UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
Faculty of Arts
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
MEDIA STUDIES
(ACOM232)
_________________________________________________________________________________
Lecturer: Mr. Marathane Reggy Metso SHABANGULONGOBAKUSHAE
Email address: dodoology@gmail.com
Office landline: +27 35 902 6167
Study Guide – 2012
1
Table of Contents
1. Welcome, Introduction and Course Objectives
3
2. Purpose of the Subject
3
3. Pre-Requisites
3
4. Learning and Teaching Strategies
4
5. Assessment methods and composition of final mark
4
6. Additional Resources
4
7. Assignment Completion and Submission Procedure
4-9
8. Industry/community/occupation-related information
9
9. Attendance
9
10. Guidelines
9-10
11. Course Overview
11
12. FIRST ASSIGNMENT and TESTS
12
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1.
Welcome, Introduction and course objectives
The programme of Public Relations would like to extend a friendly welcome to all the
ACOM232 students for 2012. It is a pleasure to have your attendance and participation in
the course.
This learner guide serves to orient and inform students regarding the content and
requirements of the course. The guide therefore includes details pertaining to the course
objectives, assessment criteria, relevance to related fields, outcomes and structure.
By the end of this course, students be able to trace the rise of the mass media in society
from a sociological perspective,
 articulate the fundamental concepts of the political economy of the mass media
and their effects on the media content and audience reception,
 investigate the role that mass media and popular culture play in shaping the
public’s awareness of social and political issues,
 investigate the history and current development of corporate ownership of mass
media outlets,
 evaluate critically the role of political propaganda in democratic societies,
 assess critically the extend of sexism, racism, heterosexism and stereotyping in
the mass media and define culture, ideology and hegemony as they pertain to the
social control of the media and their effects on individual subjectivity and
collective identity,
 articulate an understanding of the role of mass media in the rise of a global
imaginary and its effects on culture, politics and economics,
 ethics of a journalist and journalism plus will be covered as well
3
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK
Croteau, David and William Hoynes. 2003. Media/Society: industries, images and
audiences. 3rd. Ed. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge
Additional Reading
Nick Couldry, Media Rituals: A Critical Approach
2.
Purpose of this Subject
Global demands in the recent past have found practitioners in different fields responding
to critical questions within their professions. The area of communication has also been
affected by this trend and one of the issues raised is the question of the direction to be
taken by communication in attempting to achieve its objectives.
Related arguments speak of the addition of value to communication through the scientific
researching of the perceptions, attitudes or opinions of target audiences. In so doing and
provided that communication is consistent and true, behavioral changes can be effected
in people. In terms of people belonging to the Third World or other disadvantaged
circumstances, communication can assist in societal advancement or improvement. In
terms of employees within a corporate situation, effective communication is beneficial to
the processes of consultative decision-making and participative management.
3.
Pre-Requisites
…………………………………………………………..
4.
Learning and Teaching Strategies
The course will primarily comprise seminars and tutorials . Tutorials will be scheduled on
completion of each section of the course. The purpose of the tutorials is to consolidate
and revise regularly the content covered during the course.
4
It will serve students well to attend all seminars and tutorials. Attendance ensures that all
information is received and that all queries and issues regarding the material are
resolved. In this regard, students are advised to complete the recommended prescribed
readings for each section before attending the lectures for that specific section. This
allows for the clarification of concepts, less confusion and adequate participation in
class.
5.
Assessment
Course assessment will constitute a number of written assignments and oral exercises.
The written assignments will test the critical application of theory to context, while the
oral presentation will test the ability to process, assimilate and reconstruct the
information gained from the readings. The written examination will test the application of
problem-solving skills using the course content to understand contemporary events.
6.
Additional Resources
Students are urged to do additional related research to supplement the knowledge gained
during the course. This research could include readings (chapters and articles), outside
of those provided in the course pack, internet searches, newspaper and television news
reports, etc. This shows initiative and will be rewarded during assessment.
7.
Assignment Submission
 Reading is essential in the successful completion of assignments. Ensure that prescribed
texts and other related material are read before assignments are attempted.
 Ensure that notes are taken while reading. This could assume the form of a mind-map
where the student writes down the question and then works out a structure as to how
s/he is going to answer the question.
 The cover page of any assignment should include:
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 Name & Surname
 Registration/Student number
 Plagiarism Declaration
 Due Date
 The Topic
 The Lecturer’s name
 The cover page should have no fancy ribbons, drawings, bindings, etc. It should be
stapled in the left-hand corner only.
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UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
TOPIC:
……………………………….………………………………………………………………………………………
Surname:………………………………………………………
Name:…………………………………………………………….
Student Number:………………………………………….
Course:…………………………………………………………
Lecturer:………………………………………………………
Due Date:………………………………………………………
Submission Date:………………………………………….
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Plagiarism clause: “I declare that this assignment is an original piece of work produced by myself
and where necessary, due acknowledgement has been given to the work of other persons utilized
herein.”
Signature:………………………………………….
 The assignment should contain:
 A Table of Contents
 An Introduction
 This should briefly explain how the student intends to answer the question
according to the aims of the assignment.
 The Main Section
 This is the section in which the student will incorporate all the reading material
that she or he has done. This must be arranged in a logical way and should be the
most important part of the assignment. The student must ensure that she or he
has answered the question adequately.
 Conclusion
 This should be the summary of the main points of the assignment

A List of References or a Bibliography
 Please note the following:
 Assignments must be TYPED
 The regulation font size used should be 12 and the font type should be either Arial or
Times New Roman.
 Use the Harvard System of referencing. The List of References or Bibliography should
therefore be presented as – Surname, Initials, Year, Title of Book (typed in italics), Place
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of Publication, Publisher/Publishing Company for example, Skinner, C. (2001). The
Handbook of Public Relations. Cape Town: Juta
 DO NOT PLAGIARISE – it is a CRIME.
 Ensure that work is written clearly and that all sources utilized are duly acknowledged. If
quoting directly from texts, remember to make use of quotation marks and to include a
text reference. In other words, the author, the year and the page number of the book
from which the quote has been taken e.g. “…public relations…” (Skinner, 2001: 1).
 Finally, the deadlines for assignments will be provided in advance, in order that you are
afforded the time necessary in which to prepare a quality assignment.
Cautions
 Apply the 13th Commandment: “Thou shalt make a backup” (of your essay). Late submission
because a disc became corrupted or lost is not a valid excuse.
 Proof-read your work thoroughly before handing in your assignment.
8.
Industry/community/occupation-related information
An awareness of media practice in South Africa prepares students for the distinct social,
political, economic and cultural influences informing the existence of corporate and
institutional media structures in the country.
9.
Attendance
The very nature of this class requires attendance. Inevitably, unforeseen emergencies
arise that necessitate missing a scheduled class. In order to avoid penalizing any student
who must, for some reason, be absent, the following policy exists:
Students are held responsible for information covered in the session missed. Notes
should be obtained from fellow classmates, not the lecturer. Excessive absences (more
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than three) will result in a course grade reduction. If your involvement in universitysponsored activities requires that you miss certain class periods, then you must provide
the lecturer with a written calendar of the days you will miss.
10.
Guidelines for Communication Science Students
a. Ensure that you are correctly registered. It is the students’ responsibility to ensure that you
are registered for the correct modules.
b. It’s important that you don’t lose your PROOF OF REGISTRATION
c. Editions to your registration will only be done within the first two weeks of registration.
d. Attend only the modules that appear on your proof of registration. Students are not allowed
to attend lectures if they are not registered for a module.
e. If you have obtained a mark of 45% to 49% in your final score (assessments plus
examinations), you are entitled to write the supplementary examinations.
f. You may be allowed to write supplementary examinations if you have been VERY sick during
the examinations. You will be required to produce a medical certificate.
g. SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATIONS WILL BE WRITTEN AT THE END OF EACH SEMESTER (NOT IN THE
NEXT SEMESTER). Please do not leave campus soon after your examinations. Check that all
your problems are sorted out before leaving campus. Dates for supplementary examinations
will be posted on departmental notice boards.
h. Students will not be allowed to write two supplementary examinations. No matter what the
reason is, you will only be given ONE SECOND CHANCE to rewrite an examination (only if you
qualify to do so). If you wish to re-write after you have already written a supplementary
examination, YOU WILL HAVE TO RE-REGISTER the module.
i. If you have missed a supplementary examination, you must re-register for it.
j. If you have been found guilty of copying you will be suspended from this institution (and other
institutions) for a period of two years. We cannot do anything to minimise the sentence.
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k. In order to pass a module you must submit all assignments timeously and write all tests and
examinations. You must also attend AT LEAST 80% of the lectures. This is NOT A PART-TIME
university.
l. The Department of Communication Science will NOT issue academic records.
m. The Department of Communication Science is NOT a printing center. DO NOT bother the
lecturing staff to do your printing.
Learning outcomes
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



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
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Defining Media
o
Assessment
Assessment
Time
criteria
methods
Frame
Media characteristics,
determinant
Media and Communication
What is Media Studies?
o ICASA
o Mass Media as an Institution
Mass Media and Society
Mass Media and democracy
Functionalist and Critical Media Theories
Media and the Public Sphere
The Right to Know
Censorship
Development of the Media Market
Media policy

Four Theories of the Press

Journalism and Mass Communication
Theories
3 weeks
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Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Ideology
News, News Media and the limits of debate
Advertising and the Globalization Culture
New Media Technologies
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Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
and 8
UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
Media Studies:
ACOM232
1. There are four newspaper groups in South Africa:
Activity: Mention what each of the four newspapers’ dailies are.
That is, when does each newspaper come out, daily/weekly/fortnightly?
2. Identify the television stations in South Africa.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Newspapers: Marks are allocated on the dates of the establishment of the newspaper groups, the
newspapers according to the newspapers groups. Be careful of plagiarism.
[50 marks]
Television stations: Marks are allocated on identifying all the stations in SA, their dates of
establishments.
[50 marks]
SUBMISSION DATE: August 2012 in class!
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UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
Media Studies:
ACOM232
Date: 05th August 2012
The Dangers of Media to Society
Exercise: Find any contemporary news reports from the press, TV, or radio which suggest the
dangers of media. How do these fears relate to our discussion?
For your comprehensive argument, be advised to be guarded by domestic and international
incidents and examples. You will submit and present at the same time.
Submission and presentation Date: 02nd August 2012!
Plagiarism won’t be entertained.
This should be one and half pages long.
Pay attention to proper referencing and citations.
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UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
Media Studies:
ACOM232
August 2012
Duration: 1 Hour
TEST 1
Marks: 30
Lecturer: Mr. M. R. Metso
Moderator: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
…………………………………………………………………………………………….........
...........
Instructions: Read the questions thoroughly. Answer all the questions. Write clearly and legibly. Make
sure illegibility does not deprive you of scoring higher marks!
..................................................................................................................................................................................................
1. Mention two characteristics of media.
[2]
2. Mention and discuss only three reasons why we study or teach about media.
[6]
3. Discuss two important roles of media studies in a society.
[2]
4. Why is it important to know the history of media in South Africa?
[2]
5. “Television will come to South Africa over my dead body”. Mention the
names of the National Party Minister of Posts and Telegrams who said these words.
[1]
6. Explain the following terms:
a) Media institution:
b) Censorship:
c) Convergence
7. In which year was the ICASA established?
8. Give the full names of the following bodies:
a) IBA: Independent South African Authority.
b) Satra: South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.
c) ICASA: Independent Communication Authority of South Africa.
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[2]
[2]
[2]
[1]
[1]
[1]
[1]
d) MDDA
e) SABC
[1]
[1]
9. Mention and discuss the roles played by ICASA.
[2]
10. State the roles played by MDDA.
[2]
11. Who is the Deputy Minister of Communications in South Africa?
[1]
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Home-work
For next week, here is the take home test:
Discuss each of the theories in relation to any media policy in any country of your choice, the length is
half a page for each of the theories.




The authoritarian theory,
The libertarian theory,
The social responsibility theory,
The Soviet communist theory.
Due date: August 2012 in class!
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UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND
FACULTY OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION SCIENCE
Media Studies:
ACOM232
th
28 August 2012
Duration: 1 Hour
TEST 2
Marks: 35
Lecturer: Mr. M. R. Metso
Moderator: Mr. J. M. Magagula
……………………………………………………………………………………………............................................................................
Instructions: Read the questions thoroughly. Answer all the questions. Write clearly and legibly. Make sure illegibility
does not deprive you of scoring higher marks! SUPPORT your answers with suitable and well-thought examples.
..................................................................................................................................................................................................
1. What do you understand by the ‘normative theories’?
[2]
2. Mention and discuss the four media theories that you know.
[8]
3. Which of the four media theories is South Africa practising? Support your answer
[3]
(discuss).
4. What does the ‘term’ theory mean?
[2]
5. Discuss the importance of making Media Policy in a country?
[1]
6. What is censorship?
[1]
7. Discuss the importance or dangers of media censorship. Provide suitable examples. [4]
8. Arrange the bibliography correctly.
J. Downing. Mass Communication. Sage publications. London: 1998.
9. What is media performance? Support your answer with an example.
[5]
[3]
10. Define the term media policy and set an example of one policy in the constitution of South
[2]
Africa on media.
11. What impact (positive or negative) does the Media tribunal and Information Bill have on
[3]
the South African media industry?
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STUDY UNIT 1
INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES
This unit focuses on the definition of Media Studies, the ‘why’ part of Media Studies and a
brief background of media within South African context.
Defining the media;
The media include a whole host of modern communication systems, for example, television,
newspapers, magazines, advertisements, radio, and interactive multimedia. We can also include video
games, computers, mobile phones, pagers, texters, and the Internet. Defining the media is not easy
because the media are constantly changing with the development of new forms and technologies.
However, there are a number of characteristics, historical developments, and determining factors
that delineate what the media are, and these can lead us towards a definition.
Media characteristics:
 The media are human communication systems;
 The media use processes of industrialized technology for producing messages;
 The media generally aim to reach large audience or be used by many people and hence have
sometimes been referred to as ‘mass media’ operating through ‘mass production’, their
success is often built on popularity;
 The media usually aim to allow communication across distance (and/or time) between people,
or to allow communication in which the sender does not need to be present as the
communication is both recorded and transmitted;
 The media are called ‘media’ because they are literally in the middle, or, are the middle chain,
of this communication (media means ‘middle’ in Latin), they are the mechanisms that connect
the sender and the receiver of messages;
 The media’s development has been affected by commercial interests that recognize that
media are potentially highly profitable industries.
Media determinants:
There are some determining factors, including the development of industrial technology to produce,
send and receive messages. Technology is central to the media but technological changes do not just
happen magically. Media analysts need to ask: what brings about these technological changes and
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developments? The answer is that the media develop within specific economic and social frameworks,
and from specific economic and social determinants.
Think About it: How have today’s media evolved/changed/developed? What factors have driven or
determined media development?
Socially there are three significant factors:
a) First, the role of human creativity which can include inventors of new technologies, such as
Thomas Edison and practitioners of these technologies, for example photographers, camerapeople, film directors, composers.
b) Second, the role of people in positions of social power and control who can limit and control the
media as well as help develop them. Many governments, concerned about the potential power of
the media, have sought to retain some control through censorship laws, licensing, and so-called
public ownership of the media. For instance, President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean government
routinely prosecutes journalists who are critical of the government policies. In relation to
television, the result of attempts to retain control over the media’s power has often been a twotiered system of public and private ownership: in Australia the ABC is a public broadcast system
while channels 7, 9, and 10 (satellite and cable) are all private; in the United Kingdom the BBC
channels are public broadcast, while ITV, channels 4 and 5 satellite, and cable are private. In
South Africa there are three public broadcast channel: SABC1, SABC2, AND SABC3. In addition,
there is one free to air commercial channel, e-TV, and private subscription services are available
to MNET and DSTV. Most of the television channels in the USA are privately owned or are
independent. Generally the private media, funded by advertising and thus linked to economic
production and consumption, are larger than the public system, but they are small bound to
uphold laws of decency and acceptability that are monitored through government legislation.
Additionally, socially responsible citizens may set up watchdog committees or organizations
morally police the media.
As a force for developing media technology: socially powerful groups operate significantly in
relation to warfare technology: The development of weaponry and defense technologies in World
Wars I and II, the Cold War, the Vietnam war and Gulf wars all contributed to innovations in the
media. The development of early video-camera technology, for example, was related to its use of
American military surveillance; the Internet, cable, and satellite technologies were all originally
developed for the military. Other media technological advances are spin-offs from the decisions
by American and Russian governments to invest in space technologies
c) The third social factor is audiences and consumers: media success and viability relies on
providing satisfaction for its audiences. If audiences are not buying a media product it is likely to
fail. For example,, in the history of photography, film, video and the Internet we can see how the
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(male) audience desire for pornography and was huge driving force in the development of all of
these technologies and the way thy were distributed and popularized.
This last example and the significance of audience demand points us directly to economic factors.
The distributors of pornography are not that interested in making their audience happy, they want
to make money. Most media changes have occurred within capitalist economies, so their
development has been hugely influenced by profit motives and we must understand that the media
have been developed in the interests of making money. Media history shows that technological
changes tend to be implemented when they are seen to be profitable. Thomas Edison, who
developed the phonograph and wireless, was at least as much a business man as he was an
inventor.
All this shows how the various determining factors technological, social, and economic, are
closely interlinked. We want to stress the economic because in some ways it is the least visible or
obvious factor, yet it is very important in the production of media. The popularity of ‘reality TV’,
for example, is obviously driven by audience interest and advanced camera technologies which
make it possible to set up a ‘Big Brother’ camera surveillance house, and the result of creative
minds coming up with the concept. But note how the cheapness of the production of these
programs as opposed to fictional dramas, which need writers, actors, costumes, sets, is crucial
in a time of increasing television competition and note how audience participation encourages
audiences to use and buy the latest mobile phone and SMS technologies. The programs don’t just
make money for the telephone companies through the phone-ins; more importantly they get
audiences used to using the se technologies. As Bill Hammock has noted, the AT&T telephone
communication company in America invested in the development of the American Idol series to
get ‘Americans into the habit of text messaging’ (Hammock 2004).
Exercise/discussion
In what ways can you see the five determining factors at play in the production, distribution, and
consumption of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or Australian Idol or a slick commercial comedy
like Desperate Housewives, (or any other sitcom that you know)?
NOTE:
While the complexity of the media makes definitions difficult, the following brief definition is a
useful starting point: the media are technologically developed communication industries, normally
making money, held either in public or private ownership, which can transmit information and
entertainment across time and space to individuals and/or large groups of people.
This transmission if information is not one-way. The recipients of media messages are also involved in
the process of communication as part of a feedback loop that influences the production if media.
While it is true that many media forms such as television, radio, film, and newspaper have
asymmetrical flow of communication from one sender to many receivers, the rise of more interactive
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media forms has changed this dynamic. Even in television, radio, and newspapers the audience
contributes something to the communicative exchange (primarily through the process of constructing
meaning, but also through ratings, research, SMSs and email, talkback, letters to the editor, and other
feedback mechanisms). The ‘one- to-many’ model of mass communication is also being transformed
by technological advances.
Why study or teach about the media?
As a starting point for this chapter and your study we pose some basic questions.
Exercise/discussion:
Why are you studying the media and what are hoping to get out of this? Take time to think about this
and write down your thoughts and feelings. There are no right or wrong answers to this question (or
rather, all the answers are right). It is useful for you to record your position so you can compare it
with other people’s and so you can look back on it later. When you have done the exercise, read the
following exercise commentary.
Exercise commentary:
Your answer might be about creativity and expressivity, you may want to make videos or television
programs. It might also be vocational (you want to be guaranteed a good job as a journalist) financial
(you see the media as an excellent way of making lots of money), or critical (you may want to critique
the manipulative power of the media and understand its potential as a mechanism of beneficial social
change). Or it may simply be curiosity, you may be fascinated by these technological communication
systems that take up such a large part of many people’s lives. Your answer may include aspects of all
of these positions, or it may raise many other points. It will probably change while you are studying
the media. Keep it as a reference point to look back on. If you can, spend about fifteen minutes sharing
your answer with three or four friends to give you an awareness of other people’s interests and other
ways of thinking about the media.
Exercise/discussion
Do you think the media in general are good or bad?
1.
Take time to make a list of all the arguments you can think of for and against the media:
that is, those that posit the media as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing.
2.
ask yourself: whose interests do the media serve, or who benefits from the production,
distribution, and consumption of media tests and messages? Also ask other people you
live, work, study, or socialize with, and make a note of their different perspectives. When
you answer these questions, try to include both general statements about the media and
particular detailed examples that support these statements. Share and compare your
answers with others.
If you require a stimulus to answering these questions, try watching CNN, Media Watch, SKYNEWS,
Aljazeera, any episodes from The Bold and the Beautiful, 7de laan or any other television programs
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that are about the media. Certain fiction films such as Wag the dog, State and Main, and the Natural
Born Killers also reflect on the role of the media in society and documentaries such as Outfoxed,
Control Room, and Manufacturing Consent give fascinating insights into media news production. When
you have done the exercise, read the following exercise commentary.
Exercise commentary
The question about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ media is designed to reveal the contradictory ways we think about
the media, and the different ways media are used. It may also point out the difference between how
the media could be used in society (their potential use), and how they are used in society (their actual
use). Potentially, the media could be used in lots of different ways, for example,, to increase our
understanding of global inequalities or as a means of democratic voting, actual use refers to the
current practices of the media. The potential power of the media, and their regulation and control, are
a major concern for all contemporary societies.
The points in the table below suggest a number of different general positions for and against the
media, they all contain some ‘truth’ and they highlight many of the concerns of media studies.
For
The media’s huge range of cultural information
and entertainment contributes to the
development of popular knowledge. People are
more aware and better educated through the
media than ever before.
The media can inspire and develop actively,
encouraging us to do new things in our lives.
The media help us explore and develop our
understanding of sex and violence by depicting
social attitudes and inviting critique of the
behaviours that are represented.
Against
The media offer people a repetitive diet of
worthless trivia. Like bread and circuses, they
cater to the lowest intellectual abilities.
The media make us passive observers, ‘couch
potatoes’ and we thereby lose the ability to
think or act for ourselves.
The media corrupt and pervert us and our
children, desensitizing our feelings and
emotions, and encouraging immoral sexual
behaviour and violent acts. The media,
therefore, need to be heavily censored.
The media are a series of false constructions
serving minority political interests.
The media are truthful and informative, and
they make a major contribution to democracy
and social accountability, offering us a window
on the world.
The media are democratic allowing al people a The media serve commercial interests and
voice in the world.
totally controlled by multinational corporations
and advertisers.
The media enable free thought of speech to be The media are in business of controlling our
disseminated.
consciousness, thereby controlling who we are
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and how we think. Access to the media is
limited.
The media are shrinking the globe, uniting us The media are making us all the same and
bringing us closer together, creating s ‘global destroying marginalized cultures.
village’.
The media give space to the voices of different The media a form of cultural imperialism,
social groups and cultures.
whereby dominant cultures impose their values
on less powerful cultures.
The media are an agent of social change.
The media maintain the status quo.
Two examples illustrate some of these arguments. John Hartley has noted how Nelson Mandela in his
autobiography (Mandela 1995) talks about his arrival in Canada where he was greeted by many Inuits
who celebrated his arrival. They witnessed his release from prison in South Africa on television. His
freedom struggle connected with their struggles for land and political rights in Canada, but it was
television that had made it possible the connection between these different and geographically very
distant people. As Mandela said, ‘Television had shrunk the world and had, in the process, become a
great weapon for eradicating ignorance and promoting democracy’ (Mandela 1995, quoted in Hartley
and McKee 1996, p. 74)…[T]he media can be seen as part of a purely self-serving and profit-motivated
consumerist culture.
We can see this by looking at the Spider-Man films. Spider-Man and its sequel Spider-Man 2 have
been heavily promoted and packaged for release to a generation that had not seen the comic on
cinema screens. Huge amounts of money were spent advertising and promoting it around the world.
This combined with the system of film distribution and release and other marketing tools, made the
release commercially successful, veritable money-making machine. The original release of the first
Spider-Man movie also demonstrates the money-making capacity of Hollywood films. In the original
release, the profits made from selling Spider-Man merchandize, toys, models, sweets and so on,
exceeded the profits from the box office. The original Spider-Man comic, the ensuing TV cartoon and
then the first film can thus be seen as a long advertisement for other goods.
Fears about political use of the media:
The fears about the political ends to which the media can be put relate to the way the media can be
used by political parties to control people. While the totalitarian fascist and communist states of the
1930s inspired these fears, political uses of the media also occur in the democratic societies, where
advertising can be seen as a form of propaganda and brain-washing that supports capitalist
consumerism… Fear that the media may be used for political purposes is one reason why many
countries insist that the government should not own and/or control the media. This fear also lies
behind many of the debates about who has the right to media ownership. Note, however, that media
practitioners always see themselves as political watchdogs and in this respect, are referred to as the
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‘fourth estate’. The media, as the fourth estate, are a body who can comment on, criticize and
investigate through free speech, what these other institutions do.
Fears about the media’s influence on morals:
The moral fears arise from the concern that the media will be a corrupting force, particularly in
relation to sex and violence. It is argued that people’s values can be corrupted by the media they
consume. This has led to ‘moral panics’ and campaigns against ‘too much’ sex and violence on
television. The ‘moral panic’ tends to focus on the effects of media consumption on young people
because they supposedly have less experience on which to base sound judgments and less developed
critical faculties with which to position fiction or other media content in relation to external reality. It
has been suggested that the cumulative effects of consuming media that contains violent and or
sexualized content might be particularly harmful for young viewers, due in part to the tendency of
young people to learn my mimesis (mimicking or imitating what they see and hear).
Fears about the media’s influence on culture:
There are those who fear that the media devalue a society’s culture because what they produce is so
trivial or superficial. This is best illustrated in the debates around the relative importance of so-called
‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. High culture is supposedly the ‘great art’ produced by a society, art that is
morally uplifting, complex, and serious. It is said to be found in such cultural products as opera,
painting and ‘great’ literature, the understanding and interpretation of which require training and
specialist instruction. It is elitist because usually only the privileged, educated and rich have the
leisure-time, money and skills to access and appreciate it. Low or ‘popular’ culture is what the
‘masses’ consume. It is found in magazines, mass-market paperbacks, popular cinema and on
television. Critics of low culture deride it as morally degrading and simple.
Exercise/discussion:
a) Can you find any contemporary news reports in the press, TV, or radio which suggest the
dangers of the media? How do these fears relate to our discussion?
b) Consider your own media experience since you were a child. Do you think exposure to the
media has been harmful or beneficial to you?
c) What for you are the positives and negatives of ‘high’ culture and ‘popular culture’? In these
discussions, always think of specific media examples to support your viewpoint.
NOTE:
Political economy of the media
Think About it: Who controls the media and does this determine its content?
The main argument put forward is that the media will serve the interests of whoever owns and
controls them, whether this be private individuals interested in profit or governments interested in
political control. The political economy approach involves conducting research into who owns and
controls the media and what government legislation is in place relating to the media, in order to
determine what effects this has on media output. Political economy explains how the media are
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determined by a combination of economic and social/political factors, particularly ownership and
control of the media.
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
What is Media Studies?
Media Studies is the systematic, critical, and analytical study of the media (television, radio, press,
video, film, the Internet) as one of the most important producers and disseminators of symbolic
meanings (content) to the public, a group, an organization and/or the individual (Pieter Fourie 2007:
xxi). Media Studies investigates the owners of the media, the producers of media content, the media
content itself, and the users (readers, listeners, viewers) of media. It investigates the (power)
relationships between the media and politics, media and culture, media and economy, media and
society, and between the media and the public as well as the relationship between media and
democracy, and freedom of expression as a prerequisite for democracy.
Media studies can be an attempt at neutral and descriptive analysis, trying to explain, from the
outside, how the media work, or it can be politically engaged, aiming to challenge how media work.
Much of media studies has been idealistic, it has been a part of the search for a more equal society,
and this aspect has given it political slant. Karl Marx coined the phrase: “The point is not to
understand the world but to change it.” We see media studies operating in this broad political arena of
developing and encouraging social change and debate about political issues but we also think there is
a point to understanding the world.
Croteau and Hoynes, Chapter 1
What is the “mass media”?
 The term “mass media” refers to print and electronic means of mass communication that
carry messages to widespread audiences.
 The communication media are the different technological processes that facilitate
communication between (and are in the “middle” of) the sender of a message and the
receiver of that message.
Media and the Social World
Croteau and Hoynes, Chapter 1
 Everyday we are bombarded with messages from mass media –television, radio, newspapers,
and the internet.
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 In fact, in modern society, most of our knowledge, understanding, and interpretations of the
world are mediated through mass media.
 These media have profound cognitive, emotional, and interactional effects on individuals,
institutions, and societies.
 At the same time, individuals and institutions are instrumental in shaping the nature and
character of the mass media.
 With the pervasiveness of the media, communication scholars have conducted numerous
studies to examine the effects of media on audience and society.
 Studies of mass media have demonstrated that the media can be quite influential in a number
of ways, such as shaping public opinion, setting the agenda, cultivating salience, fostering
learning and reinforcing the spiral of silence.
Why Media Studies?
 The media form a backbone of the marketing, advertising and public relations industries.
Without the media, these industries will fail to grow and play a role as important financial
institutions and providers of jobs.
 From a communication science perspective, the most important reason for media studies is
the recognition of the media as fundamental to democracy.
 The other reason for the importance of media studies relates to the media users or media
audiences themselves. There is an increased awareness amongst a growing population of
media users of the role of the media in their lives and the need to understand this role. Who
are the media people and institutions, how do they operate, and what is the content and
quality of these products that play such an important role in how we define ourselves, our
society, our world and, eventually, our perceptions of reality?
Brief Background of the Media within South African context
Why do we need to study the history of the media? Our understanding of the nature and structure of
the present media environment is largely influenced by what happened in the past.
History of the press in South Africa
During the apartheid era, newspapers had to apply for registration if they published more than 11
times a year. An arbitrary amount was also required before registration was approved.
The government also enforced regulations controlling what newspapers could or could not publish,
especially relating to articles and comment on activities against the apartheid system. Newspapers
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were, for instance, not allowed to quote banned organizations and their spokesmen, or report on
conditions inside prisons or the activities of the security forces.
At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s, when two states of emergency were
declared, censorship regulations were tightened. Newspapers were barred from reporting on any
demonstrations or activity against the apartheid government or any of its laws.
The threat of closure forced newspaper editors to apply a self-censorship policy, while other papers
printed blank pages or whole paragraphs blacked out as a sign of protest.
The Afrikaans press
The Afrikaans press, on the other hand, was established mainly as a reaction to the liberal views
expressed in some of the English papers, particularly relating to issues such as slavery, the tensions
between the Dutch farmers and the Xhosas, and the work of the missionaries in the Cape.
The editors of earlier Afrikaans newspapers were, in most cases, ministers of religion who were
committed to strict Calvinistic ethics. The papers were also more concerned with the Afrikaner cause
against British domination than with being commercial ventures.
The press was seen as a cultural and political weapon for the promotion of the Afrikaans language and
political independence, as well as for drumming up support against the perceived threat of Black
Nationalism.
The black press
Jim Bailey, the son of mining tycoon Abe Bailey, started Drum in 1951 and then Golden City Post in
1955, which were both aimed at black readers. Both publications were run by white editors brought to
South Africa from Fleet Street newspapers.
The next phase in the development of the black press came in the 1990s when Anglo American,
through Johannesburg Consolidated Investments, sold some of its publication and newspaper
companies, such as Sowetan and Times Media Ltd, to black business groups in empowerment deals
facilitated by the advent of democracy in 1994.
A PERIOD OF RESTRUCTURING
The establishment of a regulator authority for broadcasting
An area of concern in the run-up to the first democratic elections of 1994 was the partisanship of the
SABC towards the Nationalist-led government and the credibility of the SABC as a news and
information provider. A solution was to distance the SABC from the government through the creation
of an independent broadcasting regulator – Independent Broadcasting Authority. This was officially
26
established by the passing of the IBA ACT, no. 153 of 1993, to commence work on the 30 March 1994.
Owing to serious conflict of interest that affected the objectivity of the Authority and its activities,
there was a creation of a new regulatory authority that was formed by amalgamating with the South
African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) to form Independent Communication
Authority of South Africa (ICASA).
Independent Communications Authority of South Africa
In May 2000 the Independent Communications Authority Act was proclaimed paving the way for the
merger of Satra (South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) and IBA (Independent
Broadcasting Authority), and the establishment of Icasa (Independent Communication Authority of
South Africa). Icasa was officially formed in July 2000.
It was hoped that the official merger of these two bodies would put an end to the many controversies
and problems that confronted the regulation of the communications industry in South Africa. For
many years this industry had been dogged by confusing, overlapping responsibilities and often
unworkable policies. The Independent Broadcasting Authority Act had been amended four times and
the Telecommunications Act had been amended twice. Certain amendments to the IBA Act were sent
back to parliament because they were unconstitutional and a number of amendments to the
Telecommunications Act were aborted.
MASS MEDIA are the technologies and social institutions (such as newspapers, radio and television)
that are involved in the production and distribution of messages to large audience. MASS
COMMUNICATION on the other hand can be defined as the process of delivering information, ideas
and attitudes to a sizeable and diversified audience through a medium developed for that purpose
(Steinberg, 1994). It is important to be aware that while the mass media are essential in the process
of mass communication, they represent the technological instrument used to convey messages to
large audiences; they do not constitute the process involved.
MASS MEDIA AS AN INSTITUTION
Media institution refers broadly to the set of media organizations and activities, together with their
own formal or informal practices, rules of operation and sometimes legal and policy requirements set
by the society.
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These reflect the expectations of the public as a whole and of the other social institutions (such as
politics, governments, law, religion and the economy). Media institutions have gradually developed
around the key activities of publication and wide dissemination of information and culture.
They also overlap with other institutions, especially as these expand their public communication
activities. Media institutions are internally segmented according to type of technology (print, film,
television, etc) and often within each type (such as national versus local press or broadcasting). They
also change over time and differ from one country to another. Even so, there are several typical
defining features, additional to the central activity of producing and distributing ‘knowledge’
(information, ideas, culture) on behalf of those who want to communicate and in response to individual
and collective demand. The main features are as follows:
 The media institution is located in the ‘public sphere’, meaning especially that it is open in
principle to all receivers and senders. The media deal with public matters for public purposes,
especially with issues on which public opinion can be expected to form, they are answerable
for their activities to the wider society (accountability takes place via laws, regulations and
pressures from state and society).
 By virtue of their main publishing activity on behalf of members of a society, the media are
also endowed with a large degree of freedom in their economic, political and cultural
activities.
 Although the media can exert influence and achieve effects, the media institution is formally
powerless (there is a logical relation between this absence of power and the large degree of
freedom).
The term ‘institution’ can be defined as: enduring regulatory and organising structures of any society,
which constrain and control individuals and individuality–the underlying principles and values
according to which many social and cultural practices are organised and co-ordinated – the major
social sources of codes, rules and relations (in Branson & Stafford 2003: 182).
The above refers to institutions in a general sense. Needless to say, different disciplinary fields–
anthropology, classical economics, political economy, psychology, sociology, etc. – will have some
specific elements to emphasize. The different disciplinary perspectives on institutions have coalesced
into the framework of what is called ‘institutional analysis’. Institutional analysis has the following
general themes:
 The visible structures and routines that make up organisations are direct reflections and
effects of rules and structures built into (or institutionalized within) wider environments (i.e.
cultural and symbolic patterns of society).
 The dependence of organisations on the patterning built up in wider environments–rather
than on purely internal technical and functional logic – produces organisational forms that
are often rather loosely integrated structures (i.e. there is a disjuncture between the internal
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and the external, largely because stable organizing requires and results from external
legitimation).
 The environmental patterns that drive organising work through linkages and effects go
beyond simple direct control (i.e. institutionalised social and cultural meanings as opposed to
just adherence to legal and economic rationality).
 The environmental patterns that create and change organisations can be described as
rationalised and rationalising (i.e. long-term processes of rationalisation – scientific and
professional, cultural and ideological, political and organisational – contribute towards
continual possibilities and necessities for expanding and changing organisations) (Scott et al
1994).
Based upon the above broad themes, Richard Scott et al (1994: 56-64) propose what they call a
‘layered model’ of conceptualising institutions. This model has three elements, namely:
1. Meaning systems and related behaviour patterns, which contain;
2. Symbolic elements, including representational, constitutive and normative components that are
3. Enforced by regulatory processes.
To explicate these elements: By ‘meaning systems’ is meant the subjective meanings attached to
individual behaviour within organisations. This subjective meaning constitutes what Max Weber refers
to as ‘social action’ in so far as it takes into account the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented
in its course (in Scott et al 1996: 57). In other words, shared meanings are indispensable to collective
activity. Arising from this, the authors present various definitions of institution, to buttress the idea of
how institutions become congealed in a particular sense.
By ‘behaviour patterns’ is meant the ‘social action’ – the ‘informal logic of actual life’ – that arises in
the interaction of humans. Meanings arise in interaction, and they are preserved and modified by
human behaviour (Scott et al 1996: 59). By ‘symbolic elements’ is meant the elevation of the meaning
systems to incorporate representational, constitutive, and normative rules.
Representational rules are the ‘institutional logics’ which establish the framework within which
knowledge claims are situated and provide the rules by which the claims are validated and challenged.
The ‘institutional logics’ are the knowledge claims, whether empirically tested or not, which govern
ways of organising.
Constitutive rules define the nature of actors and their capacity for action. Constitutive rules are the
institutional rules which empower or constrain individuals to pursue certain courses of action. It
assumes that certain behavior is possible given the extent to which the interests of individuals, their
rights, and their capacities for action are provided for by specific rules. Institutions, in short,
‘construct’ actors; it is the institutional structure of society which creates and legitimates the social
entities that are seen as ‘actors’.
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Four component elements entailed in the social construction of an actor can be discerned, namely:
endowments (e.g. property rights); utilities (an actor’s preferences); capabilities (capacity to act,
resources); and self-identities (internalised definitions of social location or role).
Normative rules, for their part, refer to conceptions of appropriate behaviour–what we ought to do.
They may be general, applicable to all. They may be specific to some people. They often become
internalised as a result of socialisation. In a word, they are not simply anticipations or predictions, but
prescriptions or proscriptions of behaviour.
The features described above can, after Branson & Stafford (2003), be applied in an institutional
analysis of journalism. In a word, the foregoing discussion serves to help us understand the key
definitional features of journalism as an institutionalised practice. Understanding citizen journalism
necessarily involves understanding the institutional trapping or ensnaring of conventional journalism.
MASS MEDIA AND SOCIETY
The mass media are influenced by many factors: Media owners define the overall editorial policy of a
medium. Economic factors determine the amount of journalistic investigation and cultural
production that can be afforded. A highly competitive market with wasteful duplication of the most
popular genres leaves few economic resources to spend on heightening the quality of each program.
Economic considerations may force the media to deploy an attention-catching strategy by
emphasizing entertainment, emotional and personalized stories, sex, violence, gossip, etc. Economy
determines the influence of advertisers and sponsors on the types of programs and stories that are
being published. Sponsors also have an influence through sponsored cultural events and sports
events that may not take place unless they are profitable to the sponsors. The news are obtained
from sources such as politicians, opinion leaders, experts, professionals, police, organizations, and
ordinary people who happen to be involved in a newsworthy situation. These sources can influence the
media, not only through the stories they tell, but also by rewarding or punishing certain media by
providing or withholding desired information.
The editors and journalists who produce stories obviously have an influence through their personal
engagement as well as their professional, ideological and ethical principles. Technology determines
how many media channels we can have and which formats are possible and attractive. Government
regulation may impose additional ethical principles such as fairness requirements and public service
obligations. All these factors influence the form and contents of the media products. However, the
most important implication of the integrated model is that the degree of economic competition
between the mass media is a meta-factor, which determines the weight of the other factors . A
strongly competitive market situation may force the media producers to give more weight to
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considerations of attention-catching and to the wishes of the advertisers and less weight to ideology
and ethics. Ideals of fairness, relevance, and thorough investigative journalism have little influence
when fierce economic competition drains the media organizations of resources and forces them to
compete on attention-catching stories and entertainment. Quality media that refuse to compete on
these premises may simply perish unless they can rely on noncommercial sources of funding.
The media are conveying and influencing the public opinion, which in turn determines the democratic
elections. The influence of the media works not only through voters' opinions. Everybody in society is
influenced by the media, including politicians, opinion leaders, journalists, editors, and whoever may
have the role of news sources. Furthermore, the media are influencing the criteria by which voters
evaluate political candidates by means of agenda-setting, priming and framing. It is easy to see that
this model has many feedback loops that provide ample opportunities for self-amplifying processes.
These feedbacks are likely to make the effects stronger, reinforce existing tendencies, hide
deficiencies, and make the system resistant to political intervention.
The impact of recent technological innovations on the media market has often been discussed. Some
commentators have claimed that pay-per-view technologies can correct the market failures inherent
in advertisement-based media. But even in the unlikely event that a commercial supplier will offer a
pay-per-view news channel free of advertisements, sponsoring and product placement, there will still
be an economic influence from the owner, and the picture of figure 1 will not be changed much. Tabloid
newspapers sold from newsstands are known to produce more attention-catching headlines than
subscription-based broadsheet newspapers, because they need to attract impulse buyers every day.
A pay-per-view based supplier of TV or internet news will be likely to use a similar strategy.
The increase in the number of channels and distribution methods will only increase the competition
for attention further. The Internet has made dissemination of information so cheap that noncommercial suppliers of information can afford to make their services available world-wide. This does
not reduce the costs of investigative journalism; neither does it reduce the competition for attention,
but at least it opens up more possibilities for a news-supply that is less influenced by economic
interests. In a nutshell range of different scientific disciplines are explored for what they might
contribute to an understanding of the economic and other factors that influence mass media, and how
the media in turn influence the political climate and the democratic process in modern democracies.
The contributions from the different disciplines are combined into an integrated model of a causal
network. This tentative model shows that fierce economic competition forces the media to produce
entertaining stories that appeal to people's emotions. Preferred topics include danger, crime, and
disaster, which the media select in ways that make the audience perceive the world as more
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dangerous than it is. This influences the democratic process significantly in the direction of
authoritarianism and intolerance. More generally, the competitive news media select and frame
stories in ways that hamper the ability of the democratic system to solve internal social problems as
well as international conflicts in an optimal way.
Who owns South Africa’s newspapers?
Rubric: There are four newspaper groups in South Africa: Independent Newspaper, Johnnic
Communications, Naspers and CTP/Caxton. The country’s newspapers are based mainly on separate
control of the editorial and management departments.
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STUDY UNIT TWO
MASS MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY
The mass media constitute the backbone of democracy. Democracy is a highly exacting creed in its
expectations of the mass media. It requires that the media perform and provide a number of functions
and services for the political system. Among the more significant are: firstly, surveillance of the
socio-political environment, reporting developments likely to impinge, positively or negatively, on the
welfare of citizens; secondly, meaningful agenda-setting i.e. identifying the key issues of the day,
including the forces that have formed and may resolve them, thirdly, platform for an intelligible and
illuminating advocacy by politicians and spokespersons of other causes and interest groups. Fourthly,
dialogue across a diverse range of views, as well as between power holders (actual and prospective)
and mass publics, fifth, mechanism for holding official to account for how they have exercised power,
sixth, incentives for citizens to learn, choose, and become involved, rather than merely to follow and
kibitz over the political process and seventh, a principle resistance to the efforts of forces outside the
media to subvert their independence, integrity and ability to serve the audience and lastly, a sense of
respect for the audience members, as potentially concerned and able to make sense of his or her
political environment (Gurevitch and Blumler: 1990, p.25-26).
However, there is a growing concern that the mass media are not fulfilling these functions properly.
Media critics claim that commercial mass media controlled by a few multinational conglomerates
have become an antidemocratic force supporting the status quo. The news is more entertaining than
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informing, supplying mostly gossip, scandals, sex, and violence. Political news is more about
personalities than about their ideologies. In the absence of serious debate, voters are left with paid
political propaganda containing only meaningless slogans making them disinterested and cynical
about politics. It is also claimed that the watchdogs are barking of the wrong things.
The media hunt for scandals in the private lives of politicians and their families, but ignore much more
serious consequences of their policies. They go after wounded politicians like sharks in a feeding
frenzy. All too often, the media make us afraid of the wrong things. Minor dangers are hysterically
blown out of proportions, while much more serious dangers in our society go largely unnoticed. The
exaggerated fears often lead to unnecessary measures and legislation and "gonzo justice". Critics
also complain that the media fail to report wrongdoings in the industry. Even more alarming is the
claim that certain mass media (especially women's magazines) are promoting worthless alternative
health products, thereby effectively conspiring with the industry to defraud consumers of billions of
dollars every year (http://www.agner.org/cultsel/mediacrisis.pdf)
The normative expectations for a democratic press, are not universally accepted. Therefore it is
important to refrain from making any subjective statements about which norms to apply. Instead, it is
important to provide an analysis of major consequences of the media market structure to the
distribution of power, the prioritization of resources, and the ability of the democratic society to solve
social problems and conflicts. Any policy proposals that may be derived from this analysis depend on
ideological norms, and are thus beyond the scope of a strictly scientific analysis. There is a longstanding debate about the relevance of causal and nomothetic models in the social sciences. This is
not the place to delve into this debate (http://www.agner.org/cultsel/mediacrisis.pdf).
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2 FUNCTIONALIST AND CRITICAL MEDIA THEORIES
i) Functionalist Theory
Functionalists approach the study of mass media from the standpoint that the media contribute to the
benefit of society as a whole. In his classic 1975 work, Charles Wright outlines FOUR ways in which the
mass media contribute to creating equilibrium in society:
a) Surveillance the environment: To provide news and information. News essentially has two
functions when it comes to transmitting social values and norms;
b) Correlation: correlating response to news and information (editorial function); How to think
about; make sense of what is going on. The media coordinate and correlate information that is
valuable to the culture.
c) Cultural transmission: of cultural heritage, values, history, etc. to future generations. The
media are powerful agents of socialization. Through the media, cultural norms and values are
communicated to the masses.
d) Entertainment: (diversion function). By providing entertainment, the media act as stress
relievers for members of society, which keeps social conflicts to a minimum.
News reporting has been a focus of sociological research into the functions of the media. Both Paul
Lazersfeld and Robert Merton argue that news essentially has two functions when it comes to
transmitting social values and norms:
Status conferral refers to the importance given some social issues over others in the news media.
The fact that certain issues receive attention raises their importance in the eyes of the culture.
The ethicizing effect suggests that society's norms, values, and beliefs (ethics) are reinforced
through media surveillance. By focusing on wrongdoings in society, the media act as a kind of
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"morality squad." By giving attention to the consequences of criminal and other behaviour, the media
reinforce ideas of what is good and what is right.
This is true not only when the media report facts about crime and deviance (murders, robberies, etc.),
but also when they shed light on issues that were intended to remain private, particularly in the case
of corporations and governments. President Clinton's encounters with Monica Lewinsky and Prime
Minister Chrétien’s alleged involvement in the handling of the APEC protesters in 1997 are excellent
examples of the media's ethicizing effect.
ii) Liberal Pluralism Theory
Pluralists see society as a complex of competing groups and interests, none of them predominant all
of the time. Media organizations are seen as bounded organizational systems, enjoying an important
degree of autonomy from the state, political parties and institutionalized pressure groups. Control of
the media is said to be in the hands of an autonomous managerial elite who allow a considerable
degree of flexibility to media professionals. A basic symmetry is seen to exist between media
institutions and their audiences, since in McQuail's words the 'relationship is generally entered into
voluntarily and on apparently equal terms'... and audiences are seen as capable of manipulating the
media in an infinite variety of ways according to their prior needs and dispositions, and as having
access to what Halloran calls 'the plural values of society' enabling them to 'conform, accommodate,
challenge or reject' (Gurevitch et al. 1982).
iii) Marxist Media Theory
Marxists view capitalist society as being one of class domination; the media are seen as part of an
ideological arena in which various class views are fought out, although within the context of the
dominance of certain classes; ultimate control is increasingly concentrated in monopoly capital;
media professionals, while enjoying the illusion of autonomy, are socialized into and internalize the
norms of the dominant culture; the media taken as a whole, relay interpretive frameworks consonant
with the interests of the dominant classes, and media audiences, while sometimes negotiating and
contesting these frameworks, lack ready access to alternative meaning systems that would enable
36
them to reject the definitions offered by the media in favour of consistently oppositional definitions
(ibid.). Marxist theorists tend to emphasize the role of the mass media in the reproduction of the
status quo, in contrast to liberal pluralists who emphasize the role of the media in promoting freedom
of speech.
iv) Political Economy Thinking
Political economy thinking of mass media saw the dominant political, financial and industrial
institutions of societies having a direct effect on the ideological forces maintaining control, including
the media (Newbold, 2002, 219).
Mosco (1995) defined political economy as the “study of the social relations, particularly the power
relations that influence the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including
communication resources”. “The radical political economy tradition continued to argue that the
media were powerfully shaped by their political and economic organisation” (Curran, 2002: p.113).
This included media ownership, cross-ownership, monopolies competition, public service
broadcasting, and controls over quantity and content of advertising. In turn, political economy thinking
argued that this political and economic structure influenced media audiences. Political economy views
on the media saw the media as having a moral purpose and aiming at social action (Newbold et al.,
2002, p. 49). In this sense, political economy and later cultural studies views of the media reversed
thinking that mass media had limited effects. However, they did not return to direct effects thinking.
“Rather, political economy and cultural studies started from the premise that reinforcement was not
neutral.” Moreover, they took the concept of reinforcement further arguing that “reinforcement was
the inevitable and contrived outcome of a system whose very purpose was to maintain order and to
prevent change in societies that were riven by manifest inequalities” (Newbold et al., 2002, p. 34).
Political economy theory saw mass media involved in ‘the manufacture of consent’ – a concept made
famous by Naom Chomsky. Marshall McLuhan’s famous adage “The medium is the message” further
focused attention on mass media and their role in society (Lull, 2000, p. 37). However, McLuhan’s
37
(1964) admonition pointed to the importance of the production and institutional processes of the mass
media (e.g. their internal news selection criteria and production techniques) in shaping media
messages. Previously, focus had been on the suppliers of information and mass media had been
viewed as a neutral channel.
v) Cultural Studies Perspective
Cultural studies approaches to mass media borrowed from literary criticism and cinematic analysis
and drew on linguistics and socio-linguistics. This approach shifted focus away from the structuralist
politics of Marx and Engels and the structuralist linguistic theories of Saussure and introduced
qualitative methods which examined how different readers interpreted texts differently. Even so, early
neo-Marxist cultural studies saw mass media being used to influence or control audiences. However,
they saw this as more subtle than direct control. Mass media, they argued, exerted influence through
cultural hegemony. Hegemony is summarised by Lull (2000) as “the power or dominance that one
social group holds over others” gained through “a tacit willingness by people to be governed by
principles, rules and laws which they believe operate in their best interests, even though in actual
practice they may not” (p. 51).
He states further: “Hegemony is a process of convergence, consent, and subordination. Ideas, social
institutions, industries, and ways of living are synthesized into a mosaic which serves to preserve the
economic, political, and cultural advantages of the already powerful … The mass media play an
extraordinary role in the process” (p. 54). That people do not necessarily see the hegemonic power of
mass media is not surprising when the subtle process of hegemony is understood. Lull points out:
“The victims of hegemony don’t realise they are being repressed through ideology” (p. 73).
2.2 MEDIA AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Media Performance
There is quite a high measure of agreement, for example, on the basis of ideas of how the media
should contribute in the working of a democratic society. In the most general terms, the media are
widely expected to promote at least four main goals:
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 Maintaining a constant surveillance (observation) of events, ideas and persons active in public
life, leading both to a flow of information to the public and exposing violations (destructions)
of the moral and social order,
 Providing an independent and radical (essential criticism) of the society and its institutions,
 Encouraging and providing the means for access, expression and participation by as many
different actors and voices (journalists, the public: everybody should be involved freely) as is
necessary or appropriate,
 Contributing to shared consciousness (awareness or realization) and identity (uniqueness)
and real coherence (connection or consistency) of the community as a whole as well as its
component groups.
The public sphere is taken to be an arena, independent of government (even if in receipt of state
funds) and also enjoying autonomy from partisan economic forces, which is dedicated to rational
debate (i.e. to debate and discussion which is not ‘interests’, ‘disguised’ or ‘manipulated’). It is both
accessible to entry and open to inspection by the citizenry. It is here, in this public sphere, that the
public opinion is formed (Holub 1991: pp. 2-8). The media are essential in the modern world of
democracy because it can inform the people and influence their decisions in private and public life. It
may also seek to lay down an agenda for the nation to pursue. A free press helps to preserve and
promote democracy by safeguarding the independence of its institutions, including itself, and ensuring
their accountability. It is on this account that it comes to earn the status of the fourth estate of the
State (because of its “watchdog” function) and has today become one of the most powerful
institutions of society. No democratic society can exist or can be conceived of without a free media,
which is its life-line, and at the same time democratic values alone are likely to nurture a free media.
The role of a free press is to serve as a “watchdog” on government and its officials (as well as a
watchdog of private centres of power. Vincent Blasi (1977) asserts that one of the most important
values attributed to a free press was that of checking the inherent tendency of government officials
to abuse the power entrusted to them.
The following statement, made by a South African court in the case of Government of the Republic of
South Africa v. Sunday Times Newspaper, captured the inter-connection between freedom of
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expression and press freedom through this function: “The role of the press in a democratic society
cannot be understated. The press is in the frontline of the battle to maintain democracy. It is the
function of the press to ferret out corruption, dishonesty and graft wherever it may occur and to
expose the perpetrators. The press must reveal dishonest mal and inept administration. It must also
contribute to the exchange of ideas. It must advance communication between the governed and those
who govern. The press must act as the watchdog of the governed”.
The news media should serve as the watchdog of democracy and can perform the task of protecting
of the people’s interests. This has led several scholars to consider the role of the press as that of
“the Fourth Estate”. The media are also essential to a democratic society. Alexander Meiklejohn (1965)
stresses on two functions of freedom of the press in a democracy: one is the formative function,
where a free press permits the flow of information necessary for citizens to make informed decisions
and for leaders (public servants) to stay abreast of the interests of their constituents (the
electorate); and the second is the critical function, where the press in particular serves as the
people’s watchdog, ensuring independent criticism and evaluation of the government and other
institutions that may usurp democratic power.
Furthermore, freedom of the press is important to the public in order to attain truth. The belief that
anyone might make a valuable contribution to the search for truth or for better ways to do things
does not mean that we think “anyone” is likely to. It means there is no way of telling in advance where
a good idea will come from. Valuable contributions to arriving at truth come in many forms, speaking
the truth being only one of them. We arrive at truth or the best policy largely by indirection thus,
much of the value of a person’s contribution to the “marketplace of ideas” is its role in stimulating
others to defend, reformulate or refute ideas, and that value may be quite independent of the merits
of the original view. Even fallacy has its place in the search for truth (Lichtenberg 1987, 338).
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2.3 THE RIGHT TO KNOW, PRESS FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
According to H. Goodwin (1983, 9), this doctrine means that “the public has a legal right to know what
its government is doing and the press is the representative of the public in finding that out”. Barney,
R. (1986, 65) argued that the right to know is a basic component of a “participatory society”. As he
points out, “in order for consistently intelligent social decisions to be made, adequate information to
the individual produces greater awareness of alternatives in any decision-making opportunity”.
Fink, C. (1988, 11) describes the people’s right to know in terms of a duty, so that “while the freedom of
expression gives the press the right to freely print the news, the people’s right to know gives the
press the duty to print it”. What developed from this concept is “the idea of a press serving as
surrogate of the people and demanding access to news, as well as freedom to print it, on behalf of the
people”.
It appears that the moral right to know, belonging to the public, and the legal concept of freedom of
the press are inextricably bound together. The public’s right to know what is going on in its
government and to have relevant information about government officials underlies press freedom.
This may explain why the public’s right, expressed in shorthand as “the right to know”, is often
interpreted in terms of the media’s right of access and publication. Some of these commentators
suggest, as well, that the public’s right to know includes more than just information needed to make
knowledgeable political decisions.
Gauthier, C. (1999), however believes that the right to know guarantees citizens access to any
available information relevant to political, professional, and personal decisions essential for the
exercise of constitutional rights in a democratic society. For example, exercise of the rights of free
speech, religion, and assembly, as well as the rights to liberty and property requires access to
information, making possible rational choices and responsible actions in these areas.
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The concept of freedom of the press developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the US
and Europe. The mass media, however, began to come into being only in the 1830s with the penny
press. Prior to this, political newspapers circulated only among elites, made no pretence of objectivity
or neutrality, and were marked by a degree of vitriol and bias unmatched today. They were financed
by political parties, candidates for office, or political factions, who were directly responsible for
editorial policy.
Freedom of the press has been given a wide and confusing array of interpretations, evident in a study
conducted by the Indian Press Freedom of the Press in the Public Sphere (seven Commission which
indicated that people variously understood freedom of press to mean (Holland 1956): freedom from
legal restraint–liberty, that is to say, to publish any matter without legal restraint or prohibition;
freedom from prejudices and preconceived notions; freedom from the executive control of
government; freedom from the influence of advertisers, or proprietors and pressure groups; and
freedom from want–freedom from dependence on others for financial assistance. (The Public Sphere
and Media Politics in Malaysia (http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/978-1-4438-0360-1-sample.pdf).
In fact, all these factors are important facets of press freedom and all five should no doubt be
satisfied before press freedom can be said to enjoy a real significance. The intellectual heritage of the
idea of free speech and free press is long and impressive. In 1644, John Milton (1644/1971) defended
the freedom of the press and demanded the freedom to express his opinions above all other
freedoms. Two centuries later, John Stuart Mill (1859/1974, 76), one of the most renowned
philosophical advocates of the concept of liberty, stressed the importance of free flow of ideas and
opinions. He emphasised the importance of freedom of opinion and expression to the free functioning
of modern, democratic societies where the truth is upheld.
The press undeniably plays a pivotal role in enabling the right of the individual to free speech to be
exercised, as the press functions as conduit for disseminating information, which in turn contributes
to the development of societies as a whole. Without the open communication of ideas and information,
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societies would remain in the darkness of ignorance. Moreover, a free press and democracy are
complementary to each other. The media helps to preserve and promote democracy by safeguarding
the independence of its institutions and ensuring their accountability as well as by facilitating the
communication of ideas and policies. A free press performs three essential features for a democracy:
a “watchdog” role, the provision of knowledge and information, and the facilitation of public discussion
(Baker 2003). The press must be able to expose failures of and abuses by government and
government officials–with this capacity providing probably the greatest democratic safeguard against
both malfeasance and misfeasance by government (Blasi, 1977).
Democratic development absolutely depends on the press being permitted to perform this “checking”
function effectively; the aim of preventing the press playing this role may be the single biggest reason
for governments’ censoring the press or abridging its freedom. The acts of omission and commission,
of corruption, waste, inefficiency and negligence on the part of the authorities, can be exposed by it.
Through investigative journalism, scams and scandals can be unearthed, anti-social activities exposed
and implementation of the policies and programmes monitored and pursued. It is the accountability of
those in power that distinguishes democracy from other political systems, and to the extent that the
press acts as an instrument to ensure day-to-day accountability, it helps to make democracy real and
effective. Of course, as stated, this condition sounds so ideal that in reality even the most democratic
country will not fully live up to it. Further, advocates of a free press always feel that government has
a tendency to manipulate the media and cannot be trusted because of the power it holds.
However, a free press does not mean free only from the Freedom of The Press in The Public Sphere
overt restrictions of the government, which is a narrow conception of the freedom of the press, but
also from other overt and covert influences; externally (i.e. from foreign powers and ownerships) and
internally (i.e. the ownership of individuals who are close to the government and editorial censorship).
The legitimate influence to the press is when the press is openly allowed diverse opinions from
diverse sources to be debated and discuss as long as the opinions are not to be used to trigger
disharmony situation. The illegitimate influence to the press is surely when all or almost all the media
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companies are dominated by individuals, subversive organisations–such as racist organizations
where strict restriction is normally imposed to only one particular idea and the circulation of diverse
ideas are limited. Various conceptions of the right to know can be found in media ethics literature.
The danger comes in the too easy slide from the public’s right to know to the right of the media to
access and to publication. The seemingly unlimited nature of the first leads to an understanding of
press freedom as similarly unlimited. Moreover, the elliptical right to know, justifying ethically
controversial media claims and activities, obscures the more complicated relation between the rights
of the public and press rights and gives media the illusion of unlimited freedom.
Only the mass media is equipped to provide the information and make it publicly accessible. In doing
so, the press will inevitably make errors. There will be factual inaccuracies and the press will make
questionable, sometimes clearly misguided, decisions concerning what information is relevant to the
public. However, if a robust free press is to be maintained, it must not be punished for these errors,
at least if honestly made. This is the lesson of New York Times v. Sullivan, where the US Court held
that the press could not be held civilly (or criminally) libel for defaming a public official unless the
plaintiff could prove the falsity of what was said and prove that the false statement was made “with
knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or (not)”.
In other words, unless the paper was demonstrably not contributing any real information or viewpoint
to the public sphere and was not showing any real interest in doing so, unless its legal critics could
show that the press’ assertions were false and knowingly (or recklessly) false, freedom of the press
should protect the media from legal liability. After observing, in appropriately understated language,
the nation’s “profound commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited,
robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly
sharp attacks on government and public officials”, the Court explained “erroneous statement is
inevitable in free debate, and (it) must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the
breathing space that they need (to) survive” (Baker 2003).
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The press can also act as a day-to-day parliament of the people by discussing the public matters in a
way that may be more effective than the parliament itself. The press can provide an important forum
for the people to debate and discuss the pros and cons of the issues and problems confronting them.
Through news reports, articles, letters to the editor, interviews, panel discussion etc, the forum
created by the press may supplement, and sometimes act more effectively, than parliament. The
press can therefore act as an impartial, objective and constructive critic of official policies and
programmes, and protect the interests of the nation from the politicians’ vote-centred actions or
inaction. Democratic processes do not always lead to the best decisions being made. But at least they
allow for the general participation in decision-making that is characteristic of a society free form the
domination of elites. Equally, while free speech and a free press are no guarantee that the truth or
the best policy will be arrived at, it seems that the most likely outcome of unfettered debate will be
some approximation of the truth or the best policy. A healthy democracy is one in which people are
exposed to a variety of ideas and are given the chance to examine and reject those which they find
unacceptable. They might not be right, but the level of debate and the demands this places on people’s
judgment will result in a populace with the ability to think critically and to make informed choices.
2.4 CENSORSHIP AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be
considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor. The rationale for
censorship is different for various types of data censored. Censorship is the act or practice of
removing material from things we encounter every day on the grounds that it is obscene, vulgar,
and/or highly objectionable. Whether it is on TV, in music, books, or on the Internet, censorship is an
inescapable part of human society.
Whereas the South African media were considered by many to be among the freest in Africa, the state
of emergency in the mid-1980s saw a number of incidents which demonstrated the contrary. After the
1994 elections many thought that the media would finally be free from state intervention, as freedom
of speech (being able to speak freely without censorship) and expression was guaranteed in the
country’s constitution. Again, some incidents illustrated that the road to press freedom would not be
45
smooth and that the country’s media were still subject to political pressures in one way or another.
The year 1996 saw a number of occasions in which the press (especially the black press) was
criticized by President Mandela and his government for not reporting positively on the actions of the
government (Tomaselli, 1996: 187).
They believe that the government is the enemy of freedom of the press and any effort to regulate the
press by the government threatens the principle of free press. Government may not draw any lines
between the coverage it likes and the coverage that it hates: all press coverage stands on the same
footing. The protection given the right to free press also equally to the well-known extremists and
racists like the Communists, in the US. The government, in this view, should ensure that broadcasters,
newspapers, and others may say what they wish, constrained only by the imperatives of the
marketplace of ideas. “Strong liberals” also accept the “slippery slope” argument, where any
restrictions on the press, once permitted, have a sinister and nearly inevitable tendency to expand. To
allow one kind of restriction is in practice to allow many other acts of censorship as well.
The risk of censorship is so serious and omnipresent because seemingly small and innocuous acts of
repression can turn quickly into a regime of repression that is anything but innocuous. Judges should
not uphold restrictions on the press simply because government seems to have good reasons for the
restriction in a particular case. Neither should they examine “the value” of the press at issue,
compare it against the “harm” of that press, and announce a judgment based on weighing value
against harm. In any such judgments, there is far too large a risk of bias and discrimination. “Strong
liberals” argue that if judges were to balance harm against value, they would be likely to uphold a wide
range of laws censoring political dissent, literature, and other forms of speech.
However, the “strong liberals” are not only advocating complete freedom of the press, but also the
constitutional protection of all speech in the press including commercial speech, sexually explicit
speech, libel, publication of the names of rape victims, and advocacies of crime, the violent overthrow
of the government and flag-burning (Sunstein 1993, 5-8). However, many are critical to the argument
of “strong liberals”. Most of the criticisms come from the advocates of “reasonable regulation”, who
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call for a form of balancing between the interest in free press and the likely harms in some particular
cases in the US. The opponents were led most vigorously by Felix Frankfurter, who waged a challenge
for balancing and against “strong liberals”, especially in the area of constitutional law (Sunstein, 1993,
7).
Frankfurter, in Bridges v. California 1951 and Beauharnais v. Illinois 1952, and, later, others, such as
Robert Bork (1971) and Alexander Bickel (1976) argue that balancing is a healthy and even an inevitable
part of a sensible system of free speech and free press. Judges should take into account the various
conflicting interests that are inevitably at stake. Speech, coverage and report that threaten real harm
may legitimately be prohibited. This category includes the press calling for violent overthrow of the
government, libel of racial groups, and publishing a threatening message to a judge with reprisal if he
rules against one of the parties. These thinkers argue that “reasonable regulation” should not protect
the advocacy of crime, commercial speech, hate speech, obscenity, and the libel of individuals and
groups.
The government is not an enemy of free press; in fact, it should be allowed to maintain a civilised
society. This principle means that the government must not restrict any legitimate speech in the
press, especially for public policies and interests, expressed by, for instance, the opposition, pressure
groups and civil society. At the same time, the government may also guard against the degradation
produced by, for example, obscenity, the risk to social order posed by speech advocating violently
overthrow of the government, and the threats to equality and civility produced by racial hate speech.
This is parallel with John Stuart Mill’s (1859/1974) view that states censorship is “only a prima facie
wrong”, recognising as well that censorship can be justified on the basis of protecting others from
harm. Edmund Lambeth (1986), after reviewing Mill’s arguments for free press, pointed out that all
aspects of liberty can be limited to prevent harm to the interests of others. Judith Lichtenberg (1987,
329-355) explains that the commitment to freedom of press has two different strands: The first is an
opposition to censorship, based on a belief that “one should not be prevented from thinking, speaking,
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reading, writing, or listening as one sees fit”; the second, equally fundamental, is our conviction that
the purposes of freedom of press are realised when expression and diversity of expression flourish.
While government intervention seems to intrude upon the first principle, it may advance the second.
Based on this argument, the state has a duty and responsibility to protect the right to press freedom.
However, restrictions or regulations in these areas are only permitted if they are prescribed by law
and are necessary in a democratic society in order to maintain public good. The restrictions must
also pursue a legitimate aim and be proportionate to the public interests pursued such as restricting
hate speech for racial harmony. The state that restricts press freedom more than acceptable or
agreeable, according to the argument of “reasonable regulation”, could be considered as nondemocratic, less-democratic or autocratic state.
The right to freedom of expression is entrenched in section 16(1) of the Constitution of South Africa
Act 108 of 1996 - Chapter 2 - Bill of Rights and expressly extends to freedom of the press and
other media. However, not all forms of speech are constitutionally protected. Section 16 (2) excludes
certain forms of speech (such as hate speech) from being protected. The exact wording of section 16
provides:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes
a. freedom of the press and other media;
b. freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
c. freedom of artistic creativity; and
d. academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.
2. The right in subsection (1) does not extend to
a. propaganda for war;
b. incitement of imminent violence; or
c. advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that
constitutes incitement to cause harm.
In conclusion people need information relevant to their political concerns. The press has a helpful role
to play which flows from its role as an informer and educator of the people. Although the press is not
the only forum and people can still use other methods of expression such as public gathering and
demonstration and the press can effectively exercise this right of the people on their behalf through
its space, which is absolutely necessary in a democracy. When the press represents and speaks on
behalf of all the sections of the society, particularly the voiceless, it makes democracy a truly
representative regime.
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DEVELOPMENTS ON THE MEDIA MARKET
The development of the mass media during the last several decades is characterized by the following
main tendencies:
Convergence: Different media like newspapers, radio, television, telephone and internet are
increasingly being fused together, technologically as well as economically.
Concentration: Media companies are being merged together and controlled by fewer owners. This
concentration is horizontal (several media under the same owner) as well as vertical (several links in
the "food chain" under the same company group). Different media bring news from the same sources.
Globalization: The media are owned by multinational companies broadcasting across borders.
Commercialization: Advertisements are sneaked into entertainment as well as news stories. The
distinctions between advertisements, news and entertainment are increasingly blurred. Audience
groups with less spending money are not considered.
Commercial influence: Advertisers and owners have influence on editorial decisions.
Trivialization: More sex and violence and prying into the private lives of celebrities. The media avoid
controversial issues and serious debates. Debates are reduced to an entertaining clash between
personalities, resembling a boxing match, where the issue of controversy has only secondary
importance. Several media scholars agree that the main cause of these tendencies is the
liberalization of the media market. Stories are selected for profitability rather than relevance
(Bagdikian 1983).
2.5 MEDIA POLICY
What is Media Policy?
Debates about media policy have been on the international agenda for decades. While these debates
primarily started in developing countries during the 1960s and 1970s, they have in recent years also
increasingly been addressed in developed society like the United Kingdom and the United States of
America.
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Unesco defines Media Policy as a set of principles and norms established to guide the behaviour of
communication systems. Media Policy has likewise been defined (Mowlana and Wilson, in Frederich,
1992: 138-139) as
…systematic, institutionalized principles, norms and behavior that are designed through legal
and regulatory procedures and/or perceived through historical understanding to guide formation,
distribution, and control of the system in both its human and technical dimensions.
The process of media policy-making has been described as “a reaction to a challenge…intended to find
a reasonable balance between forces of change and forces of preservation” (Siune, McQual and
Truetzchler, 1994: 1).
Looking at the above definitions, the following main elements can be identified:
 Media policies are norms, principles or guidelines.
 They are established either legally, or through historical understanding
 They guide the behaviour (i.e. formation, distribution and control) of communication systems
within a society.
 They come about as a result of change within a society’s social, economic, political and
technological fibre.
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UNIT THREE
MASS MEDIA SYSTEMS PARADIGM: FOUR THEORIES OF THE PRESS
The value of theory
In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, a speculation, or
a hypothesis. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not
required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality.
The goals of theory are then to describe, explain, understand, predict and control, and reform.
 Describe: Before we comment on how something works, we must first describe that
something
 Explain: Before we understand, predict and or/ change something, we must first explain how
something works (Newton’s).
 Understand: Description and explanation lead to understanding
 Predict and control: On the same basis of (an) understanding, certain predictions of how
something works and how it can be controlled can be made.
 Reform: Description, explanation and understanding with the purpose of predicting and
controlling can lead to changing something, (Fourie (ed). 2007). Media Studies Vol. 1. Juta:
Cape Town.
Goals of mass media theory
Mass communication theory, which originated from sociology, describes, explains, interprets
(understands), predicts and tries to reform the media’s social relationships, be it internal
relations within the media or external relations with other social structures and the media’s
audiences. As put by Croteau and Hoynes (2003: 13):
“…media theory in general asks us to consider the role of the media in our individual lives (the
micro level) and in the context of social forces such as the economy, politics, and
technological development (the macro level). If we want to understand the media and their
impact on our society, we must consider the social relationship (both micro and macro)
between media and social world”.
Whereas sociology as an academic discipline studies social relationships in general, media
studies are more specific. Therefore, the main goal of mass communication and media theory
is to describe, and if necessary change, the social relations between the media and society
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(all the structures in society), the relationships between the media and its audiences (media
users), and the relationships within the media.
There are three types of social relations which are referred to as the object of media theory
and research:
 The relationship between media institutions and other institutions in society (external
relations), such as the media’s relationships with and to the government, the
judiciary, the economy, politics, etc;
 Relationships within media institutions (internal relations) such as the relationship
between an editor and journalists or between the editor and the board of the
newspaper and/or newspaper group; the relationship(s) of individual journalists
and/or radio and television programme makers with each other; and the
relationships between different media in a society, for example the relationships with
and between the public broadcaster and newspaper, advertisers, etc;
 Relationships between media institutions and their audiences and the audiences’
relationship with the media.
What is meant by relationship is how the difference structures and role players are involved with
other and influence and impact on each other. For example, what is the impact of the economy on the
media? What is the influence of politics on the media? What is the influence a government’s media
policy or an opposition’s media policy may have on the media?
Theory’s scientific value is that it teaches us how to describe, interpret, understand, evaluate and
predict a phenomenon. It also provides us with an overview of the development of a regulation, its
relation(s) with other disciplines and its possible future developments. For example, although it may
not be the explicit purpose of media theory to provide a historical overview of the discipline, if we
study media theory as it developed over time and as it focused on different issues in different
historical periods, then it reveals much about the development of the discipline.
Mass media do not operate in a vacuum. This assertion is generally agreed upon, and led researchers
to study the relationship between mass media and government. The first well-known attempt to clarify
the link between the mass media and the political society was introduced by Siebert et al. (1963), and
presented in Four Theories of the Press . The purpose of the work was to establish and explain four
normative theories that ought to illustrate the press’ position in relation to its political environment.
By “press” Siebert means all the media of mass communication, including television, radio, and
newspapers.
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A. Authoritarian Press Theory
Under the authoritarian system of the time: Truth was conceived to be, not the product of the great
mass of people, but of a few wise men who were in a position to guide and direct their fellows. Thus,
truth was thought to be centered (sic.) near the center of power. The press therefore functioned from
the top down. The rulers of the time used the press to inform the people of what the rulers thought
they should know and the policies the rulers thought they should support (Siebert et al., 1956). The
following could be considered as typical authoritarian measures:
1) The press should do nothing which could undermine the established authority of the state, and
should always be subordinate to the established authority.
2) The press should avoid causing offence to the majority or dominant moral and political values.
3) Censorship can be justified to enforce these principles.
4) Unacceptable attacks on the authority, deviations from official policy or offences against
moral codes could be considered criminal acts.
5) Though the state may not own/ control the press outright, as in the Marxist-Leninist system,
it does have a clear say about or input into the way it functions.
The monarch or government had absolute power and control over ownership, content and use of the
mass media. Criticism of the political machinery and officials in power through the mass media was
forbidden and the press existed chiefly to support and advances the policies of the government in
power and to service the state (Siebert et al., 1956) and therefore had no freedom.
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B. The Libertarian Free Press Theory
The libertarians believe that man is a thinking, independent and rational animal, capable of deciding
between the good and the bad and between the good and the better when faced with alternative
choices. As expounded by Siebert, Peterson and Schramm (1956), under libertarianism Man is no
longer conceived of as a dependent being [as in the authoritarian system] to be led and directed, but
rather as a rational being able to discern between truth and falsehood, between a better and worse
alternative, when faced with conflicting evidence and alternative choices. Truth is no longer conceived
of as the property of power. Rather the right to search for truth is one of the inalienable natural
rights of man… [And] The press is conceived of as a partner in the search for truth.
The three authors further underline the basis of press freedom at evolution under libertarianism: In
libertarian theory, the press is not an instrument of government, but rather a device for presenting
evidence and arguments on the basis of which the people can check on government and make up their
minds as to policy. Therefore it is imperative that the press be free from government control and
influence. In order for truth to emerge, all ideas must get a fair hearing; there must be a “free market
place” of ideas and information. Minorities as well as majorities, the weak as well as the strong must
have access to the press…(Siebert et al., 1956).
There are other major ingredients of press freedom under libertarianism. One is the assumption of
the presence of a multiplicity of voices on public issues at all times. The libertarians… assumed that in
a democratic society, there would be a multiplicity of voices available to, if not actually reaching the
public. Let every man who has something to say on public issues express himself regardless of
whether what he has to say is true or false and let the public ultimately decide… (Siebert et al., 1956).
This public decision is expected to be reached through the “self-righting process of truth.” The selfrighting process of truth developed from Milton’s (1644) thesis that truth will ultimately drive away
falsehood and assert itself in a free and open encounter with falsehood. Another important component
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of libertarian press freedom is the absence of state control in the operations of the news media in
line with the laissez faire enterprise doctrine or philosophical foundation of capitalism. As put by
Schiller (1986): [T]he proponents of the libertarian theory were against state control and or
involvement in the operation of the news media…News organizations need to be independent of both
government and big business so that it can deliver disinterested accounts of the key sources of
power affecting people’s daily lives.
A third major ingredient is the emphasis on financial independence of the press. According to Oso
(1988): It [the libertarian theory/philosophy] stresses the financial autonomy of the press. Further, it
accepts free enterprise and private ownership of the means of production as guarantees for the
attainment of freedom of the press and individual freedom. The government is not expected to
compete with or eliminate privately owned media… McQuail (1987) summarises the basic
characteristics of the press and its freedom under libertarianism as follows
1) Publication should be free from any prior censorship by any third party;
2) The act of publication and distribution should be open to a person or group without permit or
license;
3) Attack on any government official or political party (as distinct from attacks on private
individuals or treason and breaches of security) should not be punishable, even after the
event;
4) There should be no compulsion to publish anything;
5) Publication of ‘error’ is protected equally with that of truth in matters of opinion and belief;
6) No restriction should be placed on the collection, by legal means, of information for
publication;
7) There should be no restriction on export or import or sending or receiving ‘messages’ across
national frontiers; Journalists should be able to claim a considerable degree of professional
autonomy within their organizations.
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From the listed qualities, press freedom at its genesis was based on the notion that individuals should
be free to publish in the news or mass media whatever they like without interference from
government or from other persons or groups. This freedom was seen as an extension of other
freedoms, particularly that of free speech and as a palladium for all civil, political and religious rights.
Being also a concomitant of commercial freedom, having evolved under a capitalist setting, it was
closely associated with capitalist social organization. Hence, it also implied property rights i.e. the
right to profitably own and use media production and facilities (Omwanda, 1990 1991).
C. The Social Responsibility Press Theory
Although press freedom evolved in a capitalist liberal democracy i.e. England under libertarianism {as
part of the parliamentary and congressional or presidential systems based on individual liberty and
private enterprise (Ugboajah,1987)}, the notion of press freedom that presently obtains in capitalist
liberal democracies the world over is that of the “social responsibility theory of the press”. The social
responsibility theory originated in the United States in the 20th century although it can be regarded
as an Anglo–American concept (Siebert et al.,1956). It was a composite of ideas developed from the
writings of W. E. Hocking, the works of the 1947 United States Press Freedom Commission (Hutchins
Commission), the ideas of mass communication practitioners and media codes. It arose in recognition
of the fact that the free market (market forces) had failed to deliver the benefits or fulfill the promise
of press freedom to public expectations.
In McQuail’s (1987) account: …the technological and commercial development of the press [evident in
the rise of media monopolies] was said to have led to lower chances of access for individuals and
diverse groups, and lower standards of performance [arising from undue influence of advertisers and
from media sensationalism for profit motive] in meeting the informational, social and moral needs of
society. It was also thought to have increased the power of a single class [that of news media
owners]. At the same time, the rise of the new and seemingly powerful media of radio and film had
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demonstrated the need for some kinds of public control and means of accountability additional to
those appropriate to the long established and professionally organized print media.
The theory therefore stipulates that since freedom carries concomitant obligations, the media of
mass communication which enjoy a privileged position, as obtained under the libertarian theory, must
assume obligation of social responsibility and if they do not, someone must ensure that they do. It
takes the stance that the social roles of the press i.e. enlightening the people, promoting the
democratic process, safeguarding the liberties of the individual, etc. should take precedence over its
role of servicing the economic system. It holds that the press should furnish the people with ‘good’
entertainment only that is entertainment which does not debase the norms and values of society for
profit motive. It accepts the need for the press as an institution to remain financially self–supporting
and independent, but if necessary, it would exempt certain individual media from having to earn their
way in the market place and allow some form of control on mass media operations in the ‘public
interest.’ (This is the basis on which the British Broadcasting Corporation is being run as a public
trust by the British government.)
Thus although free as in the libertarian era, the following principles are to guide the western media
under the social responsibility concept: (McQuail, 1987).
1) Media should accept and fulfill certain obligations to society.
2) These obligations are mainly to be met by setting high or professional standards of
informativeness, truth, accuracy, objectivity and balance;
3) In accepting and applying these obligations, media should be self-regulating within the
framework of law and established institutions;
4) The media should avoid whatever might lead to crime, violence or civil disorder or give
offence to minority groups;
5) The media as a whole should be pluralist and reflect the diversity of their society giving
access to various points of view and to rights of reply;
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6) Society and the public, following the first named principle, have a right to expect high
standards of performance and intervention can be justified to secure the, or a public good;
7) Journalists and media professionals should be accountable to society as well as to employers
and the market.
The obligations of the press under the social responsibility theory which McQuail talks about here
have been spelt out by the Hutchins Commission (1947) as follows:
I.
providing the public with “a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s
events in a context which gives them meaning.”
II.
“serving as a forum for the exchange of comments and criticism.”
III.
projecting “a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.”
IV.
being responsible for “the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the
society.” and
V.
providing “full access to the day’s intelligence.”
The social responsibility theory attempts to reconcile independence and freedom of the news media
with their obligations to society. According to Omwanda (1990-1991), it assumes that the news media
have useful functions to society especially that of protecting democratic government through the
provision of a variety of views and opinions. He contends that while the theory reaffirms the
libertarian view of a free and independent press, it also insists that the press must accept its
obligations to society, recognize that there are public expectations of standards of performance
below which demands for control begin to be made, and accept the notion that media ownership is a
kind of public trusteeship and not private franchise. Central to the social responsibility theory; he
says, is an attempt to reconcile a set of three divergent principles, i.e. those of individual freedom and
choice, of media freedom, and of media obligation to society.
From the foregoing, press freedom in capitalist liberal democracies, such as Britain and the United
States, denotes that every individual (citizen and professional journalist) has the right to freely
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publish his or her sentiment(s) through the instrumentality of the news media without fear of prior
restraint or of arbitrary punishment for whatever is published. Such individuals equally have the right
to own any of the news media and to protect the source(s) of their information within the bounds of
criminal law. This right of press freedom is however subject to regulation by the “self-righting
process of truth” in “free market place of ideas” and by courts as obtained under pure libertarianism,
but more importantly, under the social responsibility concept, by community opinion, consumer action
and professional ethics. Invasion of recognized private rights and vital social interests is also
forbidden.
In essence, the Western concept of press freedom is built around three main principles:
a) the prohibition of government interference with the press in the form of censorship or
similar prior restraint [although prior restraints are justified under carefully limited
circumstances] (Nam, 1983)
b) the principles that any restrictions on press freedom must be applied or subject to review by
the courts, and that courts alone have the right to impose penalties (Wei, 1970); and
c) the principle of completely private ownership of the print news media and a largely private
ownership of the broadcast media. Let us now examine press freedom in the socialist world.
D. Soviet Press Theory: Press Freedom in the Socialist System
Unlike in the capitalist liberal democracies, the perception and definition of press freedom in the
socialist world such as Cuba, China, Albania, North Korea, etc. is based on the Soviet Communist
theory of the press which developed in the Soviet Union after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
Under the theory which evolved from Marxist– Leninist – Stalinist thought, with mixture of Hegel and
19th Century Russian thinking, the chief purpose of the press is to contribute to the success and
continuance of the socialist system, and especially to the dictatorship of the party (Siebert et al.,
1956). The Soviet media theory itself derives from the basic principles of “scientific socialism”/
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communism which are materialistic determinism and class struggle and has the following as its major
ideas (McQuail, 1987).
1) The working class [the proletarian] by definition holds power in a socialist society, and to
keep power, has to control the means of ‘mental production.’ Thus, all media should be subject
to control by agencies of the working class – primarily the communist party;
2) Socialist societies are, or aspire to be, classless societies and thus lacking in conflict. The
press should consequently not be structured along lines of political conflict;
3) The press has a positive role to play in the formation of society and the movement towards
communism and this suggests a number of important functions for the media in socialization,
informal social control and mobilization towards planned social and economic goals;
4) Marxism presupposes objective laws of history and thus an objective reality that the press
should reflect; the general theory of the [socialist] state requires the media to submit to
ultimate control by organs of the state and to be, in varying degrees, integrated with other
instruments of political life.
The socialist media are, within these limits, expected to be self-regulatory. Thus Article 125 of the
Soviet Union’s 1936 (“Stalin”) Constitution, for instance, guarantees freedom of the press. It states
that: In conformity with the interests of the working people and in order to strengthen the socialist
system, the citizens of the USSR are guaranteed by law.
a) Freedom of speech;
b) Freedom of the press; (emphasis, mine)
c) Freedom of assembly; including the holding of mass meetings;
d) Freedom of street processions and demonstrations;
These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations
printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communication facilities and other
material requisites for the exercise of these rights.
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The communists [socialists] conceive that press freedom cannot exist in a system [capitalist] where
only the monied classes have access to the mass media (Martin and Chaudhary, 1983). Marxist –
Leninist theory holds that the freedom of the press is a delusion so long as capitalists commandeer
the better printing establishmentsits power over the press (Ugboajah, 1987). In line with this thinking
and since the poor – the masses – are in the majority, the proper thing to do to have ‘true’ freedom of
the press, according to socialist thesis, is for the government to put the wherewithal for mass
communication at the disposal of the masses. Private ownership of the media is therefore proscribed
and profit motive is removed from media practice. For a socialist citizen or journalist then, freedom
of the press means freedom from a class, most likely the bourgeoisie; freedom to use the press as an
instrument of unity (Okunna, 1990).
DEVELOPMENT PRESS THEORY: PRESS FREEDOM IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Altschull (1984) notes that in much of Africa and Asia (where we have a large concentration of
developing countries), an indigenous press was slow in developing and tended to follow the models
provided by colonial rulers. Nam (1983) also submits that the ‘Third World’ has at one extreme some
of its countries copying the Western libertarian concept of the press and at the other extreme some
countries that consciously model themselves after the Marxist– Leninist concept. While admitting that
there are developing countries that fall in between the two extremes, he concludes that “regardless
of the ideology of a Third World nation, strong developmental efforts by ruling elites in Third World
nations, do not leave much room for a free and independent press in the Western tradition.” Nam is,
perhaps, right is his submissions on press freedom in the developing countries.
Many ‘Third World’ studies [and political leaders and even some journalists] insist that because of the
glaring need for rapid socio-economic development and national integration or cohesion in the
developing countries, developing countries’ news media differ from those of the other two sociopolitical systems in their basic functions which are to promote social stability and development
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(Omwanda,1990-1991) As succinctly expressed by Altschull (1984): To the struggling, insecure nations
of the advancing world [his preference for ‘developing’ or ‘Third World’], abstract principles of press
freedom are less important than the viability of their nations.
Kenyan journalist and publisher, Hilary Ng’weno, (1968) puts it more graphically: The challenge to the
press in young countries is the challenge of laying down the foundations upon which future freedoms
will thrive… [A] nyone who has lived or travelled widely in Africa, Asia or Latin America cannot fail to
be appauled at the enormous amount of poverty, illiteracy and disease that are to be found
everywhere. Under some of the conditions in which Asians, Africans and Latin Americans live, it will be
sacrilegious to talk about press freedom, for freedom loses meaning when human survival is the only
imperative principle on which a people lives.
Given this portrait, the concept of press freedom prevailing in the developing world is that of
development media/development journalism theory. According to Kunczik (1988), the term
development journalism first cropped up around 1967 to define a notion of journalism according to
which reporting of events of national and international significance should be constructive, in the
sense that it contributes positively to the development of the country concerned. Its main focus
should not be on day to- day news but on long-term development processes. Development
journalism/media theory advocates positive functions for the news media to further national
development, promote political and cultural autonomy and allow for participatory communication
structures, which enable grassroots involvement in media production and management. To the extent
that development is the main agendum of the ‘Third World’, journalists are supposed to subordinate
their freedoms to the pursuit of development goal (Omwanda, 1990-1991).
1) McQuail (1987) gives the main principles of development media theory as follows:
2) Media should accept and carry out positive development tasks in line with nationally
established policy;
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3) Freedom of the media should be open to restriction according to (1) economic priorities and
(2) development needs of society;
4) Media should give priority in their content to national culture and language;
5) Media should give priority in news and information to links with other developing countries
which are close geographically, culturally or politically;
6) Journalists and other media workers have rights/ freedoms as well as responsibilities;
7) In the interest of development ends, the state has a right to intervene in, or restrict, media
operations and devices of censorship, subsidy and direct control can be justified.
From the foregoing, press freedom in the developing world is conceived and defined in accordance
with the collective developmental purpose of society. The individual’s right to publish his or her
sentiments in or through the news media is recognized and protected as in the western tradition
provided such sentiments do not run counter to developmental goals of society as perceived by
sometimes elected but mostly self-imposed political leaders. The right to own and operate, majorly,
the print news media is also guaranteed within the same bounds. Of course, censorship, prior and
post, and direct control by government are considered legitimate where the government feels that
the press is about to or has transgressed. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the most
passionate defenders of liberty in the developing world, states must be “armed with the authority to
deal with’’ dangerous language [and by logical extension, content] in the press. “We cannot”, he said,
“imperil the safety of the whole nation in the name of some fancied freedom which put an end to all
freedom” (sic.) ( Altschull,1984).
In spite of the prevalence of these seemingly lofty defenses or explanations for developmental
journalism or theory of press freedom in developing countries however, critics of press freedom
suppression in the socio-political system, particularly in African countries, are not impressed. Many
of them contend that curbing press freedom is not the panacea for sociopolitical stability and national
development. With over-flowing examples of instances where African political leaderships have
restricted the freedom of the African press when the latter attempted to expose their wrong-doings,
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the critics hold that: …the African press is controlled by the government for the fear that a free press
will readily unearth the staggering proportions of graft, ineptitude, lack of accountability as well as
the corruption, mismanagement, bribery, roguery and official stealing inherent within the ruling
bourgeoisie class (Ogbondah, 1994).
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UNIT FOUR
JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION ETHICS
One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society
of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states...public enlightenment is the
forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those
ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.
Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness
and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.
What is ethics?
Ethics is a systematic, reasoned approach based on principles. Ethics attempts to outline what is
‘wrong’. Media ethics are very much a normative field-helping journalists and other media
practitioners) develop principles and maxims to follow in ethical practice. The freedom of expression,
which media operators everywhere long for and defend, should necessarily bring with it a sense of
responsibility. Being free to do research and report means that we are also answerable for that
reporting, because as we are doing it freely, we know what we are doing and why. If journalists are
answerable for their reporting, there needs to be some sort of reference point against which they can
judge the goodness or badness of their professional activity.
Media ethics are defined as a reflection process, rule-oriented and putting moral values into practice.
Media ethics are defined as a branch of philosophy which prescribes what is right and what is
wrong. It was also defined as a ‘field that deals with nearly an endless array of gray areas where
issues and appropriate courses of action are not clearly demarcated. It also involves a rational
choice between what is right (good) and what is wrong (bad).
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The five moral philosophies undergirding present day journalism ethics were singled as including the
following: Christians (1983:9) identifies five ethical principles which have historically provided
guidance on moral decisions. These are:
Aristotle’s Golden Mean: This principle rests on the assumption that virtue lies between two
extremes. Thus, a morally upright journalist is neither the one who is a coward nor bashful. Aristotle
emphasises moderation for the appropriate actions.
Emmanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative (Deontology): “Act on that maximum by which you will to
become a universal law”. This principle emphasises that ‘what is right is right and must be done even
under the most extreme conditions’ (Christians, 1983:11). If, for example, a journalist is convinced that
publishing a particular story is the right thing then he or she must go ahead and damn the
consequences.
Mills Principle of Utility: (Teleology) is predicted on the philosophy that man must ‘seek greatest
happiness for the greatest number’. In other words, what is right is that which pleases the greatest
number of people in a nation. Christians observes that this ethical view is widespread in American
society which is characterised by hedonism – the perpetual search for pleasure.
Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance: (Contractualism) ‘Justice emerges when negotiating without social
differentiation’. This principle rests on Rawl’s principle that fairness is a fundamental tenet of justice.
In a sense, justice is viewed as a ‘cloistered virtue’ which is blind to social status, colour or creed. All
people must be treated fairly without fear or favour. Being morally blind means that the media do not
treat the powerful in society as sacred cows. All creatures, great and small ought to be subjected to
the same moral standards.
The Judeo-Christian-Persons as Ends: This “love your neighbour as yourself” principle views all
human beings as standing under one moral virtue. Love is viewed as more than a raw principle, stern
and unconditional (Christians, 1983:16). The unconditional love due to humanity makes it immoral for
anyone to use human beings for the purpose of achieving certain ends. Loving one’s neighbour is a
practical action that entails helping those who need help such as the weak, the poor, orphans, widows,
aliens, the disenfranchised and the downtrodden in society. This principle exhorts media practitioners
to use their privilege to highlight the plight of the poor and needy in society.
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IV. Five Ethical Guidelines
A. Aristotle's Mean (“Moral virtue is a middle state determined by practical wisdom”):
1. Aristotle’s emphasis is moderation or temperance.
2. Something is only bad if it is practiced or done in excess or extreme (e.g., in journalism, the
sensational is to be avoided and the virtues of balance, fairness and equal time are recognized).
3. Practical wisdom is moral discernment, a knowledge of the proper ends (telos) of conduct and the
means of attaining those ends.
4. Not every action or every emotional admits of a middle state. Some things are intrinsically wicked
and should be avoided—they are always wrong (e.g., two extremes are to murder or burn down his
house, so I will take the middle state and merely beat him up).
5. Confucius' Golden Mean
(a) Confucius developed the theory of the mean before Aristotle.
(b) Confucius rooted his ethical theory in virtue. Human excellence depended on character and
balance rather than social position.
B. Kant's Categorical Imperative (“Act on that maxim which you will to become a universal law”)
1. Kant's categorical imperative implies that what is right for one is right for all: “Act only that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
2. Kant gives a true test of a genuine moral obligation: Question: Do you want your decision to be
applied universally?
3. “Categorical” means unconditional and without exception or allowance for extenuating
circumstances. Moral law is binding on all rational beings. Certain actions are therefore always
wrong: e.g., cheating, stealing, dishonesty. Benevolence and truthtelling are always and universally
right.
4. The Categorical Imperative is inherent in human beings and is apprehended not by reason but
through conscience (i.e., it is a higher truth).
5. Kant's system is called “deontological ethics,” from the Greek word for duty (deon) His system
reduces ethics to duty. The Categorical Imperative must be obeyed even to the sacrifice or all natural
inclinations and socially accepted standards.
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6. Sir David Ross constructed a form of duty-based ethics in which right actions were considered
“prima-facie duties”—obligations self-evident upon first viewing.
7. Islam’s Divine Commands (Justice, human dignity, and truth are unconditional duties)
(a) Muhammad of Arabia recorded duty ethics based on unconditional imperatives commanded by
Allah. The ethics command the right and prohibit the wrong.
(b) The system of ethics revealed in the holy Qur’an is comprehensive for all of life and include
patience, moderation, trust, love, and prudence.
(c) The Qur’an emphasizes justice as the essence of Islam.
(d) The second major principle in Islam is a respect for human dignity that is rooted in the sacredness
of human nature.
(e) Truth is a pillar of Islamic ethics that is at the center of human affairs and fundamental to Islamic
communication.
(f) The First International Conference of Muslim Journalists mandated that Muslims in the media
should follow the Islamic rules of conduct.
C. Mill's Principle of Utility (“seek the greatest happiness for the aggregate whole”)
1. Mill’s principle suggests right is what will yield the best consequences for the welfare of human
beings.
2.Tthe morally right alternative produces the greatest balance of good over evil. All that matters
ultimately in determining the right and wrong choice is the amount of good promoted and evil
restrained.
3. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873): happiness was the sole end of human action (telos) and the test by
which conduct ought to be judged.
4. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832): preventing pain and promoting pleasures were for Bentham and Mill
the only desirable ends.
5. Pluralist Utilitarianism: other values besides pure happiness possess intrinsic worth—values such
as friendship, knowledge, health, and symmetry. Thus, rightness or wrongness is assessed in terms of
the total amount of value ultimately produced.
6. There are two kinds of utility: act and rule utilitarianism.
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(a) Act utility is the greatest good in specific case. For example, will a particular action in a particular
situation result in a balance of good over evil?
(b) Rule utility asks which general rule yields the greatest utility in any given situation.
D. Rawls's Veil of Ignorance (“Justice emerges when negotiating without social differentiation”)
1. Rawls considers fairness as the fundamental idea in the concept of justice. Fairness means quantity:
Everyone in the same union doing similar work should receive the same percentage of pay.
2. Eliminating arbitrary distinctiveness expresses fairness in its basic sense.
3. The Veil of Ignorance helps ensure fairness and equity in any situation. The veil asks that all parties
“step back from real circumstances into an ‘original position’ behind a barrier where roles and social
differentiations are eliminated.”
4. As people negotiate social agreements in the situation of imagined equality behind the veil, they
inevitably seek to protect the weaker party and minimize risks.
5. Two principles emerge from the Veil of Ignorance.
(a) The first principle calls for a maximal system of equal basic liberty.
(b)The second principle involves all social goods other than liberty and allows inequalities in the
distribution of these goods only if they act to benefit the least advantaged party.
E. Judeo-Christian Persons as Ends (Love your neighbor as yourself)
1. Ultimately humans stand under only one moral command or virtue: to love God and humankind. All
other obligations, though connected to this one, are considered derivative.
2. The command to love your neighbor is normative, an “ought” (St. Augustine: “divine love is the
supreme good”).
3. Humans are created in the image of God, the more loving they are the more like God they are. Love
is a principle of action. (Heinrich Emil Brunner: “Remain in love.”)
4. Christian tradition introduced agape—unselfishness, other-regarding care and other-directed love
that is distinct from friendship, charity, benevolence, and other weaker notions. Human beings have
unconditional value apart from shifting circumstances. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
5. Nel Noddings' Relational Ethics (“the ‘one-caring' attends to the ‘cared for' in thought and deeds”)
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(a) Caring rejects the “ethics of principle as ambiguous and unstable,” and insists that human care
should play the central role in moral decision making.
(b) Ethics begins with particular relations, and there are two primary parties in any relation: the
“one-caring” and the “cared for.”
(c) Three central dimensions are emphasized in this caring ethic: engrossment, motivational
displacement, and reciprocity.
V. To Whom is Moral Duty Owed? (Ultimate Loyalties)
* NOTE: The Potter Box upper-right Quadrant deals with loyalties. We must ask, where do our ultimate
loyalties reside? Often, conflicts arise between the rights of one person or group and those of others.
A. Responsible moral decision-making requires that we clarify which parties are going to be
influenced by our decision and which ones we feel obligated to support. The following categories of
loyalties and obligations will be examined in this book.
1. Duty to ourselves: following our conscience
2. Duty to clients/subscribers/supporters
3. Duty to our organization or firm (or whistle-blowing?)
4. Duty to professional colleagues
5. Duty to society (“social responsibility”)
B. Duty to society involves media practitioners' moral obligation to society.
C. The loyalty quadrant provides a pivotal juncture in moral discourse and indicates that conceptual
analysis can hardly be appraised until one sees the implications for institutional arrangements and
relevant social groups.
D. Thus, the line of moral decision-making we follow has its final meaning in the social order.
E. Considered judgments do not derive directly from normative principles but are woven into a set of
obligations one assumes toward certain segments of society.
VI. Who Ought to Decide?
A. At each phase of moral decision-making (i.e., quadrant of the Potter Box), the issue of “who should
be accountable?” for the decision is raised.
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B. Numerous decision-makers are involved in any moral decision involving the media.
C. Individuals cannot get lost in the process—the individual is the authentic moral agent and is
therefore responsible.
D. The “corporate obligation” must be considered as well. Individuals within the organization are coresponsible for the actions taken by an organization. However, ultimate responsibility rests on the
individuals.
E. Gross attacks and broad generalizations about the entire media being responsible usually obscure
more than they enlighten. Such generalizations allow individuals to hide beyond the corporate cover.
http://campus.arbor.edu/media_ethics8/chapteroutlines/chapteroutline-intro.htm
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ETHICS CONCERNING REPORTING ON CHILDREN AND OTHER VULNERABLE GROUPS
The following words based on the spelling of ‘ethic’ can assist in testing the ethics of what you are
doing:
E: Empathy
Where appropriate, have empathy for your subject
T: Truth
Are you portraying the truth?
H; Humanity
Does the picture de-humanise you, the viewer, or the subject?
I: Integrity
Will it retain your integrity and that of other photographers?
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C: Candidness Is it a natural, spontaneous picture
“If your mouth turns into a knife, it will cut off your lips”, Zimbabwean proverb
Responsible journalism and the role f the reporter:
Writing for the mass media responsibly is conscientious reporting. It means putting news and
information to the public and being fully prepared to take responsibility for its outcomes to the media,
to society, to individuals in the news and to sources who have supplied the information. It is
recognizing that by dealing in news and other information, journalists owe a society and those they
report about certain precautions, explanation and actions to undo the unjustified outcomes or
possible outcomes arising from their reporting. It is the humanizing of journalism, a profession whose
practice is prone to being insensitive to human feelings even in cases where they should be taken into
account.
If reporting is about telling people what individuals is society have done, are doing and intend to do, as
well as interpreting these actions and intentions in a manner that helps society to learn from its
mistakes and improve on its good deeds, then reporters should perform their chores honestly,
truthfully and with integrity.
ACTIVITY:
Explain by giving why responsible news gathering and news writing should be a mixture of
teleological and deontological ethical approaches.
It is unanimously agreed that children must be protected. They are innocent, vulnerable and at most
ignorant of the workings and oppressions of the media. Any professional journalist must seek consent
of the guardian of the child before soliciting information. Even in a school set up, administrators must
refer the issue to the parents or carers before proceeding with interviewing, photographing etc.
Different countries have different laws on who is a child. Names of minors/children implicated in
crimes must not be disclosed except in extra-ordinary situations. However journalism ethics on
reporting children sometimes are dicey issue in complex situations where the child is a perpetrator
of crime.
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Another issue relates to reporting on HIV and Aids and People living with HIV and Aids (PLWHAs). It has
been noted that some reportage promotes stigmatisation against PLWHAs and perpetuates
discriminatory practices. Journalists must desist from perpetrating ‘victimhood’ stereotypes. The
issue of covering faces of photographed people in the media is described as equally unethical in so far
at it can allow people to identify the person by association.
Franz Kruger (2005) has discussed these in-depth in the context of South Africa. He identifies the
following ethical norms:
1) Truth telling:
In some senses the first and most basic principle is accuracy. In the context of HIV and AIDS, this
means that journalists need to be very careful about the science involved, which is sometimes very
complex. Also, we often write about statistics, and again journalists need to be careful to get them
right. In a broader sense, the truthtelling principle means telling the story fully and giving it due
weight. This involves a number of things. It means reporting the pandemic in a nuanced way, and
investigating the social, medical, personal, scientific, economic, educational, political and other
aspects of the issue. That kind of balance won’t be achieved in a single story, but it can be achieved
over time.
2) Independence
This means keeping a distance from the various players, in order to be able to report honestly. This
includes governments, even (perhaps particularly) in countries where it owns or dominates
broadcasting and other media.
3) Minimise harm
The media can cause significant harm. Established ethics call for harm to be minimised – not avoided
completely, since some kinds are unavoidable or even justifiable. A corrupt official may be harmed by
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the exposure of his or her misdeeds, for instance, but this is far outweighed by the broader public
benefit.
4) Privacy:
This right is enshrined in many constitutions, it is a legal right and an ethical duty. In concrete terms,
it means taking great care when it comes to reporting on people’s status. Their story, the way their
family deals with the situation, medical details, photographs - all of this belongs to their private
sphere, over which they have control. The issue has a particular slant where, as is so often the case,
journalists are dealing with people who are poor and disadvantaged. They need to take particular
care not to bulldoze people, pushing them into doing something they may not really want to do. Public
interest can trump the right to privacy, if there is a strong public interest. This is recognised in
various codes.
In short, Kruger (2005) identifies the following principles on reporting HIV and Aids:
1) Accuracy is critical, since important personal and policy decisions may be influenced by
media reports. Journalists should be particularly careful to get scientific and statistical
information right.
2) Clarity means being prepared to discuss sex, cultural practices and other sensitive issues
respectfully but openly.
3) Balance means giving due weight to the story, and covering all aspects, including medical,
social, political, economic and other issues. It means focusing on the gender dimension,
particularly, and reporting on the larger social forces driving the pandemic. Balance also
means highlighting positive stories where appropriate, without underplaying the fact that HIV
and AIDS is a serious crisis.
4) Journalists should ensure that the voices of people living with HIV and AIDS are heard. The
human face of the pandemic should be shown.
5) Journalists should hold the powerful to account in their handling of the pandemic.
6) Independence means keeping all interest groups - government, pharmaceutical industry and
advocacy groups – at arm’s length, and avoiding any perception of a conflict of interest.
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7) Discrimination, prejudice and stigma are very harmful, and journalists should avoid fuelling
them. Particular care should be taken not to use language that reinforces stereotypes.
8) Journalists should respect the rights of people with HIV and AIDS. Vulnerable people like
children and those not used to the media should be treated with particular care. Journalists
should seek their informed consent before intruding on their privacy. Only in cases where the
public interest is strong and clear can somebody’s HIV status be reported against their
wishes. Any undertakings given must be kept.
Dangerous misconceptions should be debunked, and any claims of cures or treatments should be
reported with due scepticism.
THE CASE OF PORNOGRAPHY
 Pornography is defined as display of explicit, sexual nudity or activity, where the display is the
end in itself rather than a means to a different end.
 Some commentators argue that ‘pornography incites and causes sexual violence.
 The UN Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women has argued
that ‘pornography and the depiction and commercial exploitation of women as sexual objects
contribute to gender-based violence’.
 In certain circumstances, there are grounds to believe that the production of pornography
causes harm when the pornographic material depicts a criminal act.
 There is a very broad consensus that the main objective of the laws regulating pornography
should aim at protecting members of public from nuisance of offensive material in places to
which normal life happens to take them.
• The Issue of Violence
 Violence in the media is another area of content regulation that has received a great deal of
attention
 Violence on television is usually at the center of this debate because it is so accessible to
children.
 An enormous amount of research studies has been done on the effects of media violence.
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 Some researchers contend that for some children, violent programming can lead to more
violent behaviour (aggressor effect), increased fearfulness about violence (victim effect), or
increased callousness about violence directed at others (bystander effect).
 Although various studies showed different degrees of influence, there is “a positive and
significant correlation between television violence and aggressive behaviour.”
 Producers of violent media products often argue that they are merely reflecting the violence
that already exists in society.
 However, polls repeatedly show that most people believe violence in the mass media
contributes to violence in society.
 As a result, there has been fairly widespread popular support for the regulation of violent
programming, especially on television.
• Regulating for Accuracy: Advertising
 Another area of content regulation worth noting is regulation that affects advertising.
 A number of different agencies regulate the advertising industry because of its broad and
varied commercial dimensions, which encompass all forms of mass communication.
 The collection of regulatory agencies addresses two basic concerns.
 First, the agencies protect the public against fraudulent or deceptive advertising.
 The second major area in which government regulations affect advertising involves ads
featuring potentially dangerous products, especially when the ads are targeted at children
and minors.
 Thus, the government regulates advertising for products such as alcohol and tobacco.
Cigarettes, for example, cannot be advertised on television.
• Regulating in the “National Interest”: Media and the Military
 The relationship between the news media and the military has been an evolving one.
 The natural tension which exist between an institution which depends on the secrecy of plans
and operations designed to protect the country from foreign enemies and another which is
given special constitutional protection in order to be free to call attention
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to tyranny and which endeavours to expose all manners of operations engaged in by any arm of
government is most intense during times of conflict.
 There are uncontroversial example where press freedom causes a clear and present danger
to national security.
 Revelations about military secrets and counter-intelligence work could directly endanger
lives and would be irrecoverable after disclosure.
 The right to freedom of expression/ press may, therefore, legitimately be limited to allow
prior restraint on the ground of ‘national security’
• Constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Expression in south Africa (Section 16)
The law state that: Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes(a) freedom of the press and other media;
(b)freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
(c) freedom of artistic creativity; and
(d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.
• Limitation of freedom of expression
The right in subsection (1) does not extend to(a) propaganda for war;
(b) incitement of imminent violence; or
(c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes
incitement to cause harm.
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STUDY UNIT 5
Croteau and Hoynes, Chapter 5:
What Is Ideology?
 “Ideology,” means the belief systems that help justify the actions of those in power by
distorting and misrepresenting reality.
 Ideology is related to concepts such as worldview, belief system, and values.
• Ideology
 There are numerous ideologies used to explain and justify specific social relationships:
sexism, feminism, racism, egalitarianism, capitalism, communism, individualism, collectivism,
classism, etc.
 Ideologies are inherently political. They justify how power should be allocated and which
groups, if any, deserve more power than others.
• Dominant Ideology
 Within any society, some ideologies will be more widespread or dominant than others.
 The dominant ideologies are those that are most accepted and visible in mainstream society.
 Dominant ideology stems mainly from elites.
 They have the most power to spread their world views and to censor
alternative or competing ideologies.
 Dominant ideology tends to be taken for granted by members of society as the
“normal” way to view people.
 Dominant ideology is rarely challenged. It tends to be accepted as Truth.
• Media and Dominant Ideology
 Most corporate media producers argue that their images are merely reflections of our
society, and that they are not purveyors of an ideology.
 This argument is inaccurate. By selecting some images and ideologies over others, they
cannot help but promote specific world views at the expense of others.
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 The media are at the center of modern culture wars over how various categories of people
should be portrayed.
• Theoretical Roots of Ideological Analysis
 The major strain of research within this critical perspective may be loosely termed a Marxist
tradition, which regards society as rooted in conflict along class lines between dominant and
subordinate groups.
 The major effect of the media is considered ideological.
 The point of departure from the pluralist view is the following famous quote from Marx: “the
ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling
material force in society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force”.
 The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same
time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.
 "The role of the media here is that of legitimation through the production of false
consciousness, in the interests of the class which owns and controls the media"
• News Media and the Limits of Debate
 The news media produce ideological visions of the nation and the world.
 The news focuses on powerful people and institutions and generally reflects established
interests.
 The news supports the social order of public, business and professional, upper-middle-class,
middle-aged, and white male sectors of society.
 The news pays most attention to and upholds the actions of elite individuals and elite
institutions. With its focus on elites, news presents images of the world that are significantly
lacking in diversity.
 The “insider” nature of political news means that a small group of analysts are regular
commentators and news sources.
 The “debates” we see in the news, therefore, are often between insiders who share a common
commitment to traditional politics, to the exclusion of those outside the constructed
consensus.
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 The result is that contrasting perspectives in the news frequently represent the differences—
generally quite narrow—between establishment insiders.
 This approach to the news does little to inform the public of positions outside this limited
range of opinion.
 More important, it implicitly denies that other positions should be taken seriously.

Ultimately, one principal way the news is ideological is in drawing boundaries between what
is acceptable—the conventional ideas of insiders—and what is not.
• Economic News as Ideological Construct
 The capitalist media rarely portray corporate takeovers and mergers as a “social problem.”
 Instead, they often let the corporate executives define the meaning of their own behavior.
– The executive will typically call it healthy progress, despite the fact that it is harmful
to competition, consumers, and workers.
 Similarly a workers strike is often portrayed through the lens of the corporate executive
more than the strikers. The striker is often branded a trouble maker.
• Movies, the Military, and Masculinity
 Two film genres, action-adventure and military/war films are worth exploring for their
underlying ideological orientation because of their popularity.
 With action-adventure movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone and
military movies such as Rambo and Top Gun attracting large audiences—and inspiring sequels
and seemingly endless imitators—scholars have used an ideological framework to understand
the underlying messages in these films.
• Action-Adventure Films

These are stories about good and evil – heroes and villains.
 One underlying theme of the action-adventure genre is the drawing of rigid lines between “us”
and “them,” with the villain representing the dangers of difference.
– The hero typically represents the forces of civility and goodness, while the bad guy
represents uncivilized, debased society.
 Ultimately the hero kills or domesticates the bad guy, restoring security.
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• Vietnam Films
 In essence, these films provide a mass-mediated refighting of the war, in which Americans
are both the good guys and the victors.
 The films serve as a kind of redemption for a country unable to accept defeat in Vietnam and
still struggling with the shame of loss.
 In these stories, there is no longer shame or defeat but instead pride, triumph, and a
reaffirmation of national strength.
 The masculine/military films of the time both reflected the fears and desires of American
men and helped reproduce a new brand of toughness.
 The films were part of a political culture that created the conditions for the popular 1989
invasion of Panama and the even more popular 1991 war in the Persian Gulf.
• Television, Popularity, and Ideology
 TV is central to our mass mediated culture.
 TV mediates reality in seemingly realistic images, but they are not that realistic.
– Because most TV seems real, the viewer routinely suspends disbelief.
 The ideological work of TV lies in the ways it defines normalcy.
– Portrayals of sex, race, class, age, etc generally reinforce dominant ideologies
– TV producers have adopted the strategy of “least objectionable programming.”
– Programs are intended to avoid controversy and remain politically bland in order to
please sponsors and gain the widest array of viewers.
– The result has been an emphasis on stereotypes (i.e. simplistic generalizations about
different categories of people).
– They tend to emerge from dominant groups to affirm dominant
ideology. The dominant ideology reassures people that the system
works.
– They are not true, but are believed because they are taken for
granted as “common knowledge.”
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– TV ideology is mostly determined by the strategy of using
conventional images, dominant ideologies, and stereotypes as the
backdrop to most programs.
-Television ideology is mostly determined by the strategy of using conventional images, dominant
ideologies, and stereotypes as the backdrop to most programs.
– Hence, television “normalcy” is disproportionately White, Male, Upper middle class
(affluent), Relatively young, Trim and fit, Eurocentric definition of beauty
 This approach is, itself, ideological; blandness favours certain images and
stories and pushes others to the margins or off the air entirely.
 In striving for popularity, the television producers have often adopted the strategy of “least
objectionable programming,” whereby programs are intended to avoid controversy and
remain politically bland.
• Rap Music as Ideological Critique?
 According to Tricia Rose, rap music should be understood as a mass mediated criticism of the
dominant ideology of racism within the power structure.
 Rap criticizes traditional institutions like the police, the justice system, education and the job
system because these systems are seen as oppressive to blacks and the goal of equality.
 Rose argues that much rap music rejects dominant ideological assumptions.
– Rap affirms the experiences of inner city black youth while criticizing the social
institutions that contribute to their ghettoization.
– Rap music has been empowering to black youth by providing them a way to express
themselves and their critical ideologies.
– Yet at the same time, rap is full of ideological contradictions. While some rap
challenges racism, the lyrics and imagery are often misogynistic, depicting women in
degrading ways.
 Thus rap music may challenge some oppressive dominant ideologies (racism) while affirming
other oppressive dominant ideologies (sexism).
• Advertising and Consumer Culture
What kinds of stories do advertisements tell about ourselves and our society? Certainly, on one level,
ads are specific to their product or service. They tell us that
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1. if we drink a particular brand of beer, we will meet attractive women;
2. if we wear the right makeup, we will meet handsome men;
3. if we purchase a certain automobile, we will gain prestige;
4. if we use specific cleansers, we will save time; and
5. if we wear certain clothes, we will find adventure.
6. Ads may also tell us that a particular item will save us money, that a specific service will make us
healthier, or that a new product will make a great gift for a loved one.
 Despite the diversity of advertising messages and their frequent use of irony and humour,
there is an underlying commonality to almost alladvertisements:
 They are fundamentally about selling.
 They address their audiences as consumers and celebrate and take for granted the consumer
capitalist organization of society.
 This perspective is, of course, decidedly ideological.
 Ads tell us that happiness and satisfaction can be purchased, that each of us is first and
foremost an individual consumption unit, and that market relations of buying and selling are
the appropriate—perhaps the only—form of social relations outside the intimacy of the family.
 Our culture of consumption, then, is intimately connected to advertising, which helped create
it and continues, in new forms, to sustain consumerism as a central part of contemporary
ideology.
• Women’s Magazines as Advertisements
 The “women’s magazine” is one medium that is particularly advertising oriented and
consistently promotes the ideology of consumerism.
 The magazines promote the consumer lifestyle by showing how beauty, sexuality, career
success, culinary skill, and social status can be bought in the consumer marketplace.
 Social problems, from the standpoint of consumer ideology, are redefined as personal
problems that can be solved by purchasing the appropriate product.
 In addressing a specific social group, women’s magazines, identify women as a consumption
category with special product needs.
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 Women’s magazines use both direct and covert advertising to sell magazines and promote an
ideology that celebrates the consumption of gender-specific products as a means to identity
formation and personal satisfaction
• Advertising and the Globalization of Culture
 The dreams that advertisements sell within the United States are also exported all around the
globe.
 The images on global display, like much domestic advertising, are about dreams. America is
portrayed as a kind of dreamland where individuals can fulfil (or buy?) their desires.
 The images of the dreamland do not require a rigid uniformity, because central to the
ideology on display are the notions of individuality and freedom, which merge into the concept
of consumer choice.
 The world portrayed in television programs such as MTV displays images of attractive people
living comfortable lives surrounded by contemporary consumer goods.
 Both advertisements and entertainment media promote a commitment to the latest styles—
for example, in clothes, cars, leisure activities, and food— that requires continuous
consumption to keep up with stylistic changes.
 The focus on style is directed particularly at youth, who are increasingly the most coveted
market and who are particularly avid media users.
 The international advertising, television, and music scenes have helped generate an emerging
cross-national, global youth culture in which teens in different countries adopt similar styles
in clothes and appearance; consume the same soda, cigarettes, and fast food; and listen to
and play the same kind of music.
 The international teen market may cross national boundaries, but, with the help of American
media products, youth style is based to a great degree on American images and consumer
goods.
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STUDY UNIT 6
New Media Technologies
 Defining media technology: Conceptual framework of new technologies
 Technological change
 Global village and globalization
 Convergence of technologies
 Digitalization of technologies
Practical work: Do some research on the history of media technologies that have been failed. Bring an
example of such a ‘failure’ into class and discuss what the reason given was for the failure.
……………………………………………………………………………………………........................................................................................
6.1 Framework of new technologies
We can use conceptual framework to help organize and make sense of the dimensions, qualities and
consequences of these new media technologies.
One way to map these new technologies is by primary technical functions: production, distribution,
display and storage (Pavlik 1998: 2).
Although this approach is limited by the convergence of media technologies, and the blurring of lines
between different media functions, it is still useful in charting the most distinctive or distinguishing
contours of the landscape of new media technologies. The impact of electronics upon ways of
creating, storing and disseminating information goes through our whole culture, and the impact of
digital technology is truly transforming all forms of human communication.
Production
Production technologies refer to those used in gathering, processing and producing information.
These technologies include computers, electronic photography, optical scanners and remote
sensing technologies.
Electronic production technologies have not only created new ways to collect and interpret
information, but they have enabled us to gather new kinds of information, solve new problems and
old problems more rapidly and efficiently. Conversely, the same technologies have sometimes
replaced human workers, posed a serious threat to individual privacy, often greatly increased
the cost of information and raised difficult questions about the ownership of information. Moreover,
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they have invariably outpaced human ability to cope with the new possibilities created by these
technologies, resulting in information overload.
Distribution
Distribution technologies refer to those involved in the transformation or movement of electronic
information. We can identify six basic technology systems:
 Over-the-air broadcasting (includes radio and television)
 Land-based telecommunication (include optical fibre and the switched telephone network)
 Coaxial cable (includes cable TV and undersea continent-to-continent telephone cables)
 Satellite communications (include direct broadcast satellite)
 Wireless transmission (includes personal communication services such as cellular phones
and WAP phones)
 Electrical power lines
These technologies have both positive and negative cultural and commercial consequences. On
the positive side, they have made information globally available at the speed of light. Many people
are now able to work partly or wholly from home through their computer, or become mobile
workers, using portable communication devices wherever they are.
On the negative side, these distribution technologies have contributed to a number of social ills. The
piracy of electronic information, for example, has become multibillion-dollar problem worldwide.
Some argue that these technologies have contributed to growing social fragmentation, the division
between society’ s information rich and information poor, and the information of an information
underclass.
Storage
Storage technologies refer to those media used to house information in electronic format. These
media are evolving from largely magnetic to optical in format. While the standard computer storage
devices have been the floppy magnetic diskette and the magnetic hard drive, the compact disk (CD)
emerged in the mid 1990s as the storage medium of choice for storing large amounts of information,
such as data, text, audio, video and combined multimedia information. The compact disk-read only
memory (CD-ROM) is the most common CD format, although the interactive format (CD-!) is growing
in use. The digital video disk (DVD) is now developing as the first standard for digital video storage,
with a single DVD capable of storing an entire two-hour feature length video in digital form.
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6.2 The consequences of new media technologies
The rapid pace of technological change and convergence has made it increasingly difficult to develop
a coherent framework for understanding the nature of new media technologies. Nevertheless, we can
ask four fundamental questions (Pavlik 1998: 5):
 How do new media technologies affect the way communication professionals do their work?
 How do new technologies influence the nature of the communication product or content?
 How does changing technology affect the structure of communication industries?
 How do changing technologies affect the nature of media audience and society at large?
Technology has affected the structure of communication industries. The convergence of computers
and telecommunications has created an era of wired and non-wired network computing. This
distributed computing environment has enabled media organizations from newsrooms to advertising
agencies to rethink the structure of their offices. Decentralization is the primary shift in the structure
of these media organizations. No longer do all employees need to work at the same location, in the
same city, or even in the same country. With satellite communications, fibre optics and powerful
desktop computers, communication workers can work together, sharing files, sending messages and
creating new communication products simultaneously from all parts of the world.
6.3 Global village and globalization
In the last four decades, the world’s communication system has changed dramatically, bringing us
ever closer to Marshall McLuhan’s notion of a global village (1964). Arguably, the technical foundation
of this global village rests largely on two important innovations: the development of the
communications satellite and the Internet. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s 1945 prediction of
the communication of the communications satellite was published in Wireless World in an article
entitled ‘Extraterrestrial relays’.
Clarke was predicting a global broadcasting system based on satellite. Since then, satellite technology
has advanced significantly, providing two-way transmission capabilities around the world.
Communication satellites have redefined the nature of global communications, making possible
everything from worldwide financial trading to global television, such as the Cable News Network
(CNN) and the BBC World Service. The single most powerful development in global communications
has been the satellite, born only three decades ago. Satellite now binds the world, for better or worse,
in an electronic infrastructure that carries news, money and data anywhere on the planet at the
speed of light.
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6.4 Convergence of technologies
Convergence is a practical reality that surrounds us in our daily lives. In the context of the huge
divide in South Africa, convergence is a crucial trend in that it may influence customers to accept new
technologies. At this juncture, Telkom’s services and pricing policies could drive customers away. It is
clear that only a few privileged people connect to Telkom’s services.
Convergence is a very complex concept. Within the discipline of media, it implies the combination of
two or more kinds of technology. Digitalization, which is the standardization of transmission systems
bringing together print and electronic media in a networked form (Doyle, 2002b:3), is the driving
force behind convergence. Convergence, then, refers to the power of digital media to combine
voice, video, data, text and images across applications, devices and networks (Doyle, 2002b:
3). A more extreme case of digital convergence occurs when a voice signal is converted to digital
packets and sent via exactly the same technology as computer data from one end to the other, as
occurs in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology (http://www.itweb.co.za: 2005). It is seen as the coming
together of media technologies, telecommunications and computing at the same time (Doyle,
2002b: 4). The use of the term can also imply the combination of two functions, or the interaction of
two firms, where one is a producer and the other a distributor. Describing the phenomenon, Tomaselli
and Dunn (2001:1) note that:
Convergence is the current buzzword in telecommunications studies. It is the term applied to
the standardization of transmission systems, while digitalization is the common factor in
transmitting technologies. This occurs through computerization, which brings together
print and electronic media channels. This is the period during which productive forces have
shifted from an industrial to an information-based economy. The potential reach or
technology in this epoch is global and trans-disciplinary (Tomaselli, and Dunn, 2001:1).
Sentech exemplifies the concept of convergence in two ways: its diversification from providing
broadcast signal distribution alone to providing a variety of services, including Internet provision;
and its capacity to service SABC together with competing broadcasting stations after its formal
separation from SABC.
The concept of convergence focuses on technological changes, “the so-called digital convergence”
(http://www.lboro.ac.uk: 2000). It results in creation of different genre. Convergence has led to new
methods of media production and access, demanding new computer-related skills from media
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workers. Technologically, convergence denotes greater overlap between broadcasting and older
media forms such as newspapers. For example, more homes are now linked into the advanced high
capacity communication networks and, through these, are able to receive a range of multimedia,
interactive and other ‘new’ media communication services as well as conventional television and
telephony (Doyle, 2000b: 3). Digital technologies that first affected convergence in the media,
information technology (IT) and telecommunications sectors went on to trigger further convergence
in a growing range of communicating consumer electronics devices (http://www.lboro.ac.uk: 2000).
6.5 Digitalization of Technologies
Digitalization is “the reduction of pieces of information to the form of digits in a binary code
consisting of zeros and ones” (Doyle, 2002b: 3). Digital technology is an important element in the
dissemination of information globally. It is worth considering digital technology in the discussion as
Sentech strives towards the digital revolution with regards to the transmission of information. The
introduction of digital technology allows media enterprises a better and more advanced means of
disseminating information. The application of digital technologies has taken place across the world
at different paces and with different scope (Thato Foko, 2000: 17). Doyle (2002a) also maintains that
the development of digital technology is the great ‘new’ force affecting the media and it has
implications for virtually all aspects of the industry. Digital technology allows both traditional and
new communication services – whether voice, data, sound or pictures – to be provided over many
different networks (Foko, 2000:17).
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