretative frameworks’ (Manning 2001: 15). Suppliers
of news played a key role in the maintenance of ideological hegemony.
This modified but maintained a domination or ‘control’ account which came
under stronger attack in the 1980s and beyond. Another strand in radical–liberal
revision concerned the analysis of media–source relationships and approaches to
understanding source strategies and resources. Schlesinger (1990) criticised the
mediacentrism of accounts such as Hall’s that focused on media to the detriment
of sources and argued that the concept of ‘primary definers’ overstated their
cohesiveness and failed to deal with disagreements between them. Casting the
media as ‘secondary definers’ presented too dependent and passive a role.
Schlesinger argued that powerful groups must compete for control of the media
agenda; dominance of any ideological position was an achievement of media–
source engagement, rather than a wholly structurally determined outcome.
Consequently Schlesinger and Tumber (1994: 21) assert the ‘dynamic processes
of contestation in a given field of discourse’. Another influence, and shift from
Marxism, was that of radical sociologist Pierre Bourdieu whose concept of field
has been discussed already. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital was also
influential; primary definers were not structurally predetermined, it was argued,
but achieved and maintained their status through the expenditure of economic,
political and cultural ‘capital’. Non-elites could build up status (authority, reliability,
routine availability, subsidy) while official sources could lose authority and
legitimacy. From radical scholarship, then, revisionist arguments moved towards
a radical pluralist synthesis (Goldsmiths Media Group 2000). From accounts
emphasising elite control there were shifts towards pluralist accounts of elite
source competition, and conditions of success for opposition and ‘resource poor’
groups to gain access (Davis 2013; Cottle 2003b). This convergence is best
understood by identifying shifts in liberal scholarship as well.

Liberal revisionism

One strand of liberalism accepts the claims of operational autonomy and indepen-
dence put forward by many practising journalists and media workers themselves,