13D: Marxism and Pluralism

A reminder of the question we've been looking at in lesson:

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

We need to make sure we can write well developed paragraphs answering the question we are given. Remember what we said made for a good paragraph:

• Focus on the question
• Application of theories, issues/debates, wider contexts
• Detailed evidence; range of examples
• Well structured; clearly expressed

For the Marxist perspective, we looked at the following exemplar paragraph:

A Marxist perspective would argue that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a Conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were Twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

This includes plenty of excellent points, quotes, examples and uses of media language that help raise this to Level 4:

• Marxist perspective 
• “information revolution” 
• “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) 
• promoting dominant ideologies
• ‘Mail Online’, 8 million hits/month 
• £100 million in the next three years
• Conservative, right-wing 
• Gramsci, hegemonic view
• Jan Moir, homophobic - death of Stephen Gately, 2009
• gatekeepers

You now need to write a similar paragraph using the Pluralist perspective. 

The key aspects of Pluralism we discussed in lesson included:

• Pluralist perspective
• audiences: “conform, accommodate or reject” (Gurevitch)
• uses and gratifications theory
• Castells “culture of freedom” 
• “The Great Leveller”; “Paradigm shift” (Krotoski)
• Ferguson protests (tweets/hashtag); Tomlinson case (G20)
• Arab Spring, protests
• UGC, citizen journalism, blogs
• democratization
• “mutualisation of news” (Rushbridger, The Guardian)

Next lesson, we'll go back to the original question and develop a complete essay plan using everything we've learned in the unit so far. 

For now, make sure you write the paragraph on Pluralism by Friday.