Essay

Evaluate the contribution of Marxist theories to our understanding of the organisation and role of the mass media in the world today - June 2013 Exam. (33 marks)

Mass media is a means of public communication reaching a large audience, such as television, newspapers, magazines and radio and these are owned and controlled by the media. Within sociology, there are three main approaches to the issues of ownership and control of the media. These are known as the manipulative or instrumentalist approach, the dominant ideology and the pluralist approach. There is a contribution of Marxist theories, also known as the manipulative approach, to the understanding of the organisation and role of the mass media in the world today. The traditional Marxist approach, adopted by writers like Miliband, suggests that the concentration of ownership of the mass media in the hands of a few media corporations enables the owners to control media output, and serve ruling-class interest. The media are seen as an instrument through which the ruling class is able to manipulate media content and media audiences in its own interests. This approach also says that society is made up of two parts: infrastructure and superstructure and says that the superstructure is largely shaped by the infrastructure.

According to Marxists, every society is made up of two main social groups: the ruling class and the subject class. The ruling class is the powerful class who own the ‘means of production’ just as land, raw materials, tools and factories. The subject class however are made of workers who sell their labour in return for wages. There is a conflict of interest between these two groups. The workers produce the wealth but that wealth is taken in the form of profits by the ruling class. Therefore, one group gains at the expense of another. Marxists believe that this conflict could not be resolved because the workers would eventually try to overthrow the ruling class and become a communist society...