A2 Sociology AQA Mass Media?!?!?!

News selection and presentation is ideologically controlled

Intro - ideological control concept introduced by marxists - means control someone not physically but mentally in a sub-conscious manner. but not all people are passive. plus depends on producer of the news.

Para 1 - news isn't objective or impartial. McQualil says many events occur but doesn't it'll be reported in the news this is because of the sheer no. of them. he argues news is a socially manufactured product because it is the result of a selective process. gatekeepers such as journalists + editors, make judgement and choice on what present => so, news showing one sided view from producer of news's view and ignoring other potential views.

para 2 - gatekeepers and agenda setting suggests hat media influence of content shows is for public discussion. mass media merely provides info that is discussed and form an opinion, so, those who portray news have high control+large power. GUMG argue that those who present news act as gatekeeper by influencing what the audience gains knowledge in. issues that aren't aired is cuz affects upper class. => so news is biases and sense of authority is present with those who show the news

para 3 - journalists background, big impact on what is presented. journalists tend to be somewhere in the moderate center of poltics. they ignore or treat unfavourably to what they regard as "extremists" or "radical views". Hall et al - mostly important people are primarily definers who regularly feature in new/set agenda/+influence journalits on how to represnt them => shows that news distorts reality and is mainly for the elite and poses an unfair reflection of the whole society

para 4 - pluralists - media is constructed by consumer demand therefore whatever is shown is what the buying public wants to see. audience are the real power holders as they have ultimate right on to buy or not to buy. e.g. public service broadcasters such as BBC have the legal obligation to inform/educate/+ensure all is pluralistic and diverse, so they are impartial and objective and balance bias that could be presented in the private sector. should also be noted - ownership is limited. some countries' gov dont all how someone to own too much media and crossownershp rules restricts them to to own more than one type of media

para 5 - marxists - media presented is characterised by inequalites. capitalists use culture power to dominate ruling class ideology. conecept on ideologial state apparatus proposed by Althusser mean audience face false class-consious that capitalism benefits all social groups of society.miliband argues that media shapes how we think of the world and the audeince is very little knowledge of the actual important news.

para 6 - spencer-thomas - editors and journs use concept of news values that determine what is newsworthy. newsworthy depends on what news outlet it is. galtung and ruge catalogues news values. few are: threshold -bigger the news means more likely to be reported eg. wars n natural disasters. negativity - bad new is favoured and seems more exciting to journs than good news. refernce to elite persons - coverage of famous ppl seems more newsworthy than ordinary people. Buckley - gave 2 editors 64 stories to classify as newsworthy. found, all classified in same manner and the news most likely to pop u in news had the most news values. also mean that stories may have some news values, but not all.


Advice would be appreciated on how to improve!
Wrote all of this off by heart with 2 peaks at my plan.
Sorry for the spelling errors! was writing in a hurry.
Didn't link it back at the end in some para but will do in exam!

Referring to the intro - I thought it was only neo-marxists that said media is unconsciously presenting ruling class ideology? Traditional marxists I thought said that they do it on purpose?

Sorry, i don't understand. In the intro i didnt talk about that... im confused

ideological control concept introduced by marxists - means control someone not physically but mentally in a sub-conscious manner.

^^^^ This is what I am talking about, but i just realised my mistake I read it as 'sub consciously control someone' not how the person is subconsciously controlled by the state. My bad!

Thats ok! i got very confused!

can you tell me if my essay plan was goo? feedback would be appreciated

its a good plan. Maybe some contemporary examples and evidence? For example when talking about news values include some shocking modern news stories. When talking about