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Political Econony vs Cultural Studies Approaches

Political Econony vs Cultural Studies Approaches. MEVIT3220/4220 Lecture 4 13 September 2007 Sarah Chiumbu. Literature. Literature relevant for this lecture The Cultural Industries Chapters 1, 2 & 3 Mass Media & Society Chapter 4 (Murdock & Golding) Who Owns the Media

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Political Econony vs Cultural Studies Approaches

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  1. Political Econony vs Cultural Studies Approaches MEVIT3220/4220 Lecture 4 13 September 2007 Sarah Chiumbu

  2. Literature • Literature relevant for this lecture • The Cultural Industries • Chapters 1, 2 & 3 • Mass Media & Society • Chapter 4 (Murdock & Golding) • Who Owns the Media • Part 2, chapter 3 • Situating Globality • Chapter 2 (Nyamjoh) • Media and Identity in Contemporary Europe • Chapter 3

  3. Introducing PE & CI approaches • Critical political economy and cultural studies are two influential academic paradigms for understanding global media • Both approaches are rooted in critical theory and Marxism: • The Frankfurt School • The Birmingham School

  4. Critical Political Economy • Focuses on questions of power and ideology: how economic, political and symbolic power interact in the sphere of culture • Rooted in Marxist critique of capitalism: the structure of economic relations under capitalism. • Conditions of production are important: • Media ownership • Market regulation • Market concentration

  5. Critical Political Economy • Looks at how products and texts from the media sector are formed by: • Government control • Ownership patterns • Advertising • Distribution and consumption • Thus three approaches to CPE can be discerned: • How different economic structures of the media and govt regulation influence the content of the media. • How media content reinforces, challenges & influences class and social relations • Argues that the public good is not served by uncontrolled free market

  6. Critical Political Economy • There are 2 particular strands within CPE: • The US Model (or the Schiller-McChesney strand) • The cultural studies approach (mainly European and normally associated with Nicholas Garnham (Hesmondhalgh, 2002:33) • The US Model: • Emphasises strategic use of power • Focuses on issues of concentration and conglomeration • Offers a critique of advertising • The Cultural studies approach: • Focuses on contradictions and problems of cultural production-owners, advertisers and political figures cant always do as they would wish; they operate within structures that constrain as well as facilitate, imposing limits as well as offering opportunities (Murdock & Golding, 2005:63)

  7. Cultural Studies approach • Same interests as in PE, but focuses more on empirical and analytical. • Concerned with questions of cultural power- how cultural forms are produced, distributed, interpreted and contested • Concerned with the relationship between media, power and culture in modern, mass-mediated societies and cultures • Culture/content/text are important, not only as context of production (e.g. ownership, censorship), but as genres, expressions, meaning (see Hesmondhalgh, 2002: 38-41)

  8. Similarities between CPE & CI • Both rooted in critical theory and in work of cultural theorists as Raymond Williams • Both seek to identify & critique dominant interests in the media and cultural spheres • Both draw on Marxism • Both focuses on power distribution between the working class and the bourgeoisie (see Terry Flew Understanding Global Media (2007)

  9. Class reflection • Discuss the CPE & CI approaches in relation to: • Europe • Africa • Asia

  10. Africa vs. Europe in PE approaches • Africa • Political & reforms in the 1990s in many African countries led to commercialisation, privatisation & deregulation • A host of private media now available, e.g. magazines, international channels • Programmes aired with little cultural relevance, e.g. Jerry Springer, Sunset Beach, the Bold & the Beautiful. • Media driven by international media interests and advertisers • Market driven media threatening decades long tradition of PSB • South Africa has extended its media empire across Africa- exports its already ‘globalised’ cultural industries to the rest of Africa

  11. Africa vs. Europe in PE approaches • Europe: • Neo-liberal reforms in the Europe to Thatherism and Reaganism in the 1980s • European media subject to corporate ownership by big global media empires • Concerns over US cultural products on “European identity” (especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s) • PSBs undergoing structural changes due to commercialisation & technological developments • Media Convergence and concentration major policy issues for the EU: transnational ownership of European media

  12. Africa vs. Europe in a CI approach • Africa: • Audiences in Africa not always passive receivers of Western messages – they are active participants in the cultural hegemony • Forms of cultural resistance and cultural (re)negotiation • Nollywood – famous Nigerian film/video industry • TV- many African countries produce their own brands of soap operas based on the US format • Music-though many artists are using Western formats such as hip-hop and rap, the sound and themes of the songs are African • Africa now contributing to world culture through mainly is music –popular music styles are heard in dance club halls all over Europe and the US

  13. Africa vs. Europe in a CI approach • Europe: • Concerns with European (cultural) identity, e.g. the EU Television Without Frontiers (1989) revised in 2003 • Europe and its “others”- Europeanisation as a response to the threat of Americanisation • European Union vs. “nation-states” • Imagining Europe as an audio-visual space • Eurovision • Euronews • Subsidisation of European film production

  14. Africa vs. Europe in a CI approach • Europe: • Tensions and contradictions in European media & cultural policy still exists: • Media still nationally structured • Language differences • Nation-states remain the locus of identity • US cultural products still dominate • Global media players shape the media

  15. Differences between Africa & Europe • Media in Europe much more developed than in Africa • Ownership structure of media in Europe much more complex than in Africa, with mergers & acquisition taking place regularly • Policy priorities between Europe & Africa different. • Africa still dealing with basic communication issues such as adequate access to TV and new media • Europe’s policy issues are much more complex – broadband and other wireless technology issues, increasing convergence of communication, e-commerce. • Africa´s supranational bodies (e.g. African Union and regional economic blocs not concerned with issues of media, culture as compared to the EU.

  16. The Week ahead • Lecture on first theoretical approach “Structuration theory” next week on 20 September. • Reminder - Gunn Enli PhD defence tomorrow (14 Sept) at Gamle Festsal. Domus Academica at 09h15

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