Assess the view that the media reflect the interest and values of all

groups in society.

According to the pluralist approach approach, modern societies are

democratic and therefore power in society is spread among a wide
variety of groups and individuals. The media gives everyone’s views a
platform.

They argue media content is driven not by a dominant ideology the

political interests of owners, but by the fight for profits through high cir
ulation and audience figures. The only control over media content is
consumer choice, and the media content is consumer choice and the
media have to be responsive to audience tastes and wishes otherwise
they will go out of business.. Audiences are free to choose what media
they consume in a pick and mix approach as there is a wide range of
media they can choose from . They also have the freedom to accept,
reject,reinterpret or ignore media content in accordance with their
tastes and views. Pluralist has been criticised as not all groups in society
have equal influence on editors and journalists to get their views
across. The pressure to attract audiences limits media choice. News is
sensationalised and turned into infotainment (information packaged to
entertain ) as the media aim to attract large audiences with
unchallenging content .

Marxists see societies as having a dominant ideology ,which is that of

the dominant class in society. This ideology justifies the advantages of
wealthy and powerful groups in society and justifies the disadvantages
of those who lack wealth and power. It is spread by society by what
Althusser called the ideological state apparatuses, which includes
agents like the media, which maintain false class consciousness. Writers
like Miliband argue the media play an important role in spreading this
dominant ideology. They argue that the media control access to the
knowledge people have about society and encourage them to accept
inequality. The media promotes information which make those
challenge the system seems unreasonable or extreme.

Curran and Seaton found evidence which suggested media owners did
interfere and manipulate newspaper content to protect their own
interests. For example, in February 2003, Rupert Murdoch argued
strongly in interviews for the war in Iraq. All of his 175 newspaper also
agreed with this view. Murdoch admitted in 2007 that he exercised
editorial control on major issues in the ‘Sun' and the ‘News of the
world’s, such as which party to back in a general election or policy in
Europe. The Leveson Inquiry in 2012 uncovered a range of links
between media owners and governments,with media support given to
political parties in return for government policies favourable to the
interests of media owners . Media editors, journalists etc, have little
choice but to run the media in the way that owners want as they
depend on the owners for their jobs. However marxists have been
criticised as the states regulates media ownership so no one person or
company has too much influence . By law, the media have to report
news impartially.

However, the Feminists theorists argued that the majority of owners,

editors and journalists are Male.Therefore programming is biased
towards male interests.As a result , media companies transmit a
patriarchal ideology. Women in the media face a glass ceiling where
they are unable to get the top jobs, which influence media content.
Feminists such as Catherine MacKinnon argue that media portrayal of
women shows how they have very little control over their own bodies
,with female sexuality being largely controlled and defined by men in
patriarchal societies.

However the post modernist theory claim that in a media saturated

society where public are constantly immersed in media for 24/7,it
resulting in the distinction between reality and the media
representation of it becomes blurred.In other words people no longer
have any sense of the difference between real things and images of
them, or real experiences and simulations. For example,the increasing
uses of CGI in films like The Lord Of The Rings and Avatar indicates how
film producers want to make fictional characters or scenes to become
more logical to the real world,thus proving the blurriness between
reality and media. This indicates how the content of media does reflect
the values and interests of public as the distinction between reality and
media blurred.

In conclusion, the Pluralist claims how media is a reflection of the public

and how the public is a reflection of the media. On the other hand,
Marxists and Feminists argue that media is actually a propaganda being
made u p by capitalist and patriarchal society.