Curran studied the early 1800s era of media distribution, and described how newspapers were only producible by people with the wealth to manufacture products on an industrial scale.

The free market of media and newspapers means that the outcome of the products has the potential to be ultimately decided by the consumers themselves.

Curran and seatons theory was the power and media – 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.

what is OCR – OCR is Optical character recognition or optical character reader is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene-photo or from subtitle text superimposed on an image. this relates back to Currans studies in the 1800s era of media distribution and how he said that it was only producible by people with wealth to manufacture it where as ocr is the use of printing machines and photocopying machines

with the emergence of an independent, market-based press, it created a new public engaged in critical political discussion.

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.  

The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to openly discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.

‘Habermas argues that the development of early modern capitalism brought into being an autonomous arena of public debate.’

‘He makes the point that , the public sphere came to be dominated by an expanded state with organized economic interests’.

‘Created a new public engaged in critical political thinking’.

Habermas defined the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state”

what is the public sphere vs private sphere

The public sphere is where the free discussion and debate of ideas occurs, where as the private sphere is the realm of family life. Historically, women and people of color have often been excluded from participation in the public sphere in the United States

feminism within the public sphere – Central to the feminist perspective is that men dominate the public sphere whereas women are essentially relegated to the private sphere. This dichotomy has served to entrench the patriarchal system and ensure the oppression of women. For instance, women find it difficult to raise issues that impact upon them

The daily mail

• Is a British daily middle-market newspaper published in London
• The daily mail has 218 million visitors per month
• It has won a number of awards eight times since 1995
• It was one of the first British papers to popularize its coverage to appeal to a mass readership
• The Daily Mail’s print circulation has fallen below 900,000 for the first time in more than 100 years. In February the newspaper sold an average of 896,455 copies each day or 767,021 on weekdays and 1,449,049 on Saturdays – following a month-on-month drop of 1% and year-on-year decline of 7%
• The Daily Mail Is Yellow Journalism – sensationalistic or biased stories that newspapers present as objective truth
• The daily mail are right wing
• the Daily mail is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the new regulatory body for the Press set up in response to the Leveson Inquiry.

The I

• The I is a British national morning paper published in London by daily mail and general trust.
• Founded 26th October 2010
• The paper and its website were bought by the daily mail and general trust on 29th November 2019 for £49.6 million.
• The I was named British National Newspaper of the year in 2015
• The paper had an average daily circulation of 302,757 in March 2013 significantly more than the independent.
• At the start of September 2017, the price rose once again, to 60p for the weekday edition and 80p for the relaunched i weekend beginning later that month
• On 11 February 2016, it was revealed that regional publisher Johnston Press, which owned The Yorkshire Post and The Scotsman, were in the advanced stages of talks to buy the i for around £24 million
• Rothermere, the chair of DMGT, said that the paper would maintain its politically independent editorial style

Question:

Ideology can be defined as a collection of values and beliefs. To what extent do media products target audiences by constructing an ideological view of the world?
You should refer to your newspaper Close Study Products, The i and The Daily Mail.

Introduction – outline differences between authoritarian + libertarian / left + right

‘Habermas argues that the development of early modern capitalism brought into being an autonomous arena of public debate.’

’emergence of an independent, market-based press, created a new public engaged in critical political discussions’

‘The public sphere came to be dominated by an expanded state and organised economic interests

Habermas’ definition of a public sphere is the first and founding trigger to classification attempts of the formation of public opinions and the legitimisation of state and democracy in post-war Western societies.

The public sphere is seen as a domain of social life where public opinion can be formed. (Habermas, 1991, 398) It can be seen as the breeding ground, if you want. Habermas declares several aspects as vital for the public sphere. Mainly it is open to all citizens and constituted in every conversation in which individuals come together to form a public. The citizen plays the role of a private person who is not acting on behalf of a business or private interests but as one who is dealing with matters of general interest in order to form a public sphere. There is no intimidating force behind the public sphere but its citizens assemble and unite freely to express their opinions. The term of a political public sphere is introduced for public discussions about topics connected to the state and political practice. Although Habermas considers state power as ‘public power’ (ibid. 398) which is legitimized through the public in elections, the state and its forceful practices and powers are not part but are a counterpart of a public sphere where opinions are formed. Therefore public opinion has to control the state and its authority in everyday discussions, as well as through formal elections.

The economic independence provided by private property, the critical reflection fostered by letters and novels, the flowering of discussion in coffee houses and salon and above all, the emergence of an independent, market-based press, created (a new public engaged in critical political discussion.)

He argues that the public sphere came to be dominated by an expanded state and organized economic interests. The media ceased to be an agency of empowerment and rationality, it manipulated mass opinion. The public thinking they are passive consumers. People collectively determine through the processes of rational argument the way in which they want to see society develop.

Curran and Seaton – Profit-driven media is softened to create mass audience appeal. Minority interest content is pushed to the margins of broadcast schedules.

Livingstone and Lunt – Consumer-based regulation seeks to ensure that the media landscape contains a variety of different producers so that audiences have choice.

REGULATION THEORY (LIVINGSTONE AND LUNT)

Regulation- This is the control over products in the media industry.
Regulation Theory

• A key aspect of the theory is the underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens on the other hand, and the need to further the interests of consumers on the other. 
• This is shown through Ofcom which regulates UK media. The main regulatory duties of Ofcom  appear to address the needs of citizens while others seem to address the needs of consumers. 
• Linvingstone and Lunt argue that the interests of citizens and those of consumers cannot be easily reconciled. This suggests that there is an increasing tendency in recent UK regulation policy to place the interests of consumers above those of citizens. 

in most media industries we are dominated by a small number of giant conglomerates.

This theory says that- These companies are all about profit and power

concentrated ownership of large companies like the big six results in lack of choice, lots of the same product- The products they make tend to be quite repetitive, similar and there isn’t a big choice or diversity, because it is all about profit and power. If a film company makes a very successful action movie, they will want to continue that profit and keep the power, so it is very tempting for them to make another with exactly the same storyline.

The primary democratic role of the media is to act as a watch dog, big rich companies have more power and giant conglomerates all own the newspapers and enforce a political compass/ viewpoint onto the newspapers, breaking the theory by Habermas public sphere and reducing the expression between people of our own ideas and opinions – “” input quote.

“From it can be extrapolated a model of a public sphere as a neutral zone where access to relevant information affecting the public is widely available.”

public sphere- 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.

private sphere– The private sphere is the complement or opposite to the public sphere. The private sphere is a certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by interventions from governmental or other institutions

” Within this public sphere, people collectively determine through the processes of rational argument the way in which they want to see society develop”

In reference to Harbermas’s study’s

“From it can be extrapolated a model of a public sphere as a neutral zone where access to relevant information affecting the public is widely available.”

Habermas defined the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state”

Habermas’s theory of communicative action rests on the idea that social order ultimately depends on the capacity of actors to recognize the intersubjective validity of the different claims on which social cooperation depends.

In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas showed how modern European salons, cafés, and literary groups contain the resources for democratizing the public sphere.

A public sphere is the basic requirement to mediate between state and society and in an ideal situation permits democratic control of state activities. To allow discussions and the formation of a public opinion a record of state-related activities and legal actions has to be publicly accessible.