MEDIA STUDIES

In Britain and Europe, neo-Marxist approaches were common amongst

media theorists from the late '60s until around the early '80s, and Marxist
influences, though less dominant, remain widespread.

So it is important to be aware of key Marxist concepts in analyzing the
mass media.

Marxist theorists tend to emphasize the role of the mass media in the
reproduction of the status quo, in contrast to liberal pluralists who
emphasize the role of the media in promoting freedom of speech.






The rise of neo-Marxism in social science represented in part a
reaction against 'functionalist' models of society.

A central feature of Marxist theory is the 'materialist' stance that
social being determines consciousness.

. According to this stance, ideological positions are a function of
class positions, and the dominant ideology in society is the ideology
of its dominant class.

In fundamentalist Marxism, ideology is 'false consciousness', which
results from the emulation of the dominant ideology by those whose
interests it does not reflect.

Another Marxist theorist of ideology, Valentin Volosinov,
has been influential in British cultural studies.

Volosinov argued that a theory of ideology which grants
the purely abstract concept of consciousness an
existence prior to the material forms in which it is
organized could only be metaphysical.
POLITICALECONOMICTHEORY
According to this theory the mass media are a part
of the economic system which in its turn influenced
by the political dispensation in vogue.

It is apparent that the content the media carry to the
masses must be in tune with the beliefs of their two
masters-their owners and politicians who help them
earn the moolah.

The theory advocates that scientific research should
be carried out to focus on how the media are
influenced by economic considerations which are not
just a few.
The theory sees mass media tools as a
means to earn money by selling their
products.

In a capitalist society the mass media will
be employed by moneybags as investment
tools just as they use other things in the
same way.

critical theory in literary studies is ultimately a form of hermeneutics,

i.e. knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human
texts and symbolic expressionsincluding the interpretation of texts
which are themselves implicitly or explicitly the interpretation of other
texts.

this perspective, much literary critical theory, since it is focused on
interpretation and explanation rather than on social transformation,
would be regarded as positivistic or traditional rather than critical
theory in the Kantian or Marxian sense.

Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture,
drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities.
In the sociological context, critical theory refers to a style of
Marxist theory with a tendency to engage with non-Marxist
influences

Critical theory was first defined by Max Horkheimer of the
Frankfurt School of sociology in his 1937

Core concepts are:
1. ) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of
society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be
configured at a specific point in time)
2. That critical theory should improve understanding of society by
integrating all the major social sciences, including geography,
economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology,
and psychology

Culture theory is the branch of

anthropology and semiotics (not to be
confused with cultural sociology or
cultural studies) that seeks to define the
heuristic concept of culture in operational
and/or scientific terms.


According to many theories that have
gained wide acceptance among
anthropologists, culture exhibits the way
that humans interpret their biology and
their environment.

According to many theories that have
gained wide acceptance among
anthropologists, culture exhibits the way
that humans interpret their biology and their
environment.

Technology, Arthur attempts to articulate a
theory of change that considers that existing
technologies (or material culture) are
combined in unique ways that lead to novel
new technologies. Behind that novel
combination is a purposeful effort arising in
human motivation.
THEFRANKFURTSCHOOL
The Frankfurt School (German: Frankfurter Schule) refers to a
school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary theory, particularly
associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of
Frankfurt am Main.
Frankfurt School theorists spoke with a common paradigm in mind,
thus sharing the same assumptions and being preoccupied with
similar questions.
The school's main figures sought to learn from and synthesize the
works of such varied thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber
and Lukas.


Following Marx, they were concerned by the conditions
which allowed for social change and the establishment of
rational institutions.

It should be noted that the term "Frankfurt School"
arose informally to describe the thinkers affiliated or
merely associated with the Frankfurt Institute for Social
Research; it is not the title of any specific position or
institution per se, and few of these theorists used the
term themselves.
TECHNOLOGICALDETERMINISM
Technological determinism is a reductionist
theory that presumes that a society's
technology drives the development of its social
structure and cultural values. The term is
believed to have been coined by Thorstein
Veblen (18571929), an American sociologist.
The most radical technological determinist in
America in the twentieth century was most
likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of
Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey. William
Ogburn was also known for his radical
technological determinism.

The term is believed to have been coined by
Thorstein Veblen (18571929), an American. Veblen's
contemporary, popular historian Charles Beard

Most interpretations of technological determinism
share two general ideas:

othat the development of technology itself follows
a predictable, traceable path largely beyond
cultural or political influence, and

oThat technology in turn has "effects" on
societies that are inherent, rather than socially
conditioned or produced because that society
organizes itself to support and further develop a
technology once it has been introduced.

Technological determinism has been defined as
an approach that identifies technology, or
technological advances, as the central causal
element in processes of social change (Croteau
and Hoynes).


Rather than acknowledging that a society or
culture interacts with and even shapes the
technologies that are used, a technological
determinist view holds that "the uses made of
technology are largely determined by the
structure of the technology itself, that is, that its
functions follow from its form" (Neil Postman).

. As Postman maintains

The printing press, the computer, and television are
not therefore simply machines which convey
information.

They are metaphors through which we conceptualize
reality in one way or another.

They will classify the world for us, sequence it, frame
it, enlarge it, reduce it, argue a case for what it is like.
Through these media metaphors, we do not see the
world as it is.

We see it as our coding systems are. Such is the
power of the form of information.