Page 170 - Culture Society and the Media

160 CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE MEDIA
centralization is a potential source of conflict or tension. Indeed, the very terms
‘structure’ and ‘organization’ imply a pressure towards bureaucratic methods of
problem solution, methods which may take various forms—from the use of
standardized decision-making processes to the development of institutionalized
expectations—but whose overall aim is to deal with potentially conflict-ridden
situations or relationships.

Professionalism as a response to conflict
The term ‘professional’ is commonly used in at least three different ways. First,
there is the use of the term to denote the ‘expert’, in contrast to the ‘amateur’.
This is a usage which Burns (1969) found widespread in the BBC. Second, there
is the Weberian view of the professional as the rational, bureaucratic, efficient
role embodying an ethic of ‘service’ to the client or public. The third,
Durkheimian use describes the way in which professionals invest their work and
organizations with moral values and norms.
It is often argued that a central dilemma for mass communicators concerns the
extent to which the large-scale media organization tends to ‘bureaucratize’ the
creative role of its members. Demands for stability, regularity and continuity
may be said to drive media institutions towards the rationalization of staff roles—
to create professionals in the sense described by Weber. However, it can also be
argued that the negative effects of bureaucratization on individual roles can be
countered by the development of professional pride and values—in the sense
used by Durkheim—which may at times even run counter to the interests of the
organization. It follows, therefore, that media ‘professionalism’, while perhaps
arising from one basic source of conflict—that between organizational goal and
creative occupational role—can actually be used to respond to that conflict in
two quite different ways, which may in themselves promote conflict.
Elliott (1977) suggests that claims to professionalism in the mass media
represent, on the one hand, an occupational adaptation or response to the
dilemmas of role conflict and, on the other, an organizational strategy to meet
the demands of significant constituents in the environment of media institutions.
Examining the contradictory demands of ‘art’ and ‘commerce’ in media
organizations, Elliott points out that this simple dichotomy actually fuses a
number of interrelated dilemmas for the communicator, notably the pursuit of
ideas such as ‘creativity’ and ‘autonomy’ within organizational milieus which
may tend to foster more pragmatic responses to day-to-day events. The basic
dilemmas are complex and may encompass such contradictory demands as those
between high and low culture, professional standards and commercial
judgement, self-regulation and bureaucratic control, self-motivation and
financial inducement, self-monitoring and serving an audience, using one’s
talents to some artistic, social or political purpose and having them used solely
for the commercial ends of the organization. Given this complexity, the
responses or adaptations made by communicators are equally complex.