MED4107 New Media and Photography | Week 1 | Political Economy

Political Economy Reading Response

In the set background reading, by Long and Wall (2012), it says that “political economy concerns the production and the wider social conditions under what the production takes place”. This is a broad summary of different approaches by media thinkers. 

Long and Wall (2012) talk about the different approaches of Mosco (1996) and Golding and Murdock (2000). Mosco’s approach looks at the study of social relations (importantly power relations), that are a part of the production, distribution and consumption of resources. This shows the importance of looking at the conditions under which media institutions are formed and work, to produce and circulate media products. This approach considers how media products are made and distributed by companies because of the social relations within a company.

This is slightly different to Golding and Murdock’s approach, which looks at the “basic moral questions of justice, equality and the public good… and concerns the concentration of media ownership, the way media are organised and the degree to which such factors impact upon the management of society in general”. This approach considers the monopoly of media companies, the culture within it, who pays for the media products and why.

The specialist suggested reading by Fenton (2007) talks more about cultural studies and critical political economy embracing their differences and coming together. It states that they will “argue that debates from both camps are required to inform a thorough analysis of the role of the media in society” Fenton (2007). This idea is different to Long and Wall (2012) who have social/cultural ideas already a part of political economy instead of just financial, economic and political ideas being separate to social and cultural ones. Personally I think that social and cultural ideas are a part of political economy as without this, economic and political influences would not be there.

The concentration of media companies in markets is a main theme in the theory of these readings. This regards “media production being dominated by large companies because of small costs and capital resources” Long and Wall (2012). This can create the fear that they will saturate the market and they will have control over what the consumers see. I think that this idea can become quite repetitive in research and can dominate the ideas of political economy. 

These two readings make me think differently about my media research interests, which is new media and in particular social media. I am interested in the funding and commodity part of political economy, as I think the business of media is important. Political economy is something that really challenges “common sense” ideas about the media. Consumers rarely think about how and why a media product was made, and how it got to them. 

To undertake research into political economy, it would be best to apply it to a media company. As we would be looking at a company, a methodology for industry research would be appropriate. It would be wise to critically analyse and examine the processes, procedures, structures, policies, mechanisms, and professional ideologies that relate to the workings of the company. Political economy analysis should be used to do this, as it will be able to research the relationships between conditions of production and textual meaning and how and why media texts end up the way they do. Organisational analysis could also be used, however this would only look into procedures and structures - political economy analysis covers all areas. 

References

Devereux, E., ed. (2007) Media studies: key issues and debates. University of Limerick: SAGE.

Long, P. and Wall, T. (2012) Media studies: texts, production, context. 2nd edn. Oxon: Taylor & Francis.