Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the Public Sphere
James Curran & Jean Seaton – the theory of the liberal free press
Noam Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent
Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Appraratus
Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle
Habermas believed democracy depended on the public and came up with the theory of the public sphere which is where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems and form a public opinion.
Curran and Seaton‘s power and media theory is that different media producers have different rules. For example, if the media producer is paid by the government it must remain unbiased. Liberal Free press, is free from interference and political control, therefore they can be neutral or biased.
Noam Chomsky says there has been debate about how the Internet has changed the public’s access to information since 1988. The theory of manufacturing consent has five “filters” that determine the type of news that is presented in the media. It is manipulating people without them being aware of it. These five filters are: ownership of the medium, the medium’s funding sources, sourcing, flak, and anti-communism or “fear ideology”. Flak is the negative responses to a media statement or ideology. But this is blocked an rejected by the media which gives them control.
Ideolgical State Apparatus – is a theoretical concept developed by Althusser which is used to describe the way in which society is constructed through: education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc. These form our individual subject identity. So, for example, your family and friends influence your values. In other words – He said ISA’s is what makes us, us, in society. It is a structure that we are in which is full of ideas, values and beliefs. These things construct who we are as individuals so that we become a certain person. This could be your friends, school, the government, they all shape our beliefs and make us stuck there.
Hegemonic struggle is a concept by Gramsci. It is the chance to reclaim. Imagine a tug of war between your own identity and what other people are telling you. Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate “how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others”
