- Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the Public Sphere
Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the Public Sphere – arguments: that the media should work in the public’s interest and not purely in a commercial interest, that mass media has reduced the effectiveness of the public sphere though the concentration of ownership, and that in order to have democracy we must have an informed and aware society. “A public sphere between the private domain and the state in which a public opinion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established”
- James Curran & Jean Seaton – the theory of the liberal free press
The media needs a form of regulation or they can post whatever they want and it won’t matter if it’s real or not so we have a filter what media goes through also known as “flack” so the government could stop negative information against them to never be published for the public as well as watchdogs who are mainly anonymous people who keep an eye out for the public to ensure there is no corrupt people or media. FREE PRESS should be free from interference/ ownership/political control
- Noam Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent
Noam Chomsky co-wrote wrote the the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. This book spoke about the five filters that manufacture consent. One to five of these filters are; Size, ownership and profit orientation. Two; The advertising license to do business. Three; the media elite. Four; Flak and the enforcers, and Five; Anti communism.
Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Appraratus
Althusser discusses the idea that social structures such as education, religion, culutre, the arts, etc. construct our individual identity. He says that these social structures follow the dominant ideology of the ‘ruling power’ ie. government and interpellate an ideological identity. This theory looks at issues of ownership, power, control, behavior management in organisations
- Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle
Hegemony is a tug of war for power, and that the balance of power can be changed, how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than other. Post colonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire.