Jurgen Habermas – public sphere

Habermas defines communication as strictly what happens between two or more talking seriously about something that exists or should exist in the world, but no one disputes the validity of the statements or suggestions made by each other. Communication therefore uses a medium in and through which it occurs: the language. The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.

Noam chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent

The five filters of manufacturing consent are: 

• Structures of ownership
• The role of advertising
• Links with ‘The Establishment’
• Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’
• Uniting against a ‘common enemy’

Chomsky proposes that the mass communication media of the U.S. “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”

Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Apparatus

Louis Althusser says that ‘all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject’. Althusser suggests that we as people are socially constructed. The way in which society addresses you is interpellation which is the way that your subject identity is formed. 

Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle 

Suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. Concept of Hegemony is to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others. 

Hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT – postcolonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire. 

James Curran & Jean Seaton – the theory of the liberal free press

-The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power 

-The idea that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality 

-The idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions 

Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle 

Suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. Concept of Hegemony is to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others. 

Hegemony is a struggle that emerges from NEGOTIATION and CONSENT – postcolonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire. 

Jurgen Habermas – public sphere 

Habermas defines communication as strictly what happens between two or more talking seriously about something that exists or should exist in the world, but no one disputes the validity of the statements or suggestions made by each other. Communication therefore uses a medium in and through which it occurs: the language. The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. 

Noam chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent 

The five filters of manufacturing consent are:  

• Structures of ownership 
• The role of advertising 
• Links with ‘The Establishment’ 
• Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’ 
• Uniting against a ‘common enemy’ 

Chomsky proposes that the mass communication media of the U.S. “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion” 

Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Apparatus 

Louis Althusser says that ‘all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject’. Althusser suggests that we as people are socially constructed. The way in which society addresses you is interpellation which is the way that your subject identity is formed. 

Jurgen Habermas – defines the ‘public sphere’ as a realm of our social life in which something approaching the public opinion opinion can be formed.

James Curran & Jean Seaton – A political economy approach to media, arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors is how the media operates.

Noam Chomsky – Chomsky based his theory on the idea that all languages contain similar structures and rules, so virtually what he means is a universal grammar, and the fact that children everywhere acquire language the same way and without much effort. He talks about manufacturing consent which is a way of them convincing us that the dominant ideology is the way we should go and that we should all agree with it, this is a way that more powerful leaders use in politics.

Louis Althusser – This is when the state uses sources such as the media, religion and school to convey and control the people in to believing what they want. Interpellation is the process of getting a population to believe that message and a formation of that belief.

Antonio Gramsci – Antonio Gramsci who developed the theory of hegemony, in which he states that highly political figures and people with vast amount of control over media are able to dictate and set values and morals within society. A cultural example of hegemony can be the United States of America, in which a group of ruling class people have authority and great influence over all of its citizens. 

Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the Public Sphere

Habermas created the idea of the public sphere that is a virtual community where people are able to spread ideas and opinions to one another which can be done through the use of media. this public sphere can be used to influence other people. He also explained how the public sphere is a direct way companies can communicate to consumers.

James Curran & Jean Seaton – the theory of the liberal free press

James Curran and Jean Seaton discussed Habermas ideas about the public sphere and how they are relevant to media today in terms of education and government. Curran also described that the media is a public watchdog which looks over the state. In Jean Seaton and James Currens book ‘power without responsibility’ they speak about the idea of liberal free press and the the ownership of the media and there influences on the media we consume.

Noam Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent

Chomsky believed that institutions controlled what their audience believed by:

• Ownership: the leaders want their views and profit which affect the views presented
• The role of advertising: The product for advertising is the audience and therefore can sell their ideas at a price which benefits the advertisers and the media
• The Media Elite: Influencing the media narrative to benefit them
• Flak: To discredit other sources when they do not agree with their own
• The Common Enemy: By uniting the audience against a group to target someone

Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Apparatus

This is when the state uses sources such as the media, religion and school to convey and control the people in to believing what they want. Interpellation is the process of getting a population to believe that message and a formation of that belief

Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle

A hegemonic idea is a dominant idea that most people believe and therefore the hegemony is a widely held belief that the dominant population hold. The hegemonic struggle is when a radical text challenges this hegemony and therefore is a difference of opinions when powers differ.

Lazarfield’s Two Step Flow Model

The idea that the media is passed down through opinion leaders and then to the masses. These leaders are usually well liked or trusted people who spread news. For Deutschland, Walter presents is an opinion leader as he reviews the show for Channel 4

Hesmondhalgh

Hesmondhalgh	Case Studies
Changing audience consumption patterns	Both programs can be accessed via online services eg amazon prime or c4 player
Multi-sector integration	Deutschland- Reinhold heil- German musician created soundtrack- soundtrack is also on spotify
Star formatting	Toby Jones- in capital- famous actor
Genre based formatting	Deutschland- spy thriller genre – follows the conventions of a period drama
serialization	Deutschland 86 is a sequel created after Deutschland 83
independent stylizing	Deutschland- subtitles non mainstream in British tv
internationalization	Deutschland- a co-production of AMC Networks’ SundanceTV and RTL Television- exploit the national and global market // Capital- on amazon prime can be watched globally

The media manufactures our consent and tells us so we can fall in line and be manipulated into how politicians and the government want us to act and behave. Those who follow are rewarded and those who rebel is punished. The media works as propaganda machines to inform the public of agendas and news following their political beliefs of left- or right-wing nature.  

Media have 5 filters. 

Ownership- big cooperation’s part of conglomerates aimed on profit and profit only so its in their interest to guarantee profit 

Advertising- they pay for guaranteed audiences to expose a product and pay the media company for space on their page for PROFIT. They reduce the price a consumer has to pay as the media company gets a secondary income of money. To advertises we as humans are the product 

Complicity- you go along with what the media says even If you don’t support it 

Flack- when a story is inconvenient to the media it claims fake news as it is inconvenient to their agenda  

Common enemy. Communism, immigrants, terrorists (a bogey man to fear) which combines the nation into fear 

The public sphere can be defined as something in which public opinion can be formed through the exchange of different peoples opinions and ideas over particular societal problems and how these problems can be resolved through the implementation of political action. It challenges the methodological thinking in Jurgens school of Frankfurt and allowed for rational-critical debates and discussions.  

The discussions in which these debates take place were established in social areas such as coffee shops and salons where verities of different people could discuss current problems and resolutions freely, Habermas described this as “opinion became emancipated from the bonds of economic dependance” this concludes that the public sphere could have a multipurpose use as it can be a way of self-expression but also became a platform to air ones opinions and agendas.  

Habermas 

• Public sphere 
• public space between private world, the state and the public where people form opinions
• source of public info
• communication between media companies and consumers
• MASS MEDIA IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST (DENNIS MCQUAIL)
• the media is held accountable for what they do

Curran and seaton 

• BOOK = power without responsibility
• Liberal press 
• media watchdog (CURRAN), media acts as a watchdog overseeing the government, most important function of the media
• commission (1949) expected to find that “the press as a whole gives an opportunity for all points of view”
• public service broadcasting (unresponsive to popular demand)
• broadcasting in Britain used to to be a monopoly/duopoly
• monopolies can be taken away selling one part of production (horizontal) or selling one from the same area (vertical)
• types of media ownership, CAPITALIST, feed people what they want them to think (private, money), PUBLIC SERVICE, let people make their own opinions (government, help public), CIVIL SOCIETY

Chomsky 

• Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist.
• Book – Manufacturing consent : the political economy of the mass media (1988)

• “the political situation evolved by the political elite”

• “major media conglomerates control more and more of the world’s media”

• “the political an economic perspective has been adopted and primarily by left-wing critics and analysts”

• Making people believe something, planting ideas in their heads 
• conglomerates have control over population
• media manipulates audiences by using a common enemy eg terrorist
• media companies frame a product in a certain way to make the public believe what they believe (FRAMING)
• the media creates myths to scare people into thinking something is going to happen
• power in economy over consumers
• eg election, placing ads to undecided to sway them in a certain direction

• Structures of ownership
• advertising
• Links with ‘The Establishment’
• Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’
• common enemy

Althusser 

• interpellation 
• ideological state apparatus ISA
• analyses from a social perspective
• issues of power control and ownership

Gramsci  

• Hegemony 
• Large media corporations manipulate ideas / change dominant ideologies to favour them 
• telling people what’s true and not making people believe something they deem to be true when it actually isn’t
• using dominance to assert power over others to get across your point of view

HASMANDHAUGH

• British sociologist
• professor at Leeds uni
• (BOOK) ‘the cultural industries’
• “the organisational form of the CI has implications for conditions which creativity is carried out” (p99)
• “there must be concerns about this business driven agenda is compatible with quality of working life and well being in the CI”

Jurgen Habermas came up with the concept of The Public Sphere. This view says that the public can be persuaded to think in certain ways through the media. We can be influenced by the public sphere to all think in similar constructed ways.

Hegemony is a theory from Antonio Gramsci which states that people are in a tug of war for power. He suggests that we can change the way we think about things through culture. Hegemonic struggle is a situation in which countries or cultures experience roles of leadership which can dominate over others.

Louis Althusser describes ISA’s (Ideological State Apparatus) as a process in which we are structured into believing specific things that conform with the dominant ideology. This then eventually can influence us to think certain things about ourselves and our own personal identity.

James Curran & Jean Seaton introduced the theory of the liberal free press. ‘anyone is free to start a daily national newspaper, but few can afford even to contemplate the prospect’.the idea that everyone has the freedom to do whatever they want in theory, but in practice this is not always the case. For example, anyone can create a newspaper in theory but practically it isn’t always possible. Not everyone has the money or contacts in order to do so.

Noam Chomsky talks about manufacturing consent.He says that there are 5 different filters.

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 idea that media should have the right to be exercised freely. The public wants a free market when it comes to the news, however laws have to be implemented to prevent media platforms from publishing highly offensive and untrue information, but if the government put too many laws in place then the news becomes controlled by the state.”The media ceased to be an agency of empowerment and rationality, and became a further means by which the public was sidelined”.

Noam Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent – presents his views on how mass media works against democracy, he thinks that media selectively chooses what to publish not based on what is best for the viewer, but for their personal agenda. Propaganda model – explains how populations are manipulated and how consent is manufactured for social, economic and political policies, includes structures of ownership, the role of advertising, links with the establishment, diversionary tactics and uniting against a common enemy

Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Appraratus and the notion of interpellation. it is a theoretical concept developed by French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity.

Antonio Gramsci – the concept of hegemony / hegemonic struggle  Hegemony is the leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others. Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, 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, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. 

1 Habermas and the public sphere.

Habermas defined the public sphere as a community which is imaginary and not a physical place. This is where private people come together to discuss the needs of the public.  In 1960, this helped shape the newly emerging political left wing. 

2 Curran and Seaton and Liberal free pass

 Seaton wrote a book called “Power without responsibility” which suggested that people who have high political power, feel as if they don’t have any responsibility. It helps people to understand the British media and its political stance. It is used as a defense for public service broadcasting and the impact that social media has on the audience. This relates to Chomsky’s manufacturing consent.  

3 Chomsky and the five filters of manufacturing

Manufacturing consent is how the media has power in the economy and political views. This is where a text producer wants an audience to believe a certain political view and uses subtle ideologies that persuade the audience without them actually realizing it. The five filters of consent are ownership of the medium, the medium’s funding sources, sourcing, flak, and anti-communism or “fear ideology”. These are the characteristics of a conglomerate. 

4 Louis Althusser – interpellation & Ideological State Appraratus

Interpilation- “an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices” The quote suggests that that ideology represents the relationship of individuals and the existence of real life. Interpellation suggests that any ideology is created by a higher power which is mainly seen in social and political institution.

Ideological State Appraratus- Institutions which are outside of the states control and its ideology such as church and families, however they still represent the states values to