Page 83 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

62 Mapping approaches and themes

working of a neoclassical model of market competition, but the consequences
and proposed remedies vary for each according to different paradigms.
For neo-Keynesians and social market economists, the state may use a variety
of measures including those affecting the price and availability of goods, such as
subsidies and fines. The other main mechanisms are forms of regulation,
including the control of licensing and the application of rule-based standards,
notably competition regulation, that can be legally enforced. A critique of
market provision has been developed particularly effectively by neo-Keynesians
in Britain, influencing New Labour’s media policies. In a BBC-commissioned
book, co-written with Gavyn Davies (later BBC Chairman), economist Andrew
Graham (1997, revised 1999) challenged claims that the broadcasting market
alone could either adequately satisfy consumer wants or serve citizens. A market
system would tend towards concentration of ownership owing to the economies
of scale and scope in broadcasting. Commercial broadcasting would produce
‘market failure’ in consumption as well as production. In a purely market system
consumers would fragment more than they really wished, buy fewer good pro-
grammes than was collectively desirable and under-invest in so-called ‘merit
goods’, goods or services beneficial to society and individuals’ own long-term
development. Broadcasting could give rise to negative externalities (adverse
effects arising from such things as the promotion of violence) as well as positive
externalities, such as cultivating new knowledge, interests and skills (education
being one such ‘merit good’). Media concentration might be economically
desirable but democratically undesirable by allowing dangerous accumulations
of media power. What could offset these various market failures, Graham
argued, was public service broadcasting, a ‘highly effective form of intervention’
(Graham et al. 1999: 20).

Radical critiques
The social market approach gained salience partly because it adopted the
dominant language of market economics to present a social and cultural case. 2
Critical political economy goes further in offering a deep-rooted critique of
market provision. A starting point is to challenge the supposed ‘neutrality’ of the
market. Markets are not natural, independent mechanisms, they reflect the outcome
of political and legal struggles concerning how firms can behave and so are open
to alternative paths of decision-making. Second, market mechanisms influence
what kinds of media are made available to whom; they ‘regulate’ the supply and
consumption of media and, according to this tradition, do so in ways which are
often detrimental.
Against market liberalism, critical political economists argue that unregulated
markets cannot satisfactorily serve the needs of citizens or satisfy the wishes of
audiences (Baker 2002). The market system is inherently exclusive and inegalitarian,
in tension with principles of democracy and justice (Calabrese 2004; Venturelli
1998). A market-oriented media system does not provide adequate means to