Pluralism

• In a nutshell


  Pluralists argue that power in democratic, free market societies is spread out among diverse competing interest groups, and not concentrated in the hands of a minority economic elite, as Marxists suggests. According to pluralists media owners are driven by profit, and journalists are free from direct control, providing audiences with the content they want. They thus see media content as determined mainly by consumer demand.
• Media content driven by profit


  Control over media content ultimately lies with consumers, not the owners of media, because the owners need to adapt their content to fit the demands of the market.

  Media owners want to make money so they would rather adapt their media content to be more diverse and keep money coming in, vs use their media channels to publish their own narrower subjective views and opinions.

  Media doesn’t reflect the biased, one sided views of media owners, it reflects the diverse opinions of the general public who ultimately pay for that media content.
• Consumers determine content


  From the pluralist perspective audiences are active rather than passive and not easily manipulated. They are free to select, reject and re-interpret a wide range of media content, and they increasingly take advantage of new technologies and new media to produce their own content.

  It is thus ultimately the consumers of media/ the wider audience who determine media content rather than the media owners.
• Journalists not controlled by owners


  Finally, pluralists point out that on a purely practical level media owners of large global corporations cannot personally determine the content of all their media products, there are too many products and too many global-level management issues to keep them occupied. Thus producers, editors and journalists have considerable freedom to shape media content, free from the control of the big bosses.
• Criticisms - Curran


  Curran argues there is evidence that media owners have undermined journalistic integrity. Moreover, he says that journalists often intentionally censor themselves to suit the views of their media owners, because conforming to the owner's ideals brings rewards where dissidence might mean getting sacked and losing their jobs
• Criticisms - Blumler and Gurevitch

  Blumler and Gurevitch point out that many journalists are over reliant on offical sources eg politicians, and that this undermines journalistic integrity as they present this information as the truth even when it may not be. Moreover, surveys of the general public demonstrate that significant numbers of the public do not trust journalists.
• Criticisms - Powerless people


  It is difficult for an ordinary person to automatically know what kind of media they want to see. Powerless groups do not have the resources to set up media companies to be media owners -- so consumers do not have access to a whole range of diverse content that they would otherwise know nothing about.