media is not controlled only by govt

• Authoritarian regime


  Government seeks to control media content (in both new and traditional media) to control public opinion
• Authoritarian regimes


  • North Korea
  • Eritrea
• Authoritarian regimes


  • No independent traditional media sources
  • People shown stories about leaders' virtues through state-owned media
• Authoritarian regimes


  Government prohibits access to new media
• In North Korea, online access is exceedingly rare and limited to sites whose content have been chosen and modified by the government
• Not all authoritarian regimes seek total domination of the media, as they want to improve their image on the international stage and economic cooperation with other countries
• Repression 2.0


  Direct censorship and intimidation, including imprisonment of critical journalists
• Repression 2.0


  • President Putin imposing 'power vertical' on the press in Russia, leading to propaganda and oppressive climate for journalists
  • Dozens of media companies shut down and journalists imprisoned in Turkey under pretext of 'fight against terrorism'
• Masked political control


  Systematic efforts to hide repressive actions against the media by portraying them as upholding democratic principles
• Technology capture


  Using digital technologies to stop internal dissent by monitoring, surveilling, blocking websites, and using state-sponsored trolling
• Two-thirds of the world's internet users live in countries which blocked or restricted access to social media sites and communication services in 2016
• Self-censorship by journalists


  Avoiding criticism of regimes due to fear of harassment or financial considerations
• Self-censorship


  • Governments in Malawi and Cambodia threatening to withdraw state advertising from independent media outlets to pressure them
• Democratic regimes


  Greater respect for media rights and freedoms, accepting a free market in media content to a point
• Laws in democratic regimes

  Restrict media's freedom to report anything they choose in any way they like
• Laws in democratic regimes

  • UK's Official Secrets Acts making it a criminal offence to report without authorization any official government activity defined as an 'official secret'
• Regulatory organizations in democratic regimes


  Partly or largely government-funded to regulate media activities, with power to issue or refuse licenses to media companies
• Regulatory organizations


  • Ofcom in the UK, Press Complaint Commission
• Governments in democratic regimes

  Use official press conferences, briefings, and off-the-record informal briefings to manage media reporting and present official positions
• Spin doctors in democratic regimes

  Used to divert public attention and manipulate media content, such as by burying bad news or distracting with sensational stories
• Media organization


  Largely controlled by TNCs operating on a global scale or media conglomerates
• Media conglomerates


  • YouTube (subsidiary of Google, owned by Alphabet)
  • Time Warner (owns Warner Bros film studio and international chain of cinemas)
• Vertical integration


  Owners (more than the government) have control over the content of media at each stage of its production and distribution
• Media conglomerates


  • Murdoch family (owns News Corp, 21st Century Fox, newspapers, book/magazine publishers, film/TV companies)
• Horizontal integration


  Media conglomerates owned by powerful groups of individuals
• Marxist approach


  Owners, especially media moguls, directly control media content and manipulate it to protect their profits and spread the dominant ideology
• Curran and Seaton (2010) found evidence that media owners interfered and manipulated newspaper contents
• Rupert Murdoch admitted to exercising editorial control on major issues in the newspapers he owned
• The Leveson Inquiry uncovered links between media owners and governments, with media support given to political parties in return for favourable policies
• Marxist view


  In modern capitalist societies, the state rarely requires direct control of media, as it can usually be trusted to do the right things
• Neo-Marxist view


  Editors and journalists have the real power to shape media content, although owners have indirect influence
• Media managers, editors and journalists support dominant ideology by choice, not by force, as they have been socialized in the capitalist value system
• Agenda setting


  Media professionals bring forward or keep into background issues which they think will benefit them and the capitalist system
• Gatekeeping


  Media professionals may refuse to cover some issues which may harm their companies or their owners
• Pluralist view


  Audiences, especially in democratic states, have the real power to control media content
• Media content is shaped through the process of making profit and increasing audience figures
• Postmodernist view


  The media cannot be subject to controls that restrict the flow of ideas and information, as power is no longer concentrated within institutions but within social networks
• Content of media reflects the interpretation of people, and all knowledge is ideological
• The state's relationship with media becomes one of managing something that cannot be safely and simply controlled as it perhaps once was