Page 19 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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4 Critical Theories of Mass Media
disingenuous. This book explores past thinkers who are explicitly
critical thinkers (Adorno and Debord) but also those we label
critical based upon our against-the-grain reading of their underlying
critical credentials (Benjamin and McLuhan). A common quality
that unites both optimistic and pessimistic sets of thinkers is their
shared belief that the media is deeply disruptive to prior forms of
social organization. There is a surprising amount of agreement on
the basic social processes of the mass media but radically different
conclusions as to their ultimate cultural consequences.

Cultural populism: the paradox of conservatism
Past and present critical media theories emphasize the negative
consequences that stem from the innately commodified nature of
such mass cultural phenomenon as Reality TV (for example,
Andrejevic 2004) and lifestyle Television (Palmer 2004, 2005, 2006,
2007). New audience theory, reception studies and cultural populism are,
among others, all terms used to describe those studies of the media
that tend to emphasize the empowerment enjoyed by mass audi-
ences. In relation to the media’s content, they focus upon audiences’
productive emotional investments, imaginative interpretations, and
the generally active, non-passive nature of their counter-hegemonic
reading strategies. Although the relevant literature in this field is
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rich and diverse , the term cultural populism is used in this book as
an umbrella term to create a dichotomy between these approaches
and much more obviously negative critical theories. While producing
a dichotomy risks simplifying matters for the sake of a clear contrast,
there are obvious characteristics that do distinguish the two
approaches.
Contemporary rejection of critical media theory is largely based
upon varying degrees of post-structuralist sensitivity to the ways in
which the audience can re-appropriate the meanings imposed upon
them by the owners and producers of media content. Rather than
seeing media audiences or commodity consumers as simply passive
consumers of the products of an overarching culture industry,
cultural populists (broadly defined) prefer to emphasize the way in
which audiences actively reinterpret or ‘read’ programmes or prod-
ucts using alternative meanings better suited to their own particular,
localized environments (McLaughlin 1996). Fiske (1987, 1989a,
1989b, 1993, 1996), is a particularly radical proponent of the notion
that rather than being passive dupes of the culture industry,
mass-media audiences are in fact skilled interpreters of media
content. He forcefully argues against the culture industry’s focus
upon the manipulation of audiences and uses concepts such as
polysemy and heteroglossia to discuss how audiences apply a large and

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