Digital currency Dennis Murdoch
Publish: 2021-05-07 18:34:01
1. Leicester school and critical political economics
Zhang Gehao
Leicester school and Birmingham School (Cultural School) stand side by side in media and cultural studies, and Glasgow media research group represents three different forces of Marxism in communication studies in Britain. They were even called political economic school for a time, and regarded as the representative of political economy
however, as the main figures of Leicester school, neither Murdoch nor Golding would like to regard themselves as Leicester school, but tend to call themselves critical of political economy. It can be seen from Mosco's interview with the main figures of Leicester school that "the purpose of the research center was to respond to the concern of the Ministry of the interior on juvenile delinquency in 1961 and help assess the impact of television on this issue. Although he acknowledged the importance of political and economic research, his main interest was still in the study of critical sociology“ Golding concluded that, compared with the Birmingham School of cultural studies led by Richard hall, there is no so-called Leicester School of political economy, or even the school of political communication studies formed by Jay blumler and Dennis McGuire at Leeds University. In order to construct a research model of political economy, a group of indivial researchers, including Murdoch, Golding, Philip Eliot and some scattered scholars, have worked out an institutionalized research plan. When crane criticizes Leicester school in the future, Murdoch and Golding can also refute it
Goldin studied sociology in Manchester and received an off campus degree from the University of London, after which he also studied at the University of Essex. Golding was appointed head of the Department of sociology at Loughborough University in 1990. Murdoch studied economics and sociology at the London School of economics in his early years. He wrote a paper in Sussex in the 1960s on the rise of the elite art market in New York and its decline in Paris. Since then, as his research interest has shifted to popular culture and youth culture, he has transferred to Leicester University, where he has been engaged in research on Sociology of culture and communication and political economy for nearly 20 years. Murdoch currently teaches at Loughborough University. His main academic interests include cultural sociology and cultural political economy. He is also a visiting professor at the school of mass communication at Berger University in Norway. His main academic works include the mechanism of media instry
If Murdoch and Golding did not set their research topics for the political economy of communication, they would at least open up a research field for the political economy of communication in Europe. They have been involved in almost all fields of political economy research, and at the same time, as the "representative team" of political economy, they have participated in the debates between political economy and cultural research as well as other communication research schools. In 1973, Murdoch and Golding published "political economy calling for mass communication" in socialist digest, which was later regarded as the Manifesto and programmatic text of European political economy of communication. Golding's main works include revenue and representation, beyond cultural imperialism, and cultural studies in question. They co authored political economics of media and research communication. In 1970, Halloran and Murdoch concted a special study on the British media's "distorted" coverage of the 1968 London march against the Vietnam War, He published a critical school of classical music, demonstration and communication: a case study. Halloran et al. Studied the report and drew a series of thought-provoking conclusions. For example, they pointed out that in the era of media monopoly, the multi information channels in the so-called democratic society are increasingly non democratic“ In fact, commercial competition not only does not bring prosperity and diversity to media content, but often makes them present the same face, and its innovation can only be carried out in the framework of similar media interpretation and audience expectation Extremely unfair reports are snowballing. In the absence of other statements, the audience simply can't judge their authenticity and comprehensiveness. "< According to the research of Halloran and Murdoch, "since the late 18th century, cheap commercial newspapers for profit appeared in Britain, and graally replaced the party newspapers in the past. In the fierce market competition, in order to make profits, commercial newspapers must please as many readers as possible, so they deliberately avoid clear political positions and flaunt value neutrality and objective reporting. Over time, the so-called fact report without any subjective value judgment, that is, the hard news without background introction, has become the leading role of the newspaper. TV news not only inherits the practice standard of newspaper news, but also pushes it to the extreme, which adapts to the technical characteristics of TV as a visual and auditory media. Emergencies become the main object of news reports, and the process of facts is often ignored. As far as the march on the 27th is concerned, the unexpected events that journalists are waiting for are the few violent conflicts in this process. They are visually exciting and wonderful shots and photos, not the whole process and social significance of the event. "
demonstration and communication: a case study is a landmark work for media studies and cultural studies, as well as for Murdoch and Leicester school. This research adopts the traditional sociological research method, through quantitative and non quantitative sampling methods, analyzes the misrepresentation and distortion of students' anti Vietnam war demonstration reports by British newspapers and TV e to the limitations of their own interests and logic. This research has made the media research center of Leicester University famous and become another important theoretical Center for British media and cultural studies after the establishment of the center for contemporary cultural studies at the University of Birmingham. Since then, the center has carried out a series of studies on media, including the relationship between media and ecation, the development of the third world countries and the protection of the natural environment. Together with Birmingham School's youth subculture study, Leicester school's survey of popular youth culture, which emerged in the early 1970s, has become a classic of early cultural studies. Different from the previous empirical research on media effect, this research puts the middle school students as the research objects and their relationship with the media in a large social context and process for empirical investigation and analysis
Murdoch and Gordin tried to combine the economic base superstructure model of Marxism with empirical research for the study of communication and media. One of the starting points of their theory is that Marxist class theory does not solve the role of mass media, and does not realize that mass media makes the inequality of wealth and power inevitable for the exploited. The ruling class has gained the control over the dissemination of knowledge, information and social image, so they need to protect their own interests and the social system that brings such interests through the mass media. Therefore, Murdoch and Golding began to study the ownership and control of mass media in the dissemination of knowledge and information in contemporary capitalist society. Murdoch and Golding have always insisted that the mass media is a special capitalist proction sector. It is a profit-making enterprise, which naturally follows the law of capital operation in the 20th century, that is, concentration and monopoly. They analyze the trend of media monopoly by tracking the annexation and combination of media companies. At the same time, Murdoch and Golding also stressed that media procts, including all kinds of information, cultural entertainment and ideology, have their particularity compared with general proction and daily necessities. These soft procts can have a profound and extensive impact on the ideological and cultural life of consumers and the audience, and can also form public opinion and interfere in the political and cultural process of society
in the economic theory of contemporary capitalism, when it comes to ownership and control, we usually use the theory of "decentralization of ownership" and "management revolution" to extricate media controllers. Especially since the mid-1970s, media research has paid more and more attention to media proction. Many researches focus on the specific practice process of media practitioners, emphasizing their relatively independent practical operation right. In his article "control of large enterprises and communication instry" published in 1982, Murdoch analyzed the "decentralization of ownership" and "management revolution" through the investigation of the ownership and control status of eight major private TV stations in Britain. In his opinion, the theory of decentralization of ownership only covers the essence of the problem with superficial phenomena. Nowadays, almost all capitalist enterprises, including the media, adopt the joint-stock system, which results in the dispersion of enterprise ownership. In fact, small shareholders hold only a small number of shares, they have no say in the general meeting of shareholders, and the real control of the enterprise is a small number of large shareholders with large shares. Large shareholders dominate the majority of small shareholders with their own power. The superficial decentralization of ownership does not weaken the capitalist's control over the enterprise, but strengthens it. For the theory of management revolution, Murdoch borrowed Marx's early prediction of the trend of separation of management and ownership in joint-stock companies. In fact, Marx talked about in his works that in the development of joint-stock companies, the management who do not own shares will take the place of capitalists, and capitalists will disappear from the proction process. But this does not mean that capitalists have lost effective control at the same time. Through the board of directors and other institutions, capitalists tightly control the enterprise, although they are no longer engaged in the daily management of the enterprise. Murdoch pointed out that the ownership of the management and the relatively independent operation right of the media practitioners should be differentiated not only in theory but also in practice. Therefore, he called these two powers "allocative power" and "operational power" respectively. This kind of thinking of Murdoch and Golding is called "action / power" theory by some scholars. They are different from the "structure / decision" which also pays attention to ownership. The latter "focuses on analyzing and examining the influence of cultural and economic environment of business owners when opportunities are limited." However, the research of Murdoch and Golding focuses on the issue of who controls the enterprise, no matter who is the power center to control and manage the organization. They aim to explain the will of the managers in the power center to manage the future direction of the enterprise
Murdoch also talked about the influence of advertising on the communication content through the investigation of American TV series. Through his investigation of the history of American TV series, he found that there were many TV series describing the life of the lower class and the working class after World War II. This kind of program is popular with the audience, but it infuriates the advertisers. Advertisers believe that this kind of TV threatens the social form they pursue. As a result, advertisements help TV dramas dominated by upper class social life and entertaining content full of pornography and murder. Therefore, he believes that most of the media revenue comes from advertisers rather than the general audience, so it is the advertisers rather than the audience that determine the content of communication, and the capital is in the form of advertising
Zhang Gehao
Leicester school and Birmingham School (Cultural School) stand side by side in media and cultural studies, and Glasgow media research group represents three different forces of Marxism in communication studies in Britain. They were even called political economic school for a time, and regarded as the representative of political economy
however, as the main figures of Leicester school, neither Murdoch nor Golding would like to regard themselves as Leicester school, but tend to call themselves critical of political economy. It can be seen from Mosco's interview with the main figures of Leicester school that "the purpose of the research center was to respond to the concern of the Ministry of the interior on juvenile delinquency in 1961 and help assess the impact of television on this issue. Although he acknowledged the importance of political and economic research, his main interest was still in the study of critical sociology“ Golding concluded that, compared with the Birmingham School of cultural studies led by Richard hall, there is no so-called Leicester School of political economy, or even the school of political communication studies formed by Jay blumler and Dennis McGuire at Leeds University. In order to construct a research model of political economy, a group of indivial researchers, including Murdoch, Golding, Philip Eliot and some scattered scholars, have worked out an institutionalized research plan. When crane criticizes Leicester school in the future, Murdoch and Golding can also refute it
Goldin studied sociology in Manchester and received an off campus degree from the University of London, after which he also studied at the University of Essex. Golding was appointed head of the Department of sociology at Loughborough University in 1990. Murdoch studied economics and sociology at the London School of economics in his early years. He wrote a paper in Sussex in the 1960s on the rise of the elite art market in New York and its decline in Paris. Since then, as his research interest has shifted to popular culture and youth culture, he has transferred to Leicester University, where he has been engaged in research on Sociology of culture and communication and political economy for nearly 20 years. Murdoch currently teaches at Loughborough University. His main academic interests include cultural sociology and cultural political economy. He is also a visiting professor at the school of mass communication at Berger University in Norway. His main academic works include the mechanism of media instry
If Murdoch and Golding did not set their research topics for the political economy of communication, they would at least open up a research field for the political economy of communication in Europe. They have been involved in almost all fields of political economy research, and at the same time, as the "representative team" of political economy, they have participated in the debates between political economy and cultural research as well as other communication research schools. In 1973, Murdoch and Golding published "political economy calling for mass communication" in socialist digest, which was later regarded as the Manifesto and programmatic text of European political economy of communication. Golding's main works include revenue and representation, beyond cultural imperialism, and cultural studies in question. They co authored political economics of media and research communication. In 1970, Halloran and Murdoch concted a special study on the British media's "distorted" coverage of the 1968 London march against the Vietnam War, He published a critical school of classical music, demonstration and communication: a case study. Halloran et al. Studied the report and drew a series of thought-provoking conclusions. For example, they pointed out that in the era of media monopoly, the multi information channels in the so-called democratic society are increasingly non democratic“ In fact, commercial competition not only does not bring prosperity and diversity to media content, but often makes them present the same face, and its innovation can only be carried out in the framework of similar media interpretation and audience expectation Extremely unfair reports are snowballing. In the absence of other statements, the audience simply can't judge their authenticity and comprehensiveness. "< According to the research of Halloran and Murdoch, "since the late 18th century, cheap commercial newspapers for profit appeared in Britain, and graally replaced the party newspapers in the past. In the fierce market competition, in order to make profits, commercial newspapers must please as many readers as possible, so they deliberately avoid clear political positions and flaunt value neutrality and objective reporting. Over time, the so-called fact report without any subjective value judgment, that is, the hard news without background introction, has become the leading role of the newspaper. TV news not only inherits the practice standard of newspaper news, but also pushes it to the extreme, which adapts to the technical characteristics of TV as a visual and auditory media. Emergencies become the main object of news reports, and the process of facts is often ignored. As far as the march on the 27th is concerned, the unexpected events that journalists are waiting for are the few violent conflicts in this process. They are visually exciting and wonderful shots and photos, not the whole process and social significance of the event. "
demonstration and communication: a case study is a landmark work for media studies and cultural studies, as well as for Murdoch and Leicester school. This research adopts the traditional sociological research method, through quantitative and non quantitative sampling methods, analyzes the misrepresentation and distortion of students' anti Vietnam war demonstration reports by British newspapers and TV e to the limitations of their own interests and logic. This research has made the media research center of Leicester University famous and become another important theoretical Center for British media and cultural studies after the establishment of the center for contemporary cultural studies at the University of Birmingham. Since then, the center has carried out a series of studies on media, including the relationship between media and ecation, the development of the third world countries and the protection of the natural environment. Together with Birmingham School's youth subculture study, Leicester school's survey of popular youth culture, which emerged in the early 1970s, has become a classic of early cultural studies. Different from the previous empirical research on media effect, this research puts the middle school students as the research objects and their relationship with the media in a large social context and process for empirical investigation and analysis
Murdoch and Gordin tried to combine the economic base superstructure model of Marxism with empirical research for the study of communication and media. One of the starting points of their theory is that Marxist class theory does not solve the role of mass media, and does not realize that mass media makes the inequality of wealth and power inevitable for the exploited. The ruling class has gained the control over the dissemination of knowledge, information and social image, so they need to protect their own interests and the social system that brings such interests through the mass media. Therefore, Murdoch and Golding began to study the ownership and control of mass media in the dissemination of knowledge and information in contemporary capitalist society. Murdoch and Golding have always insisted that the mass media is a special capitalist proction sector. It is a profit-making enterprise, which naturally follows the law of capital operation in the 20th century, that is, concentration and monopoly. They analyze the trend of media monopoly by tracking the annexation and combination of media companies. At the same time, Murdoch and Golding also stressed that media procts, including all kinds of information, cultural entertainment and ideology, have their particularity compared with general proction and daily necessities. These soft procts can have a profound and extensive impact on the ideological and cultural life of consumers and the audience, and can also form public opinion and interfere in the political and cultural process of society
in the economic theory of contemporary capitalism, when it comes to ownership and control, we usually use the theory of "decentralization of ownership" and "management revolution" to extricate media controllers. Especially since the mid-1970s, media research has paid more and more attention to media proction. Many researches focus on the specific practice process of media practitioners, emphasizing their relatively independent practical operation right. In his article "control of large enterprises and communication instry" published in 1982, Murdoch analyzed the "decentralization of ownership" and "management revolution" through the investigation of the ownership and control status of eight major private TV stations in Britain. In his opinion, the theory of decentralization of ownership only covers the essence of the problem with superficial phenomena. Nowadays, almost all capitalist enterprises, including the media, adopt the joint-stock system, which results in the dispersion of enterprise ownership. In fact, small shareholders hold only a small number of shares, they have no say in the general meeting of shareholders, and the real control of the enterprise is a small number of large shareholders with large shares. Large shareholders dominate the majority of small shareholders with their own power. The superficial decentralization of ownership does not weaken the capitalist's control over the enterprise, but strengthens it. For the theory of management revolution, Murdoch borrowed Marx's early prediction of the trend of separation of management and ownership in joint-stock companies. In fact, Marx talked about in his works that in the development of joint-stock companies, the management who do not own shares will take the place of capitalists, and capitalists will disappear from the proction process. But this does not mean that capitalists have lost effective control at the same time. Through the board of directors and other institutions, capitalists tightly control the enterprise, although they are no longer engaged in the daily management of the enterprise. Murdoch pointed out that the ownership of the management and the relatively independent operation right of the media practitioners should be differentiated not only in theory but also in practice. Therefore, he called these two powers "allocative power" and "operational power" respectively. This kind of thinking of Murdoch and Golding is called "action / power" theory by some scholars. They are different from the "structure / decision" which also pays attention to ownership. The latter "focuses on analyzing and examining the influence of cultural and economic environment of business owners when opportunities are limited." However, the research of Murdoch and Golding focuses on the issue of who controls the enterprise, no matter who is the power center to control and manage the organization. They aim to explain the will of the managers in the power center to manage the future direction of the enterprise
Murdoch also talked about the influence of advertising on the communication content through the investigation of American TV series. Through his investigation of the history of American TV series, he found that there were many TV series describing the life of the lower class and the working class after World War II. This kind of program is popular with the audience, but it infuriates the advertisers. Advertisers believe that this kind of TV threatens the social form they pursue. As a result, advertisements help TV dramas dominated by upper class social life and entertaining content full of pornography and murder. Therefore, he believes that most of the media revenue comes from advertisers rather than the general audience, so it is the advertisers rather than the audience that determine the content of communication, and the capital is in the form of advertising
2. This paper expounds the relationship between power and ideology in the communication instry from the perspective of political economy; British scholars, such as Golding and Murdoch, reveal the essence of capitalist media serving for monopoly capital by examining the concentration and monopoly degree of media ownership;
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