Chapter 5
- The revolution is here. Journalists are now longer the public's watchdogs or privileged members of the fourth estate. They are business people producing a product for market.
- Michelle Gratten characterises the latest revolution to hit journalism as the seemingly unstoppable rise of 'commercialism' as a 'core value' (1998:1)
THEORISING THE COMMERCIAL DRIVERS OF MODERN JOURNALISM:
- A commercial spirit now dominates journalism
- Marx realised journalism was about more that commercial operations, yet in today's shifting society we can not be as sure about what journalism is and is not.
- The real problem for 'new' journalism is that there is no longer even the pretence of balance between the two forces of 'capital acquisition' vs. 'economic exercise'.
the QUESTION therefore is "what is journalism and what conceptual tools can be used to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of its modern form?"
Australian Theories of Journalism:
1. journalism as a commodity
2. journalism as an autonomous consciousness
3. journalism as a cultural activity
4. journalism as 'empirical facts'.
Which Theory of Journalism?:
Any theory of journalism must take into account:
1. That it has to be able to take account of the primarily commercial context in which journalism is practiced.
2. It has to be able to take account of the professional ideologies, beliefs, ways of doing and ways of making meaning tat operate among the practitioners of journalism.
WHY? - because the capacity to shuttle between levels of abstraction with ease and with clarity, is a signal mark of the imaginative and systematic thinker. (Mills, 1959: 43)
A NEW MARXIST THEORY OF JOURNALISM:
According to the text this 'theoretical framework delivers the conceptual tools capable of facing such rampant commercialism' that is present within journalism today.
A Marxist approach to journalism traditionally has been associated with the political economy model - which argues that because the media are owned and controlled by capitalist interests, these outlets are geared to the production of dominated capitalist ideologies, which in turn mystify class relations and produce a false consciousness among the working class.
- The Problem of Ideology::
The continuing problem however with those theory is that everyone outside the perspective is reduced to 'false consciousness'.
Herman and McChesney (1997) argue that the triumph for transnational corporation (TNC) power is not only the triumph of political and economic power but, extends to basic assumptions an modes o thought that is to ideology.
Bordieu ages that journalists wear special glasses to facilitate the incorporation of the economic imperatives of their work into a broader worldviews and their place in it.
- The Issue of Determination::
Determinism remains a controversial aspect of attempts to apple Marxist theory. It has a 'complex range of meanings' but maintains its special significance because 'it bears on several significant tendencies in modern thought'. (Williams 98)
- EhnoMarxism::
This approach emphasises the the "active involvement of men and women in making their own history, their own reality." This therefore allows far more attention given to the way news-workers construct their own meaning and ideologies and ultimately produces their own ways of doing.
The name comes from two sources:
ethnography: being the descriptive study of any society.
methods: the ways in which the members of society draw on the knowledge which that cultural places at their disposal to characterise the way they inhabit.
CONCLUSION:
- Future journalists will have to be very savvy commercial operators or very proficient small business people.
- journalism is primarily an economic activity
- Even with the high amount of commercialism driving journalism there are still acts of resistance within the profession.
- The revolution is here. Journalists are now longer the public's watchdogs or privileged members of the fourth estate. They are business people producing a product for market.
- Michelle Gratten characterises the latest revolution to hit journalism as the seemingly unstoppable rise of 'commercialism' as a 'core value' (1998:1)
THEORISING THE COMMERCIAL DRIVERS OF MODERN JOURNALISM:
- A commercial spirit now dominates journalism
- Marx realised journalism was about more that commercial operations, yet in today's shifting society we can not be as sure about what journalism is and is not.
- The real problem for 'new' journalism is that there is no longer even the pretence of balance between the two forces of 'capital acquisition' vs. 'economic exercise'.
the QUESTION therefore is "what is journalism and what conceptual tools can be used to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of its modern form?"
Australian Theories of Journalism:
1. journalism as a commodity
2. journalism as an autonomous consciousness
3. journalism as a cultural activity
4. journalism as 'empirical facts'.
Which Theory of Journalism?:
Any theory of journalism must take into account:
1. That it has to be able to take account of the primarily commercial context in which journalism is practiced.
2. It has to be able to take account of the professional ideologies, beliefs, ways of doing and ways of making meaning tat operate among the practitioners of journalism.
WHY? - because the capacity to shuttle between levels of abstraction with ease and with clarity, is a signal mark of the imaginative and systematic thinker. (Mills, 1959: 43)
A NEW MARXIST THEORY OF JOURNALISM:
According to the text this 'theoretical framework delivers the conceptual tools capable of facing such rampant commercialism' that is present within journalism today.
A Marxist approach to journalism traditionally has been associated with the political economy model - which argues that because the media are owned and controlled by capitalist interests, these outlets are geared to the production of dominated capitalist ideologies, which in turn mystify class relations and produce a false consciousness among the working class.
- The Problem of Ideology::
The continuing problem however with those theory is that everyone outside the perspective is reduced to 'false consciousness'.
Herman and McChesney (1997) argue that the triumph for transnational corporation (TNC) power is not only the triumph of political and economic power but, extends to basic assumptions an modes o thought that is to ideology.
Bordieu ages that journalists wear special glasses to facilitate the incorporation of the economic imperatives of their work into a broader worldviews and their place in it.
- The Issue of Determination::
Determinism remains a controversial aspect of attempts to apple Marxist theory. It has a 'complex range of meanings' but maintains its special significance because 'it bears on several significant tendencies in modern thought'. (Williams 98)
- EhnoMarxism::
This approach emphasises the the "active involvement of men and women in making their own history, their own reality." This therefore allows far more attention given to the way news-workers construct their own meaning and ideologies and ultimately produces their own ways of doing.
The name comes from two sources:
ethnography: being the descriptive study of any society.
methods: the ways in which the members of society draw on the knowledge which that cultural places at their disposal to characterise the way they inhabit.
CONCLUSION:
- Future journalists will have to be very savvy commercial operators or very proficient small business people.
- journalism is primarily an economic activity
- Even with the high amount of commercialism driving journalism there are still acts of resistance within the profession.
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