Pluralist Theories Of The Mass Media Media Essay

Pluralist Theories Of The plenty Media Media EssaySociologists ar interested in the nap media because of the powerful loading it has in plentys lives both politically and socially. Mass media is forms of communication directed to bouffant hatful audiences with surface any personal contact. This can be by radio, television, internet, billboards and so on. This essay is going to explain and critically evaluate the redness and pluralist theories of the mass media. An explanation of the media will besides be included.Marxist theorists suggest that the media is dominated by the ruling enlighten who atomic number 18 the major owners of the media corporations, which damps them total work and manipulation of media content and audiences in their own interest. In the view of the Marxist the media is seen as part of an ideal ground in which various variety views atomic number 18 battled out. However, pluralists suggest that there is no dominant ruling class. They asseverate tha t the persona of the media is to promote freedom of speech. In fact they see order of magnitude as a multipart of rival groups and interests, of which none take the leading role all of the time. Pluralists moot that the govern manpowert has a let out position in regulating media content and ownership.Marxists view known as the instrumentalist uprise makes several claims, of which the pluralists such as James Whale (1997) ask that Marxists eluding neglects important facts, and that it exaggerates the power of the media. Some of key claims be That the owners of the mass media earn direct control over the ideas communicated through the mass media, but the pluralists argue that it is not all owners who try to control media content. They actually do billet out that there has been a witness of cases where top parolepaper editors be leave disputes with owners over control of editorial content.Marxists continue to claim that mass media audiences are seen as passive consumers, o f the distorted and partial accounts of reinvigorateds and the cheap distracting entertainment, which the media provides them with. As a result of this the mass audience just accepts whatever is presented to them, whereby a worldly concern opinion could be easily manipulated by the mass media. Pluralists ping this evidence by arguing that the media owners and those who work for the media cant afford to brush off the views and interests of the universal to buy or listen to what they want.Marxists claim that the capitalist owners of the mass media intentionally aim to promote ideas that give them huge massive benefits to their class of which they are members. But on the otherwise hand pluralists call that an unhelpful concept. They go on to say that it is a ruling class ideology. Marxists point out that the reason why pluralists are very critical to Marxists instrumental accounts of the media is because pluralists themselves are often part of or funded by the media industries.H aving to con viewr the above evaluation, now let us experience at how sociologists explain the main(prenominal) ways in which the watchword is created by the media. Sociologists have argued that the process by which journalists create the news is a manufacturing process and that its production processes are sooner predictable. Sociologist Phillip Schlesingers (1978) gave some results about the news study, by saying that journalists use a news diary to make their job easier, and that galore(postnominal) articles can be prepared in advance due to tight deadlines. However, sociologist agree to a certain point that journalists are still controlled in what they present to the public because they are guided by news values, shared norms and values which makes them believe that it is essential to the public.Results drawn by enquiryers like Galting and Ruge (1981) showed that two key sets of factors knotted in determining journalist news values are bureaucratic and cultural. This means that news items must be immediate and refer to sure affairs, brief, simple and exiting. They insist that news must focus on elite decision makers and on personalities rather those issues. Overall, a consequence can be drawn from the above to say that the whole process of making the news is socially constructed and that the media can have a considerable influence of public debate.The fact that the public respond a huge percentage to the media products, it has been turn out that some reports are found to be misleading and over dramatised to give a good story. In a sense such stories are over exaggerated and they usually have a negative usurpation to the audience. Such reports cause virtuous panics and bring fear amongst companionship. After his research of gang fighting at the sea side, Stan Cohen argued that the media play a key role in creating moral panics. He drew a conclusion that the media over exaggerated in order to boost their sales and succeeded in attracting a huge number of readers.Another recent example of moral panic was about the Nigerian man who tried to blow up an American bound airline. The result of that event has brought on security changes at airports around the world. In fact at Heathrow airport a new security device which shows peoples nudity when they pass through, it was introduced shortly after the incident.If we look further into how groups of people are represented in the media either by gender or ethnicity background, we find that women and ethnic minorities are under- represented in position of power and influence in the management of the media industry. On the side of gender, sociologists say that the mass media is patriarchal women appear less than men on television. Many adverts portray women as either house wives or commove figures in the media. For example in the sun news paper, they have utilise a page three that shows half naked women on a daily basis. This definitely keeps the male audiences hooked on such news pa per.There has been a great deal of research showing that media delegacys of men dominate the media and are more positive than that of women. For example, Dominick and Rauch (1972), Brelt and Cantor (1988), Cumberbatch (1990), found out that images of men were predominant in adverts, and that men are usually in more authoritative roles or in higher status occupation. They also claimed that the majority of voice -overs in adverts was male voices. Feminist sociologist Gaye Tuchman (1978) concluded that women are symbolically destroyed and marginalised in media representation.On the other hand, studies have showed that media representations of ethnic minorities are tremendously presented in terms of negative stereotypes. So umpteen newspapers tend to represent ethnic minorities as a threat to the public. This ranges from cosmos criminals, dangerous, pitied or illegal immigrants. On television, ethnic minorities tend to be in restricted range of roles. The broadcasting standards Commi ssion (1999) found that ethnic minorities are more linked with arts, media, health and care roles than other roles such as legal professions.Researchers such as Sarita Malik (2002) believed that there is a racialised regime of representation within which black are visualized as having different experiences from other groups. She concluded that Whiteness is portrayed as the norm. Karen Ross (2000) used focus groups of people from different ethnic minorities and she found out that each group was portrayed as homogeneous. Van Dijk (1991) used a hypodermic model and argued that newspapers have a major impact in developing a lore of immigration as a problem which may lead to racial attacks.In conclusion mass media indeed affects society in many ways. There some positive and negative attributes from the mass media that influence society in todays world. These are either political or social issues.