Media Culture Power

Discuss how notions of communication and culture are understood within the liberal democratic, Althusserian and ‘governmental’ theoretical paradigms.
The living of people can be considered as one of the hardest issues to study in the world. In the development of the society, new products and ideas were invented and produced purposely to improve the living standard of the people which also impacted their livings in the same time. Thus, sociologists came out with their social theories or approaches deliberately to explain the order of the society. Studying the theories and approaches is important in the area of communication and cultural studies because it enables people to understand the world’s order better and accurately. The aim of this essay is to discuss how the notions of communication and culture are understood in three of the most essential social approaches in the history, namely liberal democratic, Althusserian and governmental approach.
Liberal democratic approach is also known as liberal pluralism, structural-functionalism and American social science approach to mass communications. It positively sees mass society contributes to the formation for the model of research into the dominant mass communication (McQuail, 1994). This is opposite to what both idealist (Arnoldian and Leavisite) and materialist (Frankfurt School) had defined the mass culture. According to the idealist approach, mass culture is seen as the opposite to the high culture which dehumanize and fragmentize the human communities; while materialist approach claim that mediated mass culture depress the society by showing the culture artificially and monolithically. With the examples given, it is clear that the mass culture is viewed oppositely on the different viewpoints of the approaches.
As being mentioned before, in the liberal democratic point of view, mass culture and mass communication are positively viewed in the formation of ‘dominant paradigm’. Dominant paradigm or dominant meaning structure mixed a vision of powerful mass media in a mass society with the typical research practices of the emerging social sciences, especially on social surveys, statistical analysis and psychological experiments (McQuail, 1994). Base on what Denis McQuail stated, dominant paradigm is essential in the formation of a ‘good society’ and the four key elements of ‘good society’ are democratic (elections), liberal (free-market conditions), pluralistic (institutionalized competition between parties and interests) and orderly (legitimate) (McQuail, 1994). In this point, mass media or mass culture play a very important role in the development of the society. It helps to maintain the order of a ‘good society’. For example, publication of the newspapers is seen as a constructive action to the community because it enables the information to be conveyed freely and the flow of the information will contribute to the development of the society.
Next, a question will be asked: Why do people use media and what do they use them for? Denis McQuail stated that, the needs for information, relaxation, companionship, diversion and escape are the basis similarities of personal need, taste and interest of the formation for the audiences in the liberal democratic approach (McQuail, 1997). Although the existence of media is abstract in people’s livings, people tend to find what they need by exposing themselves to the media. For instance, radio soap operas is the source of advice or support and also a source of emotional release through laughter or tears for the mother and housewife though it filled with mindless stories (McQuail, 1997). Technically, the hollowness of the story makes radio soap opera is not a kind of media that can be considered as educative, but certain groups of audiences who shared the same identity as mother and housewife did benefit from it. Moreover, the importance of newspaper does not consist only of the flow of information, but also essential for giving the readers a sense of security, shared topic and conversations and a structure of the daily routine (McQuail, 1997). From the examples provided, media played a supportive role in the people daily routine by reinforcing its audiences’ pre-existing interests, attitude and behavior indirectly (Klapper, 1968). The main influencer of people in their daily routine is the individual such as opinion leader, rather than the mass communication (Klapper, 1968).
The Althusserian approach was introduced by the Marxist philosopher and theorist of the French Communist Party and his argument about the social formation was constituted by a set of complex over determined relationships between autonomous levels of practice was influential within cultural studies (McQuail, 1994). Althusser defines culture is as relative autonomous and it is freed from the economic until the ‘last instance’ (McQuail, 1994). He also states that rather than the economics, it is the politics which dominate and determine instance in the context of feudal community but he also says that this has to be itself as a result of economic determination ‘in the last instance’ (McQuail, 1994). In another words, the Althusserian approach sees culture independently which is not mainly bound and formed by economics until the very last instance. This is distinct from what the structural materialist approach explains the notion of mass culture where the all the human activities in the society are formed and practiced on the basis of the economical issues. Thus, in this point, the ideologies and thoughts are being produced through different and alternating material conditions of particular societies and this notion of ideology is against with the idealist’s analysis for the ideas and values of the universal truth at the same time. For instance, the operation of radio stations is not just simply the reflection of the economic, but it operates differently from place to place and it also broadcast different contents base on the different happenings to listeners from time to time. The example of the radio station shows that mass communication can be functioned through different material practices in the Althusserian approach.
Ideology is seen as an unconscious force that people live rather than see which it live as their ‘world’ itself (Danielson & Lasorsa, 1997). As the example of the children literature, Peter and Jane series, Michael O 'Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler state that the ideology of the ideal nuclear family is being rooted in the children’s mind in the process of the reading of it (McQuail, 1997). This means that, children get the ideology of ideal family by expose themselves consistently to the Peter and Jane series through the process of reading of it and compare the life in the books with their real life. This matches with the Althusser’s notion of ideology which he states that ideology is a ‘representation’ of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real condition of existence (Danielson & Lasorsa, 1997). In short, ideology is able to be produced and functioned through daily practices.
Althusser concerns about how ideology is being transmitted and how people take and accept the values of dominant groups even if these views is not everyone’s shared interest. Hence, in order to explain this, two sets of mechanisms: the repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) and the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) are suggested by Althusser (McQuail, 1997). RSA is the institutions of the law and law courts, the police, the prison system and the army; it force people to conform to the dominant ideology; it control, punish and coerce those who try to challenge the system; and lastly, it work directly through force (McQuail, 1997). Meanwhile, ISA is the institutions through which we are socialized into accepting the dominant ideology; it does not force people; functions through hypnosis, convincing people or winning their consent to the dominant ideology; and the key institutions are the Church, the family, the education system and the media (McQuail, 1997). The main difference of these two mechanisms is how it is being functioned. While RSA somehow functions like the ‘Big-Stick Policy’, ISA functioned in a mild way. Media is a keynote in the ISA since it has become more and more important with the declined power of the Church (McQuail, 1997).
Media tends to support the dominant ideology by producing programs or products that aid the values of White, patriarchal and capitalist culture (McQuail, 1997). Two important points should be stated out here for the functioning of media in order to win support for the dominant ideology: media must win the support of the subordinate and minorities in the society and it is better for the media to address the social tension, focusing on social conflict and contradictions (McQuail, 1997). In this case, the story of drama will become very boring without the existence of the conflicts in the story. In addition, media functions the ideological work by masking and displacing social issues and problems which means that social problems are hidden and avoided by the media (McQuail, 1997). This is what the media had always functioned in the reality and issues are marked or displaced by interpellations that address all social groups under a unifying label (McQuail, 1997). For example, media always use the word ‘Malaysian’ rather than Malays, Chinese and Indians as the representation of the people in Malaysia. This is because the word ‘Malaysian’ has the notion of ‘all of us together’ to the people which somehow boost the unity by neglecting the differences such as rich and poor. Besides that, media support the dominant ideology by incorporating or including other ideological positions by neutralizing the voices of the dissident ideologies give them space but containing them within the overall system (McQuail, 1997). For example, the articulation for Australia’s SBS and United Kingdom’s Channel 5 of the minorities is regarded as the incorporation of different ideological positions (McQuail, 1997). The social order can be maintained by on one hand allow the voices of the minorities and comfort them on the other hand.
The governmental approach is suggested by Michel Foucault and it can be defined as a form of regulation throughout the social order by which a population becomes subject to bureaucratic regimes and modes of discipline (Barker, 2008). Also in addition, governmental apparatuses and forms of knowledge are shaped by the institutions, procedures, analyses and calculations which can be seen as the constitution of self-reflective conduct and ethical competencies (Barker, 2008). Contrasting to Althusser, Foucault replaces the notion of Althusser’s ‘ideology’ to ‘discourse’. In the understanding of Foucault, discourse unites both language and practices which it forms, explains and made the objects of knowledge intelligibly while excluding other unintelligibly forms (Barker, 2008). For example, an apple is called ‘apple’ not because its name is pre-given, but it is being created by people. By socially practice calling the apple ‘apple’, the red fruit will be titled ‘apple’ eventually. Moreover, mutual relationship is being created between power and knowledge so that knowledge is indisscociable from the regime of power. This means that knowledge is constructed by practicing the power and therefore the analytic term ‘power/knowledge’ is being created (Barker, 2008). In short, people will become more knowledgeable throughout his/her life as they practice their available power to solve the problems.
Governmental approach replaces the notion of the ‘subject’ with ‘actors’. Hindess defined actor as a locus of decision and action, where the action is in part a consequence of the actor’s decisions (Hindess, 1986). The actors can be referred to people who act based on the discourse such as how should a student behave in the school. The actors decide and response differently with each other’s base on their varied social condition (Hindess, 1986). Additionally, media is seen as constitutive under the governmental approach. In the case of the cinema, it is an adjunct to a whole series of other apparatuses in which the intelligibility of events s produced and in which actual moral character and moral interiority are formed. The question about accuracy has no longer the priority in this point. In another words, cinema forms the actors’ abilities and shapes their conduct through the mastering of the discourse which is the story of the movie.
In conclusion, all the approaches discussed above have their own advantages and disadvantages and it will be renovated continuously by other theorists or sociologists in order to make sure the theories are able to cope with the changing of the world. Other than that, as culture and communication play a crucial role in the development of society, it is important to understand all the culture and communication related characteristics of the approaches so that explanations made or reinvented when a new phenomenon emerges in the society. In short, there is no a single approach to be the best approach in the world, but only the appropriate approaches can explain the different human activities and response in the world.

(2084 words)

References
Barker, C. (2008). Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (3rd ed.). London: Sage.
Danielson, W., & Lasorsa, D. (1997). Perceptions of Social Change: 100 Years of Front-Page Content in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. In C. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences (pp, 103-115). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hindess, B. (1986), Interests in Political Analysis, In C, MacCabe (ed.), High Theory/Low Culture: Analysing Popular Television & Film (pp. 146-155). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Klapper, J. (1968). Communication, Mass: Effects’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (pp. 81-89).
McQuail, D. (1997). A Functionalist Model: The Uses and Gratifications Approach. In Audience Analysis (pp. 69-75). London: Sage.
McQuail, D. (1994). Media Content as Information. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage.
McQuail, D. (1994). The Natural History of Media Effect Research and Theory. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage.
McQuail, D. (1994). The Rise of a Dominant Paradigm for Theory and Research. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage.

References: Barker, C. (2008). Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (3rd ed.). London: Sage. Danielson, W., & Lasorsa, D. (1997). Perceptions of Social Change: 100 Years of Front-Page Content in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. In C. Roberts (ed.), Text Analysis for the Social Sciences (pp, 103-115). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hindess, B. (1986), Interests in Political Analysis, In C, MacCabe (ed.), High Theory/Low Culture: Analysing Popular Television & Film (pp. 146-155). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Klapper, J. (1968). Communication, Mass: Effects’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (pp. 81-89). McQuail, D. (1997). A Functionalist Model: The Uses and Gratifications Approach. In Audience Analysis (pp. 69-75). London: Sage. McQuail, D. (1994). Media Content as Information. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage. McQuail, D. (1994). The Natural History of Media Effect Research and Theory. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage. McQuail, D. (1994). The Rise of a Dominant Paradigm for Theory and Research. In Mass Communication Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.) (pp. 118-121). London: Sage.