evaluation of marxism

traditional marxists

• they have been critisises for focusing on social class and ignoring other forms of inequality such as ethnicity and gender in media representations

• crtitism would be supported by feminism

• they are seen to present an overly conspirational view of the role of media owners as a united group when in reality they are in competition with each other

• they fail to take account of the role of media professionals in constructing representations of social groups

• eg there are an increasing number of female and ethnic minority journalists who construct positive representations

• crtisism would be supported by liberal feminists and pluralists

pluralists

• would argue that traditional marxists ignore the wide and varied range of representations in the media ,including those that are critical of powerful groups in society

pluralists and diversity

• they point out the increase in diversity and choice of forms of media and media products as evidence that media representations do not just conform to the narrow stereotypes

postmodernist

• believe that it is increasingly difficult to identify specific social groups in society as boundaries between them have become more blurred

• they argue that social class is no longer an important source of identity and so there is no clear way of identifying members of different social classes