Page 85 - Critical Political Economy of the Media

64 Mapping approaches and themes

critical rhetoric, the concept of the market as regulator serves to challenge the
identification of the market with neutrality on three main grounds. First, even
the most ‘free’ markets have been shaped by and continue to be governed by law
and public policy. The opposition between ‘free markets’ and state intervention,
used to justify pro-market ‘deregulation’, is thus seriously misleading since actual
media markets are invariably the result of government policies, subsidies, reg-
ulations and a variety of other conferred benefits. Second, ‘market regulation’
(liberalisation) is itself a policy outcome, not merely the absence of policy. Third,
market forces are regulatory mechanisms. Market mechanisms shape the availability,
nature and range of content. In this way, market forces generate outcomes that
are akin to those that might be achieved through other kinds of regulatory
intervention. Concerns about censorship, restrictions on the supply of content or
diversity losses are thus directed towards market controls, rather than being
perceived as arising only from state controls (see Keane 1991). The broader
critical charge is that the outcome of market forces need not be accepted as
‘natural’ and unalterable but should instead be subservient to securing broader
social and cultural benefits from communications media.
An underlying division then is between free-market and anti-market positions
with a spectrum of intermediate liberal and radical tending perspectives. We can
also distinguish between criticisms arising from deficiencies in how media markets
actually work, and more fundamental challenges to the suitability of market
mechanisms for the provision of media services. The latter are characteristic of
the radical democratic tradition of critical political economy.

The state

The problems of media markets and marketisation have been a dominant theme
of CPE analysis, especially in Euro-American studies. This has involved a
critique of states for their promotion of corporate business interests and their
rolling back of public provision and public regulation. There are, though, plenty
of divisions amongst radicals regarding the state, which reflect concerns across
the spectrum of democratic theory, and attention to the complex variations in
states in comparative analysis.
Any global mapping of problems of the media might justifiably begin with the
state. The power to control and restrict media can be exercised most fully and
directly by states. In any account of media control, violence against journalists
and media workers must rank as amongst the most severe and objectionable
forms. Authoritarian states may authorise restrictions or use extra-judicial means
to silence or intimidate journalists. According to the International Federation of
Journalists more than 2,000 journalists and media staff have been killed in the
line of duty over the last 20 years, 121 by targeted killings in 2012 alone, many
carried out by state or para-state actors (International Federation of Journalists
2012). The reports and various rankings by Reporters without Borders, Index on
Censorship, Freedom House, IFEX and others demonstrate the repressive power