neo-marxism

neo marxists

• media stengthens ruling class hegemony since the media has a wide reach in society

  journalists and broadcasters tend to be white ,middle class and male and more than 50 per cent have attended independent schools (sutton trust 2006), which only 7% of the whole population attended

• the neo-marxist argument is that such media professionals promote ruling class hegemonic ideas because they themselves share the dominant norms and values of society

• they consciously produce media content that will be popular in the media marketplace but they unconsciously produce media content that reproduces the norms and values of the ruling class

media representations of social groups

• hegemony operates in media representations of social groups

• neo-marxists argue that social groups that are seen as threatening to white middle class males are marginalised by being portrayed in a negative stereotyped way and often subjected to ridicule as a way of neutralising their ideas and removing any threat

stereotypes of black people - hall

• the native

• the clown

• the slave

• unconscious racism depicting black people as the source of the problem that politicians and others are seeking to solve

• he argues that representations of conflicts between members of minority ethnic groups and the police reflect the dominant ideology

• for example, in the ways in which black and asian people are seen as troublemakers in riots where television coverage defends the law

• he later identified a development in media representations where a more diverse range of images were presented

• however, hall saw such diversity as existing within a framework that is constructed by the powerful in society and does not present any challenge to their dominance

glasgow media group

• Hall's perspective on media representations of minority ethnic groups mirror the findings of the gmg empirical research into the content of the media , including analysis of television news

• such research has focused on working class activity such as strikes and industrial action in the 1970s and 1980s and more recently, representations of refugees and asylum seekers (philo et al)

• research into refgees and asylum seekers points out that media representation of such groups use a number of stereotypes that appear to mirror ideas that are encouraged by major political leaders

• and that political leaders an mainstream media outlets such as newspapers tv and radio seem to be working together

gmg findings

• used a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods and sought to identify a number of recurring themes within media representations

• noted the following themes:

• the conflation of forces and economic immigration

• some immigrants are forced to come to the uk because they have decided that they would be able to have a better standard of living if they do so

• when these two types of immigration are conflated together,people can think that all immigrants are here to make money when really, their unfortunate circumstances have forced them here

• threatening numbers- some media accounts appear to exaggerate the actual numbers of people immigrating to the uk

gmg findings 2

• a burden on welfare and the job market- this is a frequent type of media representation which ignored the possible economic benefits of immigration for the uk in favour of exaggerating the perceived burden that immigrants put on the welfare state and job market

• criminality threat deportation and human rights refugees and asylum seekers are seen as threats to the uk population ,prompting the need for high profile deportations of particular figures such as the muslim cleric abu hamza who was deported to the us in 2012

gmg findings 3

• need for imigration ‘control’ - this is a key theme in a political debate and a frequent topic in newspaper headlines - the gmgm pointed out that there is evidence that relaxing such controls would bring net benefits to the uk economy

• the benefits of immigrationn receive only limited media coverage in spite of evidence in favour from key sources

• problems facing asylum seekers in the uk are portrayed minimally in major media outlets

gmg findings 4

• the role of the west is refugee movements and economic forces in migration

• media representations generally ignore why western powers can be responsible for patterns in migration

• e.g because of their role in armed conflict overseas ; instead the migrants themselves are blamed for immigration

gmg conclusion

• they concluded that ‘hysterical and inaccurate media accounts act to legitimise political action which can have terrible consequences on both the lives of refugees and also on established migrant communities ‘ (philo et al)

challenges to hegemony

• any challenges to hegemony will be ignored or presented as a challenge or as a joke