Curran and Seaton – power and media industries theory.
Definition from OCR
- A political economy approach to the media – arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.
- Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.
- The internet does not represent a rupture with the past in that it does not offer a level playing field for diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarch.
What is the theory?
Newspapers should reflect the interests of an audience otherwise they will go out business. They should be liberal and anyone should be able to make one. However, this does not happen in practice due to cost and the press can be used as a propaganda tool to influence the audience. Because there are far fewer newspaper owners than their are readers, an audience only receives a small amount of opinions. Whilst many hoped the internet would make this fairer, due to lower costs, Curran and Seaton believe this hasn’t happened in practice as the big news organisations control the majority of online news.
What is the more advanced version?
“The free market makes the press a representative institution…newspapers and magazines are to respond to the concerns of their readers if they are to stay in business.”
“The broad shape and nature of the press is ultimately determined by no one but its readers.” (John Whale).
The freedom to publish in a free market ensures the press reflects a wide range of opinions and interests in a society. If a viewpoint is missing in the press, this is because it lacks a sufficient following to sustain it in the market place.
“Some liberal theorists view the market as an analogue of the electoral process. They claim that newspapers submit themselves to public judgement every time they go on sale…consequently, newspapers are closer to the people than are their elected representatives.”
“The press is the people’s watchdog, scrutinizing the actions of government and holding the country’s rulers to account.”
However, since the press has been industrialised, the ‘assumption that ‘anyone is free to start a paper’ is an ‘illusion’.
Since the advent of the internet, entry costs have been lowered. However, “the list of the ten most-visited sites is dominated by large news organisations like BBC News, the Guardian, The Times, The Sun and Telegraph.”
Whilst the press used to be independent of outside financial interests, most British press was bought up in the 1960s and 1970s by conglomerates. The press have become a subsidiary of these companies and harms their independence.
Furthermore, anti-monopoly legislation has been ineffective, allowing the creation of large media monopolies, which allows individual companies a great deal of power when the desire to publicise a message to vast amounts of people is enacted.
Curran found evidence that media owners did interfere and manipulate newspaper content at the expense of the independence of journalists and editors . Rupert Murdoch in 2003 strongly wanted a war with Iraq and its no coincidence that all of his 175 newspapers around the world that he owns supported this view in their articles
Watch videos of Curran here.
Read some of his work here.
How can I use it?
Use this theory when explaining the power of media institutions and how monopolies can project ideas and messages to large amounts of people.
This can also be used to explain the illusion of freedom that prosumers and content creators have one the internet as whilst they can create and publish, it is still very difficult to reach an audience.
