Can you Define and describe the goals of psychology in the study of human behavior?

Answer 1

Mass Media ---- Karl Marx was a materialist yet never in the crude sense of the term. He acknowledged the importance of ideas, beliefs and values with regard to the class struggle. For Marx once the idea had gripped the masses it became a material force, that is, it could lead to change in material life. He was, however, much more concerned with the fact that the ruling class in society, the capitalists, could control such ideas, beliefs and values. Marx called the dominant beliefs and values of any historical epoch the ruling class ideology. In the "German Ideology" Marx writes: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production..." The ruling class controls not only the means of material production but also the means of mental production. That is, the ruling class also controls the mass media and the institutions of civil society in general. What is the mass media? We are bombarded daily with various forms of mass media, it is a significant part of all our lives, and as a result we have come to think little of it. Like anything that is all around us, such as air, its commonality results in indifference. The mass media can be defined as all those mediums of communication which reach masses of people enabling communication between people. From this definition we can immediately outline the main types of mass media: newspapers, television, radio and cinema. We could also include in this list the internet which is reaching an increasingly mass audience. The Ownership of the Mass Media One aspect of the mass media, which tends to support the Marxist argument, is the ownership of the mass media. If the mass media is indeed owned and controlled by either large companies or very rich capitalists then this suggests that the mass media is indeed controlled by the capitalist class. This also suggests that the content of the various mediums of Mass Communication, that are collectively known as the mass media, will have content that instills false consciousness. To put it simply, if those who control the mass media are capitalists then this gives us an idea as to the ideological disposition of those who control the mass media as capitalists tend not to be revolutionary Marxists or even social democrats! What the evidence suggests with regard to the mass media is that two processes are occurring: concentration of ownership and conglomeration. Lets look at the figures with regard to concentration of ownership. The best example of concentration in the mass media is to be found in the newspapers. In Britain newspapers are completely within the private sphere, that is, they are owned by private individuals or companies. Up until relatively recently the tradition, in Britain, has been for newspapers to be owned by wealthy individuals and families. For example, the Lord Beaverbrook owned the Daily Express while Lord Rothermere owned the Daily Mail. The political views of such owners were evident from the content of their newspapers which ran headlines such as: "Give The Blackshirts (British equivalent of the Nazis) A Helping Hand". The British newspapers, such as the two above, also argued strongly when the persecution of the Jews began in Germany that not one Jew should ever be allowed onto British soil. One can surmise from this the political views of the owners and editors. To say that they were Right Wing might be something of an understatement. While more and more newspapers have passed out of the hands of wealthy individuals and into the hands of companies this does not mean that concentration of the mass media has been reversed. In anything the concentration of ownership has increased. If we use percentage share of circulation then it is clear that in Britain as few as perhaps five big media companies control virtually all of circulation. The company with the largest share is News International which is controlled by, and built up by, Rupert Murdoch. In 1989 Murdoch had a 35% share of total circulation, owning top selling newspapers such as The Sun and The News of the World. The Marxists Murdock and Goulding give the following statistics on concentration of ownership in the mass media. The top five firms accounted for the following circulation in each sector: 71% of daily newspaper circulation

74% home with commercial t.v.

78% of admissions to cinemas

70% paperback sales

76% record sales These figures do not directly tell us the concentration of ownership as they are statistics demonstrating the concentration of circulation. Yet, bear in mind that virtually the entire newspaper coruscation is dominated by just a few giant companies. If circulation is dominated by just a few companies it follows that the most successful newspapers must also be owned by just a few companies. If we look at the content of such papers it is clear where on the political spectrum most newspapers fall. Rupert Murdoch, for instance, makes no secret of his dislike for the Left and of taxes. He has consistently used his newspapers to attack the "loony left". This political bias is always most prevalent and prominent at election time when such newspapers invariably back the Conservative party. Indeed anything and everything is done so as to help the Conservative party to be elected. Newspapers have a deep-seated dislike of anything or anyone that is socialist or even social democratic. Ralph Miliband writes: "Most newspapers in the capitalist world have one crucial characteristic in common, namely their strong, often their passionate hostility to anything further to the Left than the milder forms of social democracy, and quite commonly to these milder forms as well." The fact that many of these newspapers are now prepared to support the present Labour government in Britain should be far more worrying to any socialist, or even social democrat, than their potential hostility.

How does the Capitalist class control the Mass Media? Ownership=Control Ownership is important because if newspapers are owned by the wealthy this suggests that they will reflect the views of the wealthy. Those who make up the ranks of the capitalist class, by and large, do not hold socialist beliefs and values. The owner of the newspaper is able to control the views of their newspaper because it is they who appoint the editor who in turn appoints the various heads of departments. The ends result of this process is a crawling hierarchy who write what those above want to read. The editor of the newspaper may well have "freedom" but freedom within certain limits. They cannot risk printing anything that offends the sensibilities of the owner as if they do this they risk unemployment. Another way in which the proclivities of the mass media are affirmed is through advertising. Other companies pay huge amounts of money just to have their commodities included in the newspaper or shown on television. Most, the vast majority, of newspapers and commercial television stations rely upon advertising for a large and substantial chuck of their revenue. Without such advertising many newspapers or television stations might well become too unprofitable for their owners. Advertising acts as a sort of tacit bribe, an unspoken bribe, but all involved know what is required. A newspaper or television station that consistently speaks out not just against prominent companies but also about the free market economy will not attract advertising. Without advertising it itself cannot advertise and so may find that its own circulation falls. Advertising We are exposed to advertising daily. For many advertising is viewed benignly as nothing more than letting people know that a certain commodity is for sale but for many Marxists advertising performs other functions. The manifest function of advertising may well be to tell people what commodities are for sale but that does not mean that advertising does not have latent functions. What are these latent functions? In his book "The State In Capitalist Society" Ralph Miliband analyses the functions of the mass media. For Miliband advertising is political, that is, it reinforces the existing social order and thereby the rule of the capitalist class. Advertising does more than merely inform it also persuades. It not only aims to persuade the potential customer to buy it also persuades them that capitalism is the best system. The company not only sells its commodities it also sells itself and thereby also the system of which it is a part. It cannot sell itself without also selling capitalism. An advert, whether it appears in a newspaper or on television, does more than simply inform you with the objective facts about a commodity. Nearly every advert, so it seems, involves subtle and not so subtle associations with the commodity and the company with certain dominant values and norms. For example, adverts for petrol don't just show you a petrol station, some petrol in a barrel and the brand of petrol. The adverts for petrol usually involve some sort of association with the world of nature. You will have various large cats leaping onto cars, you will pure white snow and ice, you will have colors that symbolize the natural world such as green and so on. Similarly, with alcohol you have people sitting around in a pub or club having a life, being friendly to one another and looking very healthy and handsome. The product is associated with certain things so that the company is also associated with them and thereby also the system of production that give birth to them. Television While the newspapers bias is extremely obvious to see the television appears upon superficial observation to be objective and neutral. In a way this the television is indeed neutral, that is, it is neutral with regard to party politics. You will rarely, in Britain at least, find any news programme that is clearly biased in favour of either the Conservative, Labour or Liberal party. This is true not just with regard to public sector broadcasting (the BBC) but also the commercial channels such as ITV and Channel 4. Most news readers, whatever their personal political views, restrain themselves to statement of the facts. This neutrality, however, is only partial. It is partial in two ways. It is partial in that in some countries the television stations, particularly those in the public sector, are used as an instrument of the government of the day. Secondly, it is partial in that this neutrality only applies to party politics. Thus, this does not mean that the television stations must be neutral as regards the whole social order, that is, capitalism. Also, this neutrality does not extend to those events, situations and organizations that are a potential threat to the status quo. For example, in Britain during the national strike the BBC director general wrote to the Prime Minister telling him, not in these exact words but close, that they would support the government of the day against the strikers. One of the most famous studies of television news reporting is the study "Bad News" by the Glasgow Media group. They examined the area of industrial relations and how the media, the television stations, reported upon industrial disputes. They found that in the reporting of industrial disputes the media tends to rely upon official management sources. Another thing that they found was that the language used to describe disputes tended to favour employers more so than striking employees. For example, when they management came up with anything it was described as an offer while if the workers came up with anything it was described as a demand or even a threat. Also, they found that the setting of the report tended to favour the employer as against the employee. For example, employers or management would be interviewed in calm and respectable surroundings, such as a plush office while the workers would be interviewed at the actual picket line in a situation of noisy chaos. The Bad News study also found that reports tended to focus more upon the negative effects of the strike rather than upon the reasons that brought about the strike. Whether or not much of this was intentional or not is up for debate. It may not have been intended to show the employer in the best light in all cases yet the latent function remained the same. The worker came out of the reporting much worse than did the employer. My own opinion is that much of this is indeed intentional, to suppose otherwise is to assign a certain naivety to those people in the media who are clearly not naive.